Service Delivery and Service Automation

On Thursday I attended the latest itSMF e-symposium 'Service Delivery and Service Automation' (the presentations will be available from the archive in a couple of days if you missed it). There were four presentations, each of which seemed to skew more towards either the 'Service Delivery' element or the 'Service Automation' element. They were:'

- 'The Strategy for Success' by Chris Dowding of Fox IT
- 'How to create an automated Service Management structure in line with business need' by Jack Robertson Worsfold of Icore
- 'Building a foundation for an effective approach to process automation' by Chip Mason of IBM
- 'For the Customers ........ we change and automate' by Matthew Burrows of BSMImpact

I thought the most useful of the four was the third presentation by Chip Mason although there were a few things in each of the others that made it worthwhile. So if you only have time to listen to one - make it his. In the main, the e-symposium confirmed that I'm heading the right way with our soon to actually happen (maybe? hopefully? !) ITSM Programme in terms of definition of services and workflow to automate delivery of said services where possible.

As with the last event, I will post my key learning points from each presentation over the next two blog entries covering two presentations in each as well as detailing the Q&A.

Just a note about the facilitation by Mike Simons of Computerworld UK... better than the last in that we actually got comfort breaks this time (much appreciated). However, when it was clearly not an appropriate forum to be asking presenters for their recommendations on ITSM and workflow tools - why put them in the awkward position of asking? Far better I think to acknowledge the volume of requests, state that it was not an appropriate forum for vendor recommendations and refer people to the itSMF discussion or private e-mails (which happened with each but why put 3 of the 4 presenters through the question?).

How hard is it to run a forum anyway?

WARNING: this post is nothing but a rant from an unwell blogger who is too tired to think up any real content.

I don't normally rant here but I think this is worthy of an exception. I thought it was a great thing when the itSMF uk announced that they were redesigning their website. On the whole it is a significant improvement on the last one which was stuck in the 90s. That said... what is the deal with their forum? itSMF - it Service Management 'FORUM'. A means for us to gather and discuss all matters relating to IT Service Management right? Wrong. The current web forum is actually worse than the old one in terms of functionality. In a web 2.0 world where we expect a lot from our internet browsing experience, how hard is it to give us a web forum with basic features such as the ability to view new posts since your last visit; to bookmark threads that you are interested in, etc. ? Even the itsmfi have a better forum platform!

I think they do a great job at achieving the forum in terms of the SIGs (Special Interest Groups) and conferences... but where is a decent WEB forum to encourage IT Service Management professionals to interact with one another?

Come on itSMF uk... it's now the 2nd quarter of 2008 - get it together for those of us who can't make it to all your face-to-face events! Who's with me?

I should just add that I have years of experience in running web-based forums and just know that you can do better - no, I don't want to do it for you ;)

Moving your ITIL Implementation Forward - part 4

It's here, the final part in the series! This covers the question and answer session from the itSMF e-symposium entitled: 'Moving your ITIL Implementation Forward - what are your next steps?' on 18th March 2008.

Round Table - Questions and Answers
I didn't catch the names of everyone who asked questions, suffice to say it was worthwhile hanging on until the end.

Q1. How do we measure the ROI of ITIL v3 adoption?
A1. Rob Stroud observed that the last 60 days have seen a massive move to v3 and went on to say that IT needs to measure things at a different level in a way that the business see as important, i.e. the provision of service. He states that the ROI of ITIL is not necessarily tangible in bankable cost-savings.
Malcolm lightened the mood by informing us that he often thinks of the ROI of ITIL as the 'return on insurance', i.e. the potential cost of not doing it.
Sharon was quick to point out that there are other benefits aside from the financial.

Q2. Can you drive COBIT and ITIL agenda from middle management or does it have to be C-level?
A2. Harvey was strongly of the view that it doesn't need to wait for higher level management. He has been fortunate in his role to take what he needs and get on with it. He did note that for funding senior management do need to be involved.
Georges echoed Harvey's viewpoint stating that you can always start within your own area of responsibility. The organisation can then look at your area as a centre of excellence and adopt in the wider scene (why does Zapp! come to mind?). He did advocate the need to sell to senior management to expand beyond your own area.

