The IT Skeptic - Comments for "The value of resources is defined by your context"

GPS analogy and passionate people

CyberJMC66 — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:34:30 +0000

Skep -

Thanks for the referral to the column and Linkedin discussion. I am surprised how passionate people are about defining ITIL in perfect terms of what it is... The intent of the column was meant to be a light hearted dig at a common comment I hear, that being "We're doing ITIL"... It was the LinkedIn conversation, then sitting in meeting hearing people "do ITIL" that prompted me to write it.

The analogy is soft, but the warnings are appropriate... Key message - Don't do ITIL - leverage ITIL for what you are doing where it is appropriate... Key learning - cannot please everyone.

Wow

I'm innocent

aroos — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:44:40 +0000

You can find this text in my PinkElephant 2011 presentation description at http://www.pinkelephant.com/ITM11/ProgramDetails/SessionDescriptions.htm: "In fact, many IT organizations who seek ISO 20000 certification, also implement ITIL as a means to an end. It is not a question of one or the other, but of both, and Aale will explain why in this informative session." I'm innocent, the Pink marketing department has been carried away and I'm sure they will fix the text.

James Finister has written that ISO 20000 represents minimum requirements for a service provider. I have done ISO 20000 assesment sessions where we go through each ISO 20000 requirement. Some of them have been very educational. The session goes so that I explain each requirement and ask the Service Manager how they do it. Often the service manager gets red in face and says of course we should be doing that but... In that sense being certifiable is a good goal and ITIL can help one reaching the goal, just like the nice GPS device does as John Clark explains it really well.

Aale

BTW Rob, didn't you write some 500 comments ago that a GPS delivers only geek pleasure ;-)

Don't do ITIL

skeptic — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:22:13 +0000

For another take on this, stimulated by the same LinkedIn thread, see John Clark on ITSM Portal

Think of ITIL as the GPS for your service management journey and continuous improvement destination. Of course, GPS devices come with warnings - which oddly enough are applicable to ITIL as well.

Process for process sake...

tanksmith — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:48:41 +0000

Without that context, we very quickly run into the slippery slope of process and tools for the sake of process and tools.

Skep-
Another of your recent posts talks about all the projects and new services that are bogging IT down...don't we all need a ready dose of 'Context'. The late great Edward Deming once said: "The emphasis should be on why we do a job." That why question is HUGE! At ALL levels of the organization...good stuff. Sorry to have missed Pink and Vegas!

Absolutely right.

DavidT — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:16:28 +0000

This needs to be shouted from the rooftops. Seriously. What I hear from the business is "I don't know what I want until I want it, and I want IT to deliver it at that time." I see both ITIL and EA trying to engage the business and understand their needs and strategy, and the fact of the matter is, the business doesn't have one. ITIL cannot be successful in aligning to the business strategy if one does not exist. And smaller components like SLM are immediately hampered by the same issue.

DavidT

Agreed

supportthought — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:48:52 +0000

I cannot agree more, and to be honest the number of organisations that have tried the "ITIL is the future lets do that" and failed is mounting so even mentioning ITIL is taboo.

I attended an interesting training session on a method called IT-Service Value Management, this course gave some very interesting techniques for doing exactly this business centric analysis of the IT environment, I would recommend it if you can get a seat. The full course actually takes you through these techniques to score your business services, very cool, though I have not taken the full course (yet), it looked like a great tool to have at your disposal.

The bottom line here is that ITIL is a library of books, its not the answer to everyone, and must be read with some skepticism, the choice to use some, none, or all of the ITIL information is completely up to you, and someone telling you that you are not ITIL compliant should be an indication that you made some good choices based on the realities of your business.

One final note here is the continuing complications I believe the big vendors are bringing to the mix by acting as both the consultant and the software vendor, I think there is some serious cross selling going on and that is not in the best interests of most companies or the industry as a whole. In a tight market such as this, the vendor's ability to offer leveraged, cheap consulting services is compelling to many, but is a dangerous path to go down.

Independent IT Consultant
www.supportthought.com

The Context we seek requires a Business Lane for ITSM Road Maps

John Worthington aka MySvcMon — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:25:59 +0000

With all the blather about needing the business' involvement in ITSM adoption programs, you'd think they would be a bit more visible. Sometimes I think The Business is a bigger part of the problem than IT is, and gets away with using IT as a whipping boy and excuse for not doing their share of the heavy lifting.

Saying we need to "start defining services by defining business processes" is not enough either. The business is often as fragmented as IT, and internalizes and functionally defines business processes in the same way IT does. Ian's Outside-In Service Management and other approaches to Outside-In thinking can be helpful here (IMHO). See Defining IT Services: Why an Outside-In Perspective Matters

All to often business process activity results in getting stuck in the process weeds....using simple concepts like Moments of Truth and Successful Customer Outcomes --- based on external customer views of business processes --- can avoid this and establish cross-functional transaction flows so necessary to mapping business processes to the underlying technical infrastructure.

The context we seek (if the goal is to achieve business-driven technology management) requires a business lane for ITSM road maps, and perhaps using ITIL as a club instead of a walking stick would be more appropriate for some organizations because the business is not on the same trip as we are.

Maybe that's because ( in a world of Banksters, Bailouts and Ponzi Schemes) documenting cross-functional business processes in some organizations is a scary thought... in any case, we will not reach ITSM nirvana unless the business is on the bus with us ...

John M. Worthington
MyServiceMonitor, LLC