The APM Blog
The perception of many customers is that “IT is too hard”. Many struggle with different places to order different services, are unsure of the cost involved and do not understand the true value IT provides to the business. Part of this is because IT does a poor job marketing and selling what they do to the business. A service catalog is a great mechanism to market and sell IT services 24x7 and provide useful information about the services offered.
After spending more time than I might have liked relating just about everything I cover to cloud computing adoption – from CMDB/CMS systems, to cross-domain automation technologies, to BSM dashboards with advanced analytics, User Experience Management, to a service-centric vision of asset management, etc. – I have come to see cloud computing also has more than a few dark sides quite apart from the most obvious first-blush security and data control issues.
On the day that Steve Jobs stood down as Chief Executive of Apple, my attention has been drawn to a commencement speech he gave at Stanford University in 2005 ... I think it can help guide us to a healthier and more productive attitude to ITIL, and all other guidance, best/good practices, frameworks and standards. I think there is also a useful message regarding advice from consultants and others.
As part of a series on cloud computing, Network World has named 10 Cloud Management Companies to Watch.
What is the core business that your IT services support? Your vision should be mapped to the overall business goals of the company or organization. If you cannot map a goal as part of the vision, it probably doesn’t belong. This is a great exercise to build IT goals that will truly transform your IT services organization into a true business partner.
Well, let's take a quick look at some definitions from the ITIL 2011 edition glossary, and some comments from the 2011 edition books, add in some interpretation (yes, my subjective opinions), and see what conclusion we come to.
At a vendor-sponsored event earlier this year, I spent some time with IT and business managers that had participated in a simulation workshop. The object was to help managers and operation staff become familiar with a private Cloud operating environment, ITIL v3 best practices and a new set of integrated management solutions. It was an interesting and informative experience in and of itself. Reviewing the lessons learned during the workshop, it occurred to me that there were some too often overlooked insights that apply to organizations and enterprises pursuing a BSM operational environment.
Cowboy Service Management Practitioners and Consultants - there are too many out there. Just because you know some of the language, because you've been on an ITIL course or read the books, doesn't make you good. Yes, you need an appreciation of the text-book knowledge, maybe a few qualifications and training courses will also help, but there's no substitute for real practical experience, and lots of it.
I'm still concerned by the number of organizations who say they are "implementing ITIL", even worse the ones that say "we're implementing ITIL V3".
EMA just completed a radar analysis of eleven vendors and talked to more than 20 CMDB/CMS deployments in North America and Europe. The research confirmed my views that CMDB-related technologies are evolving to become more dynamic, more real-time, more deployable, more use-case directed, and more varied in design. They are also becoming more essential than ever—spurred in part, ironically – by cloud computing which is pressuring companies to move towards a more cross-domain, and ultimately more service-centric model for management.
The interesting thing I come across regarding BSM is the gap between concept and lab with the reality of the client consumption. Let's face it, a full blown, all concepts, process and product BSM solution is an expensive proposition and a journey rather than a purchase or a project.
Our recent conversations with both executives (IT and business) and developers have convinced us that an evolution is well underway in enterprises of all shapes and sizes. All the ink spilled on articles and presentations to convince IT staffs that they need to expand their historic focus on keeping the infrastructure up and running has gained a firm hold in the technical community.
There is no IT for IT's sake - the IT is now just a tool and we need to focus on the job and outcome that we want to achieve with the help of the IT. Business Service Management (BSM) is an approach to understanding this context and ensuring that we always look at the goal/objective and outcome rather than focusing on the technology.
Why oh why do people seem to have such a preoccupation with cloud and Software as a service (SaaS), and why are they asking whether ITSM and ITIL are capable of working in these environments?
Malcolm Fry (a well-known expert in the Service Management community) was at the SDITS (Service Desk and IT Support) event in the UK last week, and was quoted as saying "When are we going to stop lying? No one is going to do all of ITIL". I've known Malcolm for some time now, and it was great to catch up with him at SDITS - we agree on so many things, and this is definitely one of them.
EMA consulting once did an analysis of why strategic service management initiatives fail. These ranged from cross-domain performance management initiatives, to configuration management initiatives with CMDB/CMS enabling foundations, to company-wide asset management initiatives to name a few. Of the top ten reasons for failure, only the bottom two (Integration and Discovery) were technology-related. Three of the top eight were specifically communication-related: Staff Buy-In, Managing Expectations, and Overcoming Resistance to Change. And in fact Staff Buy-In was number one!
If we in our organisations really want to do the best for our customers and the objectives of our businesses, we need to be more customer-centric and service-orientated.
I had originally intended to make this blog about mental health. A supportive article for those of you trying to support change in your own environment wrestling with the stubbornly persistent caricatures and silos still so dominant in many IT organizations.
Why do organisations have ITIL projects rather than targeted improvement projects which happen to use ITIL as one of the inputs/influences?
It's fairly common to find organisations who say that they are implementing ITIL, and I almost always find that this is increasing the risk that the project will fail to deliver on the expectations people have for it. How can you adequately manage and communicate with your stakeholders if they don't understand the objectives of the project? ITIL shouldn't be the objective.
“Software is a constantly degrading environment.”
Although that statement has, perhaps, more double entendre than ideal, it’s at least literally true. It’s also in quotes because it didn’t originate with me, but with an engineer who worked closely with me at EMA for years. He was brilliant, insightful and creative, but ultimately more at home designing new solutions than commenting on those that weren’t his own.