Q3. ITIL certification is always on individual basis. Will it ever be organisational?
A3. Sharon sees no need for ITIL certification to go beyond the individual as for organisational certification there is ISO 20000 (ITIL v3 is aligned with ISO 20000). One of the drivers for individual certification is to promote ITSM as a profession within the IT industry. Harvey reiterated that "ISO 20000 is the quality standard for ITSM".
Rob informed the delegates that he often is asked for products that are actually ITIL accredited. (ITILImp: Currently there is only the PinkVerify scheme which has recently been updated to take account of v3).

Q4. Why do you need to know what level something is at?
A4. Georges picked this one up but I didn't make many notes other than the comment that COBIT certification is for the individual only, not the organisation.

Q5. v3 exams are now multiple choice rather than written. Is this a dumbing down of the qualification?
A5. I've heard this comment a lot since the itSMF conference last year and the answer hasn't changed.
Sharon stated that it is not a dumbing down and that there is a misconception regarding multiple-choice. The exam formats have been based upon research into undergraduate and postgraduate university examinations. The ITIL exams will use a blend of simple multiple-choice at foundation level whilst the higher level exames will use gradient, complex multiple-choice (e.g. one answer is the most correct, another is less correct, etc.). Apparently this challenges the application of what someone knows rather than their ability to write a paper. Exam pilots suggested that this format is actually harder than the v2 essay format for the manager's certificate. She also made the valid points that it removes the objectivity in terms of the exam grading and will benefit those writing in non-native languages.

As an academic himself it is not surprising that Georges stressed the benefits of multiple choice commenting upon their adaptability to the complexity of questions you want as well as being easy to mark.

Malcolm isn't a fan of these and believes that they lack the interpretation... the why. I liked his suggestion that for the new v3 Advanced ITSM Diploma candidates could write a white paper or say 30 pages as a way of demonstrating that they are a proven practitioner. The end result could then form part of the ITIL v3 complementary guidance. Sharon interjected to say that something akin to this IS part of the advanced service professional certification.

Q6. Will the business guys be worried that IT want to take over the business?
A6. Rob didn't think so, "Communication is the key".
Georges pointed out that ITSM benefits from the business as it positions IT to deliver capabilities. A service is not worthwhile if it is not delivering what the business needs. He also said that it helps accountability with clarification betweeen business failures vs it failures.
Sharon wrapped up by paraphrasing from a Harvard study, "CIOs have to be business leaders, not IT-centric".

All in all, a good set of questions and answers. Although I'm sure there were lots more questions that didn't make the cut. I put a few in (one being a request for Harvey's full workshop as it was really good stuff) and had one answered but the one that I thought would be a quickie that wasn't answered was: "When will the ITIL Live Portal be going live?" It's mentioned in all the books and it now almost a year since they came out. Since then, on a little adventure this ITIL Imp notices that the http://www.itil-live-portal.com address is now redirected to The Stationary Office (TSO) which assures us that it is 'coming soon' (Perhaps that is June, or the next eclipse of the moon, who knows?). Register for updates to find out.

There we have it... the final in this series. I wonder where my next adventure lies...

Moving your ITIL Implementation Forward - part 3

Before I start, my apologies for failing to get this up on Tuesday 25th March as hoped. I almost wonder whether I should start following ITIL principles for my blog posting regime ;)

Today's post was going to be the final part in this series. However, as I was writing it became longer and longer so I figure you can have a part 4 on Friday!.


Georges Ataya and Rob Stroud - IT Governance for the Real World, Mapping COBIT & ITIL
This presentation started off with a little background about ISACA and the ITGI. One thing that I wasn't aware of is the introduction of a qualification: Certification in the Governance of Enterprise IT (CGEIT). Aimed squarely at professionals and management who are responsible for governance in one of the domains, the first exam will be in December 2008.

The presenters reiterated the message that most of us reading on the subject already know: COBIT and ITIL are complementary - they are not competitors. (As mentioned in a previous blog entry, we are still waiting for the updated COBIT 4.1 to ITIL v3 mapping which is apparently close to completion - at the time of writing not published on the ISACA website).

After a high level summary of the content of COBIT (and I mean high-level!) the point was made that, when considering the introduction of IT governance and IT Service Management, a top-down approach should be used, i.e. IT Governance first and IT Service Management next. As with ITIL implementations, they recommend that you select the bits that are immediately relevant to you to solve business issues rather than trying to implement all domains in one go.

