change

Who owns the risk of an IT change?

Stuart Rance posted an interesting blog about What Is Change Management For?. Then we had an excellent discussion about it on Google+, where some great stuff came up that I want to capture here in my IP repository (or "blog" for short). Tell me what you think:

Fix change not ITIL

Fix the way we change ITSM behaviours, not the models of that behaviour. ITIL is near enough.

Evolution not revolution

What is this IT obsession with revolution? Revolution is destructive, counterproductive, the source of much pain. The destruction which evolutions wreak can set communities back by decades. Revolution is to be avoided at all costs. The intelligent and civilised way to move forward is evolution: building on the work of others, retaining value and knowledge, growing, changing incrementally.

The Standard+Case approach: applying Case Management to ITSM

Image ©canstockphoto.comHere is an exciting new approach to categorising and resolving any sort of activity "tickets", such as requests (including incidents) on a service desk, problems, or changes. It is called Standard+Case until somebody comes up with a better name. I know there is so much to read these days, but if you have anything to do with service support or change management, read this. It'll change your year.

Standard+Case is a synthesis of our conventional "Standard" process-centric approach to responding, with Case management, a discipline well-known in some other industry sectors such as health, social work, law and policing.

S+C addresses criticisms of approaches like ITIL for being too process-centric and not allowing customers and knowledge workers to be empowered. S+C does not seek to replace or change ITIL or other theory: it expands and clarifies that theory to provide a more complete description of managing responses.

It provides a good skills path for service desk analysts that fits well with gamification. And Standard+Case is applicable to Problem Management and Change Management (and Event Management...) as well as Service Desk activities. S+C applies to anything that requires a human response: there's either a standard response or there isn't.

For more information about Standard + Case, see the Basic Service Management website.

Abolish the CAB at your peril

There seems to be a fashion for analysts to make rash revolutionary statements. I reckon it is in their KPIs. The normally-temperate Glenn O'Donnell said: "Abolish the CAB!". That is - to put it mildly - a bit rash.

Binder-chuckers

ImageThe problem with too many ITSM consultants is that they are binder-chuckers. ITSM consulting is not about inventing a process. It is about enacting cultural change.

A new concept goes into over-hype: Agile

The latest buzz in IT is of course Agile, and its bastard spawn DevOps. I've written before about how the change is becoming the steady state and stability the exception; and how the old mainframe-centric concepts of change control will have to adapt. I'm even confident that concepts from agile will play an important part in that. But nothing in that warrants the frenzied hype around agile right now. And most of all, nothing in that warrants letting the IT cowboys out of the corral.

why on earth did ITIL V3 rename Forward Schedule of Change to Change Schedule?

This has been bugging me for a long time: why on earth did ITIL V3 rename Forward Schedule of Change to Change Schedule? Beats me, and it is counter-productive.

Confused change management in ITIL V3

I believe ITIL has aspirations beyond its station. ITIL is an operational framework for IT production environments. So long as it knows its place and sticks to it, all is well. But every now and then it gets an inflated view of its own importance and starts poking into the development aspects of IT, or worse still the strategic ones. This is an example of the latter, where the book is confused between operational and strategic aspects of change. The forums are littered with confused postings.

Dead cat syndrome

Image[Hi! IF you came looking for insight into the rebounding world economy, you are looking for Dead Cat Bounce. This post is about IT project management. But thanks for dropping in! If you are interested in IT, please take a look around]

Operational readiness of new and improved services ensures a smooth transition from Project to Production. ITIL talks about it in a number of places, but I think Operational Readiness needs to be recognised as a practice in its own right, like any other ITIL "process". OR is not (just) about being a gatekeeper to Prod: it's about ensuring readiness throughout the lifecycle. OR provides a positive benefit for the customers, projects, development, and operations.

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