skeptic's blog

Suggestions for RealIT Radio

Submitted by skeptic on Sat, 2014-10-04 22:09

RealIT RadioMy new podcast series, RealIT Radio, now has five episodes. I'm interested in feedback and suggestions please.

Subscribe to the feed here or on iTunes

That which cannot be measured...

Submitted by skeptic on Fri, 2014-09-26 10:05

Just because you can't - or don't - measure something doesn't mean you can't manage or improve it.

Changes to user interface

Submitted by skeptic on Wed, 2014-09-17 11:08

So I'm in a meetign with a senior client (CIO actually), and we've finished working something out on the whiteboard, so I take a photo of it, and whist still continuing to talk to him I "share" the photo to Evernote before I forget. Easy to tag and save it while still talking right? Wrong.

ITIL exams have fallen 11% in the last year

Submitted by skeptic on Mon, 2014-09-15 11:58

According to Axelos numbers for the first half of 2014, ITIL exams worldwide have fallen 11% compared to the first half of 2013.

Dark IT

Submitted by skeptic on Fri, 2014-09-12 19:31

Dark IT is a more specific term than "Shadow IT" and self-explanatory. Dark IT is a threat to corporate interests for which the IT department is accountable. But the IT department can't do a damned thing about Dark IT in the absence of effective enterprise governance of IT (EGIT).

That's the issue we need to solve before we can address Dark IT.

Does ISACA offer value to its real members?

Submitted by skeptic on Sun, 2014-09-07 20:36

ISACA's membership is - reportedly - no longer dominated by security and audit folks. ISACA has a new constituency: the general IT practitioner. Supposedly ISACA wants to align its culture with that new audience, and COBIT 5 is built to be useful in all contexts.

So why aren't we seeing any change? Read the ISACA journal, go to events... the security and audit themes predominate.

I know it takes a long time to change culture but its five years now since ISACA first talked about this.

How to deal with Shadow IT

Submitted by skeptic on Thu, 2014-08-28 21:40

The issue arises when a business unit decides that they are exempt from organisational IT policy; that they have a right to act in the interests of their business unit rather than the enterprise as a whole; that they have no accountability to a central It function. When this happens, it is an indicator of a total failure of corporate governance, a dereliction of duty by the governors of the organisation. Shadow IT is ungoverned IT.

The nett result of new technology

Submitted by skeptic on Tue, 2014-08-26 09:42

Any new technology solves one set of problems and introduces another; it simplifies one area and complicates another; it reduces some costs but increases others; it brings new risks. The question is whether there is a nett gain in value. It's called a business case and we so often forget it in our haste to embrace the shiny and new.

Here comes China

Submitted by skeptic on Wed, 2014-08-20 21:31

© Can Stock Photo Inc
If you still think of China as a poor, backward, or primitive country, you are woefully out of date. You owe it to yourself and your kids to know better.

This is the fastest growing economy executing the biggest public infrastructure build-out in history, fast eclipsing anything the US or Europe has ever done. They are not coming up, they are already overtaking us.

Don't believe me? Read on.

where does DevOps work in the enterprise?

Submitted by skeptic on Mon, 2014-08-18 19:16

Gartner have been talking about bi-modal and tri-modal models of IT: some systems are legacy ones to be handled with legacy methods, with an emphasis on risk and control.

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