There was nothing else that leapt out at me during the presentation other than:
1. Reference to the COBIT Maturity model, level 3 is considered to be 'compliant'.
2. I believe that Rob Stroud (apologies if it is George Ataya) is currently writing a service management guide to 'implementing COBIT in your environment'. It's already on my 'to buy' list :)

The final part of this series will be on Friday as I have already written it (I am testing the new Blogger scheduling function which if it works, may lead to more regular updates).

Moving your ITIL Implementation Forward - part 2

This post continues my summary of key points from the itSMF's latest e-symposium, 'Moving your ITIL Implementation Forward' this time focusing upon Malcolm Fry's 'ITIL V3 Essentials and the Role of a CMDB' and Harvey Davison's 'What Should Configuration do for Change?'

Malcolm Fry - ITIL V3 Essentials and the Role of a CMDB
I've seen a lot of presentations from Malcolm on-line but not had the opportunity to see him live so this was particularly interesting to me - if its possible to assess a presenter's style from an online web seminar anyway!

One of the things that I found interesting was his immediate acknowledgment of the v3 certification scheme being superior to that of v2. He strongly felt that in v2 everyone forgot about the other 7 ITIL books (true enough) and that with v3 the assessment of ALL core books will lead to more rounded ITSM professionals.

He also dropped a plug for a book that he is writing at the moment with working title: 'How to build a service management department'. I look forward to seeing what it has to offer.

His presentation faltered a moment for me when he talked about the v3 lifecycle and had the wrong order of the core books up on screen (had transition after operation instead of before). Something fundamental like that inevitably then makes you question the accuracy and validity of the rest of the presentation but thankfully that was the only error I spotted.

The slides showing how v2 and v3 work together were quite helpful, but most amusing was his use of a perfume analogy to achieve an ITIL implementation road map. Apparently in perfume making there are four key things: Primary, Modifier, Blender and Fixative. He expounded upon the analogy by showing how the various ITIL processes could slot into one of these categories, e.g. Incident, Problem, and Change Management came under Primary with Financial management listed as a fixative.

There wasn't really anything of note in the section on the Service Knowledge Management System (SKMS) except that he reiterated the benefits of template CIs. Towards the end of the presentation he did make a joke regarding how there should be a 'decision management' process in ITIL. Someone pointed out in the Q&A afterwards that this exists in the form of IT governance and went on to promote A 8015:2005 which is the Australian standard which has been taken to form the basis of a new ISO standard.

Harvey Davison's 'What Should Configuration do for Change?'
Of all the presentations I think that this was the most interesting and useful for me. This may be because he is working in the trenches of Lloyds TSB and using ITIL theory successfully in practice. I really liked the whole approach to identifying which areas to attack first in the creation of a CMDB and using change management as a driver for this.

The approach sounds simple enough... define the objectives, identify the results required, and ascertain what is needed to deliver those results. Actually doing this can be quite a challenge though.

When it came to defining their CIs they divided into type, role, and status. In doing this they were then able to produce a cube which showed where best to focus their efforts.



An analogy I liked was seeing the infrastructure as a jenga tower. The CMBD then tells you which brick you can pull out safely without the tower falling down.

To be honest there was so much good stuff in this presentation that, rather than me trying to summarise it here, I highly recommend that you sign up to the itSMF e-symposium and go listen to it and download the slides in the archive!

Check back on Tuesday for the final summary featuring Georges Ataya's and Rob Stroud's presentation on 'IT Governance for the Real World, Mapping COBIT & ITIL' and a summary of the roundtable Q&A.

Moving your ITIL Implementation Forward

This afternoon I 'attended' an itSMF e-symposium entitled: 'Moving your ITIL Implementation Forward - what are your next steps?' Before I summarise my thoughts on the whole thing I must say that I didn't think that any of the presentations, or indeed answers to the questions, addressed the question posed. It was really more of an introduction to ITIL and IT Governance than what I interpreted it to be, i.e. a high-level process for planning and implementing ITIL with focus on the first steps of visioning, road-map etc. Admittedly the summaries of the presentations immediately suggested that it was not going to deliver what I hoped, but still I thought it worth attending. So... coffee in hand and Mind Manager at the ready, I listened to the music before the symposium began.

The Interface
The enterprise web-cast platform is provided by Brightcast. Having pre-registered for the event I received a reminder e-mail the night before and it was a simple matter to login with my username and password. As a spectator rather than presenter there was no need for me to dial up to listen, just delivered as you would expect through your PC soundcard. Limited controls during the live symposium as there was no way of pausing when I wanted to nip to the toilet / get a drink. However, there were tabs to make it easy to submit questions (shame you could not view which other questions had already been asked) and download the presentations in PDF format. Finally there was a tab to take the CPD test to get your certificate.

