The IT Skeptic - Comments for "ITIL out of the box"

swapping one tool for another

skeptic — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 08:59:00 +0000

I agree. There is seldom any reason to swap one tool for another. It's usually a bad idea from a bad manager.

Even if it is cheaper, the true total cost of changing usually far exceeds any licence savings.

Even if the vendor screwed you, don't delude yourself the others will be any better, and don't spend your employer's money to get even.

Don't pretend it's better. It is rare for a tool to really do something that its competitors don't, especially in the mature markets that we generally deal with: service desk, security, monitoring, asset, operations... Service catalogue tools - I dunno, don't know enough of them well enough to say how they stack up. It is even rarer for that difference to really truly matter to your business (as compared to feature envy).

I'd swap if local support (including third party) for the incumbent tool truly sucked, or the product was retired, AND the resulting risk exceeded some threshold AND all the impacted processes were already mature/optimised to a useful level AND the team rocked. If the culture and processes are broken, don't waste your time and money fiddling with tools.

In the words of Ralph Wiggum

Tom Rankin — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 23:15:09 +0000

In the words of the immortal Ralph Wigum,

"That's funny, but not ha-ha funny".

Juxtaposition

rpmason — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:32:43 +0000

I was reading your main blog page and saw an ad by N*mera asking if I wanted to replace my expensive Service Desk tool. Then I read this article. Hmm...

I do to registered readers :)

skeptic — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:46:00 +0000

I do to registered readers :)

Vendor Conferences

Tech Guy staying home from conference — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:05:12 +0000

[IMG]http://i47.tinypic.com/2ah8y11.jpg[/IMG]

I guess you don't allow image replies...

case studies and speaking engagements

skeptic — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 06:09:53 +0000

From Introduction to Real ITSM:

In order to optimise being managed by vendors, it is worth seeking to be a reference site. Being a reference site will bring benefits:
Love and attention. This requires far more vendor resource than could ever be sustained in more than a few clients, so be one of them.
Glory. Vendors will make you look a hero, in glossy brochures, advertisements, articles and best of all conference presentations. They will put your CIO’s face on full page ads in magazines where their peers will see and then give them a poster-size framed version of the ad for their office wall.
Conferences. Research on the number of reference sites whose CIO went to the vendor’s world conference at the vendor’s expense as a speaker or regularly appeared on speaking tours to warm sunny countries would yield interesting results.
This works particularly well with a CIO about two years from retirement: apply love and glory, and then once they retire employ them on contract to be an overseas superstar keynote speaker at conferences in exotic places.
Celebration. In the face of defeat, declare victory. This was an old British military tactic when faced with unshakeable guerrilla insurgence: walk away and hold a victory parade. No need to admit the half-million-dollar project is a failure when you can bluff your way out of it with vocal assistance from the vendor. Tell everyone how successful it was for long enough and even your own staff might start to believe it, especially if they start getting invited to conferences in exotic places.

non-ITIL compliant technology

Tech Guy for Implementation — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:54:10 +0000

Yes, I am 95% certain that I know the tool you are mentioning implements less than 25% of the first two books (Service Strategy and Service Design). Once the project was complete... the vendor went on to evangelize that they can implement ITIL in 4 weeks or less with case studies and speaking engagements.