Wizard Wisdom
Dear Wizard?
I have a CV on my desk from a foreign chappie who claims certifications all the way up to ITIL Expert, from [a training organisation]. I've never heard of them and they are based in [a country ten thousand miles from here]. He also seems to be under the impression that a Service Desk is a piece of furniture. How do I validate his claims?
Many thanks for your help
PJ
Dear Mr Wizard
Can you share your thoughts and approach on how you define the tailoring guidelines for a service industry?
Regards
Nura
Dear Wizard
I know ITIL V2 is being killed off and I hear some of the exams won't be available much longer. When is the end-date for the manager bridge exam?
Thanks, Al
Dear Mr Wizard
I would like to know the reporting person for a role "Change Manager" and working under whom within IT division.
JJ
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Classic Skeptic
As the IT Skeptic digs (happily) deeper into COBIT, I ponder the difference between COBIT and ITIL. In my simple layman's mind, ITIL is the hitchhiker's guide, COBIT is the encyclopaedia, rather like the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the Encyclopedia Galactica.
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From the blog
If you thought ITIL's IP control was tough, try SFIA - or rather, don't try it.
[Update: maybe soon you can. See an important update in the comments below http://www.itskeptic.org/why-i-cant-talk-about-sfia-my-clients#comment-1... ]
I flushed out some interesting feedback by talking favourably about OGC's IP protection. ITIL depends on volunteers and it is a fragile arrangement. When those volunteers' first direct official contact ever with OGC or TSO or APMG is not a certificate of appreciation but rather a cease-and-desist letter from a lawyer, that does not contribute to good will. Nor does it create the impression that we're all in this together, creating a body of knowledge for the public good. (When are you ever going to say thank-you, OGC?)
Chokey the Chimp issues a HIGH Crap Factoid danger alert for the EasyVista claim of "a stunning 271 percent ROI over three years with payback within 12 months ". Stunning indeed.
The ITSM community seems to have some fixation with assessing capability maturity, or worse still process management maturity. These are only indirect predictors for what matters: risk and cost-benefits.
A reader wrote to ask about the line between a change and an admin task. In my usual simplistic way, the answer seems pretty clear.
Why are so many sample Business Service Catalogues so hideously boring? - dull and analytical. They should be written by marketing people: they should be brochures. Bright and colourful, creating a positive impression, selling the benefits.
Do you realise that the moniker "V3" is finally official? For years OGC and TSO refused to label it V3. There is nothing on the front of the ITIL books (or inside them!) to tell you which is V3 or V2 (or V1). It must be hopelessly confusing to anyone new to it. But now that has all changed...
Speaking of popping bubbles and of being in the clouds, break out the champagne. I've just heard the news that this blog won the popular vote for best "IT consultant and analyst" blog in the Computer Weekly IT Blog Awards 2010. I want to extend my many thanks to everyone who voted for this website, and to ComputerWeekly for running the awards. I'm sorry I wasn't there to receive the award in person - 12,000 miles was just a bit far. I'd love to have made it to the party. Congratulations to all the other recipients.
Some IT management axioms I work by:
The CMDB debate seems endless, sisyphean. The analysts promise "Well OK CMDB crashed and burned but CMS is different. Really." The vendors know they're flogging a dead horse and they'd much rather prance about the service catalogue instead, but they have to get their R&D money back so they bang the CMDB drum. Here's my case summarised again (under recent provocation), for those who haven't read it before.
Having always been a bit wary of big corporations in general, and one that starts with “M” in particular, it is an uncomfortable feeling when I realise I’ve sold my soul to Google. Not quite a Faustian bargain perhaps but certainly I’ve committed the execution of my business and private computing to them.
I swore I’d never be beholden to a corporation again, and I’ve devoted some effort to disentangling myself from the Seattle megacorp. I’m not there yet but every year I come a step closer.
The planet is definitely a different shape than when I was young. It is not that it is small, or flat. It is some weird toroid I think, where faraway places come close. More of my books are now sold in Russian than in English. Owning ITIL® is now available translated into Russian by those clever chaps from Cleverics. They are clever in several ways:
I'm happy for Rodrigo Flores (who has probably given up on me at this point) that he has a few strong sales leads over Christmas. But I don't think that constitutes the future arriving "with a bang", an "altered landscape" or proof that Cloud is "happening" in any widespread transformational sense.
If your service catalogue says you provide application "hosting", your IT department is committing organisational suicide. You need to be an Information Service Provider.
I think that CMM is back to front.
It seems to me that ITIL is often very badly done (zealous, anal, officious, misdirected, overblown, dogmatic, theoretical, detached...), and people's bad experience results in them blaming ITIL itself. I've recently seen the effect of ITIL on a neophyte and it was positive and enriching: new awareness, new models to help solve challenges, hope for order in the chaos, a resource to help.
I point the finger at book-carrying door-to-door consultants, hype-merchant analysts generating their own industry, and tub-thumping vendors selling out-of-the-box snake-oil to the credulous (yes they share the blame). Don't shoot the message, shoot the inept messengers. Discuss.
There seems to be a little common sense filtering through with OGC's trademark enforcement. [Update: no there doesn't. Stories coming in of obviously silly threatening letters being sent to owners of products - mostly books - that have ITIL in the name. One of the tales is in the comments below.]
Continuing a series of reforms, APMG has released the ITIL exam statistics for the last three years.
I like to think I'm skeptical not cynical but some days it's tough. This latest initiative from TSO, OpenUp, has got me (and others) plunging into cynicism.
While I'm popping Cloud bubbles, let's talk about another couple: Cloud agility and Cloud as a utility.
[Ooops I used the wrong licensing terms so part of this post has been deleted. Sorry about that, my mistake]
OGC have launched Management of Value™, another framework. It looks from the little information available to be comparable to ISACA's Val IT.
The Cloud is not sweeping away ITIL or IT Service Management. Every over-hyped fad claims the rules are different now and we don't have to worry about some basic fundamental that has always plagued us in the past. And every time it turns out to be crap. The rules are the same and have been ever since the Europeans over-traded tulips, probably much longer. Business needs management. Without management control, risk kills it. ITSM is the framework for management of IT. It articulates what we do for the customer. ITSM is basic IT, wherever it is running. Cloud may play on different instruments but the tune is the same. The detail of what we control changes. Even the way we control changes. but we still need the controls. So this beating up on ITIL isn't about Cloud really. It is about techs frustrated because they are not allowed to do what they like without supervision.
Apparently Facebook are launching an email service. The chattering reached such a pitch even a Luddite like me heard it. So I asked the IT Swami to predict what this will lead to.
Reading an official OGC webpage today, it seems to me to imply that products certified by OGC before a certain time were assessed to a laxer set of criteria than more recent certifications. What do you infer when you read the following?
There is an interesting thread on LinkedIn about itSMFUSA's offering of free Foundation training for new members. Readers are invited to comment on whether this is a good or bad thing. The IT Skeptic is not sure - certainly it stands up to scrutiny better than past arrangements at ISACA as I understand them.
The white smoke has gone up and the new Executive Board is appointed at itSMF International. The fascinating aspects are new blood and a true international flavour.
ITIL defines Configuration Management as the delivery of information but then spends most of its pages describing Configuration Management as the maintenance of a static repository of data, not an active process of serving that data to others. Let's get it clear: Configuration Management is a process not a thing
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