The Presentations

Sharon Taylor - What's going on out there?
This was fundamentally an updated version of the presentation she delivered at the itSMF conference last year. A few points:
- She believes that ITIL v3 will achieve an increase in the measurement of both Business value and ROI.
- Observed that the ITIL was previously geared towards a purely operational audience and now this is broader including CIOs and the wider business.
- Ran through some of the areas that people are picking from v3 for early adoption.
      - Service Portfolio Management
      - Service Catalogue Management
      - ROI Business cases
      - Event and request management
      - Supplier Management
      - Service Measurement
- She has this idea that everyone is actually doing ITIL because v3 is based on v2. Personally I think this is a nice concept but don't believe this to be truly the case in reality.
- As with v2, Sharon stressed the importance of picking and choosing what is needed for your organisation and the benefits of an incremental approach to implementation.
- When asked about the v3 qualifications capability and lifecycle streams she advised that the syllabi are complete and going through checks for consistency between the streams. The sample exams are in pilot as part of QA and there will be a further pilot with accredited training providers, i.e. a way to go and will be some sonths before release.

Check back on Friday for my summary of Malcolm Fry's 'ITIL V3 Essentials and the Role of a CMDB' and Harvey Davison's 'What Should Configuration do for Change?'

Another place to have your say...

Where has the month gone? I must be getting old!

It looks like things are finally back on track with the itSMF International website. Unfortunately you have to sign up all over again which is mildly annoying. Whatever happened to integrated logins across the same organisational body? Oh, and not forgetting the other login for the forums!

That said, the forums do so far have some pretty good responses from the people in the know (aka Sharon Taylor) so it is worth signing up and keeping your eye on things.

In other news... the presentation last month went very well, objective achieved. I got some lovely compliments on both presentation style and content as well which is always nice. Now I'm musing as to how I can use the same techniques in my next presentation outing later this month.

APMG agreement with ISEB and EXIN!

We've all been wondering about the status of EXIN and ISEB since APMG came onto the scene, and it seems we're finally getting a little clarification. Check out the article on ITSM Portal for the latest (and also see the original press release).

I was wondering what this meant, if anything, for the ISEB when I read another take on things over at the itSMF.

Press releases:
APMG
EXIN

itSMF Conference 'Theory into Practice'

I've been meaning to post my thoughts on the itSMF conference and I still intend to do so. However, if you weren't able to attend and can't wait for my write-ups of the seminars that I attended, you can download the presentations from the itSMF website.

On another topic - I'm revisiting some time management techniques as I don't think I'm handling my current workload in the most effective manner. I'm quite keen on GTD (Getting Things Done) but haven't really given it a fair go as yet. I'm about to read 'The Now Habit' by Neil Fiore as I hear it's good for help with prioritisation. If you've got any tips that work for you I'd be interested to hear them.

To charge or not to charge?

Today I had the pleasure of meeting Barry Corless who, if you hadn't heard, was recently appointed as the Chief Examiner for APMG's ITIL v2 examination board when they take over at the start of January (see here for more). I didn't actually click that it was him until later on so failed to congratulate him on the appointment, so here you go Barry: "Congratulations!".

Anyhow, today I attended the itSMF seminar day on 'Financial Management - The Chamber of Secrets'. I have an interest (partly from personal background but also from some financial related work I've had to do in the past 2 years) in how you go about recharging services as an internal within a non-profit making organisation and some of the presentations did clarify a few things for me.

In particular I found it interesting that one organisation introduced FMITS (Financial Management for IT Services) as part of an organisational wide change by creating what they called an 'internal market'. They went as far as devolving the financial accountants functions INTO the business units themselves. So ICT had a partially dedicated financial support resource to help them.

Another presentation reiterated how important it is that a qualified accountant be involved in the process from the start. What I'm wondering in my case is could we justify (in a year or two) the creation of a post of an IT Financial Manager. Given the nature of working in partnership with other councils I personally think it's a must to ensure accountability and transparency for audit. Time will tell...

There was quite a lot said about the 'why', the benefits, and some excellent case studies highlighting not just what works well, but what doesn't. The 'how' was really only covered thoroughly by a couple of the speakers and they provided some really useful techniques and templates.

It was also very clear that implementing FMITS is far easier if you already have service level management in place (service catalogue as a bare minimum), and reasonably mature incident, problem, change, and configuration management processes. This much I'd expected. What I hadn't really appreciated was just how much of an input Capacity Management has into FMITS, even if it's not very mature and just a few key metrics. If I'd been in any doubt Mr McMenemy certainly drove that point home!

At some point in the future I'll type up all my notes and share them with you all. Until then, keep an eye on the itSMF UK website as I'm sure they'll be uploading the presentation slides there shortly.

I had been hoping that it would also cover how to financially show the ROI of projects that deliver efficiency savings, but this wasn't to be. If anyone has done any work in this area I'd love to hear from you!

itSMF and TSO - Good news?

I came across a statement on the itSMF news site stating:

TSO, the document and publishing services provider and itSMF International (itSMFI), the global authority for IT Service Management, have reached an agreement that paves the way for TSO and itSMFI to work in partnership to deliver the supporting material around the refreshed ITIL guidance, due to be published in Spring 2007.

The agreement, which it is planned to formally sign at the itSMF UK Conference and Exhibition during the week of 13th November, recognises itSMFI’s extensive contribution over the last 15 years to the development and promotion of ITIL - a role it will continue to fulfil – and TSO’s position as OGC’s official publisher of the ITIL material.

My immediate question is "how do they define 'supporting material'?". I suspect they mean everything but the core books. Hopefully I'll get an answer to this question at the itSMF conference this week.

Incidentally, as I shall be attending the conference from Monday to Wednesday there shall be no blog entry until next Friday. I shall be covering off the seminars with an ITIL guru and hopefully between us we can feedback about the conference reasonably fully. See you when I return!

ITIL Refresh v3 - Update

Things seem to be moving along on the ITIL Refresh v3 front according to a communication published on the OGC ITIL website.

All five core titles were delivered by the author teams by mid-October. Since then the Editorial Board has reviewed the books and carried out work to ensure integration and alignment across all titles. IAG members have been asked to nominate their preferred title to review. The review will start on 7 November and end on 27 November after which there will be a period for further integration work and editing, and for authors to make revisions. Public QA is scheduled for mid-January and a call for participants will be made imminently.

I'm looking forward to hearing more about the ITIL refresh at the itSMF 'Theory into Practice' conference from the 13th-15th November. Rest assured that I will be posting my thoughts on what I hear shortly after I return.

ITIL and the new qualification scheme

As regulars amongst you will know, I have some concerns regarding the future of the ITIL qualification scheme under APMG. The OGC have published a statement outlining the operation and ITSM portal have translated this into a diagram for easy comprehension. I'm still not sure what this means for itSMF, ISEB, or EXIN - but apparently patience is a virtue ;)

It's official - APMG has the rights to ITIL

Well, we knew it was coming but it's now official. At 4pm GMT on July 20th 2006, APMG signed a contract with the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) to become the new accreditation body for ITIL.

The questions for many (including myself) are:
'Where does this leave the itSMF?',
'Where does this leave the ITIL v3 Refresh?'

I don't have the answers - but I'll be watching this space with many over the coming months.

Finding a way out of the maze

I initially started this blog with the intention of focusing solely on ITIL. However, over the past two months I've realised (mainly through posts on the ITIL Community forum) that I can't really say much on this until I have real world experience of it. Currently this is limited to implementation of a consolidated service desk function and incident management.

So... instead this blog will steer towards self-development in various areas with references to things I am reading and finding useful/thought provoking at the moment. My aim is to make a new (hopefully interesting) entry twice a week.

In terms of future training, I am keen to work towards the ITIL Manager's Certificate at the end of this year and to sit the Prince 2 Practitionar the following year. However, courses for both are so expensive that I seriously doubt that work will fund either of them which means I may have to do some serious saving if I want to develop the skills. Suffice to say I find it somewhat frustrating to see some colleagues who view training as a waste of time when I am keen to take every opportunity that comes my way (and try to create it when it doesn't yet exist)!

Anyhow, work DID finally fund the all important red book - ITIL Service Delivery. I haven't read right through it yet, I'm dipping into areas that interest me first - like service level management and IT financial mangement. If only I had had this book before I was project manager of my first 'major' project... (more on that in another post).

Still no go on the purchase of the ISO20000 standard. It has to wait for the new financial year. As does my request to join the itSMF *sigh*. Patience is not one of my natural virtues - but it is earmarked for improvement!