The IT Skeptic - Comments for "The IT Skeptic reviews ITIL V3 book "Service Strategy""

Excellent review. I found

Tom Rankin - Melbourne OZ — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 05:30:35 +0000

Excellent review. I found the Strategy book took about 30 attempts and I still haven't read, digested let alone tried to apply it all.
For the V3 Expert bridge multiguess exam all you need to do is read the 70 pages on the handful of processes.

PS: just bought your Owning ITIL book - will let you know how I go.

Try Reading the 12 hour MBA

Glen — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:05:12 +0000

Great resource and could also go under favorite books.

the 12 hour MBA is a summary of the topics you would cover in an MBA. Each chapter has exercises to help drive the points home. I found it really beneficial to re read after I got the Expert certification. Its a practicial application of the concepts in the Service Strategy book. And..biggest benefit helps you understand the General's Point of View and language.

Remember - you are being certified in ITIL....

ianclayton — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:22:13 +0000

Dear Visitor

First - my sympathies. I have taught ITIL since @1997 and it has traditionally required substantial input from the instructor, especially at the 'practitioner' and now capability and lifecycle levels - to operationalize the concepts - make them seem real.

Unfortunately, much of Strategy seems to be an effort to discover the New World of service management based upon a predominantly outsourcer and IT perspective. Its content is generally in conflict with pre-existing concepts and proven methods used within the mature non-IT service management industry and as used to develop business strategies.

It is critical that an IT organization uses methods to develop a service strategy that is consistent in its language and compatible in its methods with that used by the enterprise - period. ITIL Service Strategy does not - so tread cautiously.

Take a moment to check out other great sources such as Marketing Management (Philip Kotler), Service Management and Marketing (Gronroos) and Service Management and Operations (Haksever, render, Russell, Murdick) - all largely ignored by Strategy. Note - all these sources are IT agnostic. Add in poorly positioned references to Porter's value chain and a complete lack of customer relationship management, market research, and requirements management and you have the recipe for a a painful instructor experience.

Remember - this is ITIL's view of the fundamentals of a Service Strategy. If you wish to be certified in ITIL's view - please realize you will have to add a ton of stuff from external sources to be able to actually build, or help build a strategy, often part of a responsibility to manage an IT budget in the millions of dollars....

Once you have gained the ITIL view - also note - you need to understand how the business builds their strategy and its your responsibility to show you can decipher this, and develop an integrated service strategy.

Service Strategy

Visitor — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:33:05 +0000

Just finished teaching the Service Strategy Lifecycle class for one of the light-weight trainers. The audience was a group of consultants who are expecting to become ITIL experts in 5 weeks.

Yes, the SS book is written like a university text, but not a well-written one. As one of the candidates pointed out, one paragraph will be written in double-speak and the next will be written in short cryptic sentences which assume you have assimilated every concept that preceeded it in the book.

In my opinion this is not really acceptable for material intended to be used as a reference work.

Maybe just at the different sides of the planet

aroos — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:31:35 +0000

It would be good if IT could be a business partner, nothing wrong with that. I do not think that the a few days study of the SS book is a good guide to it.

In my world the CIO's are not very interested in studying ITIL. They tend to leave it to the lower levels like the IT Infrastructure managers, Service Desk managers etc. It is not unusual that the CIO is an MBA so the theory is already familiar.

Aale

Your mess for less

Visitor — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 04:20:23 +0000

I spent today immersed in a strategy workshop with the CIO and his captains. The topics of interest were only those from Service Strategy: portfolio management, product management, relationship management, service lifecycle, customer portfolios, utility and warranty, and so on.

I knew what we were in for when the CIO walked in with a copy of the book. He is using the economic climate as a call for action, to make dramatic changes to how IT is positioned in the organization; from passive-order-taker to business partner. Of course, embedded in the plan were cost reduction opportunities such as the rationalization of his portfolio of services.

Clearly we live on different planets.

"...IT people are the support staff in charge of supply."

I think this "strategy" is a sure fire way to extinction in today's climate. In fact, there's been a dramatic uptick in the outsourcing of organizations who cling, along with religion and guns, even tighter to this model. IBM is doing a nice business taking over these moribund organizations with the mantra "your mess for less."

Misunderstood strategy

aroos — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:30:44 +0000

I see the SS book as a major misunderstanding. Yes, it describes a lot of modern business theory. The recent events on Wall Street should have opened our eyes to be a bit more skeptical on these theories. I wonder how useful are the V3 based IT strategies that were created before last summer.

The misunderstanding is in the nature of strategies the SS book explains. These models are for the generals who are playing with armies. In most cases IT people are the support staff in charge of supply. IT strategy is not done on based on market spaces but under the limitations of corporate strategy. The SS book is not tied to the rest of books. There are some strategic elements in itil but the SS books ignores those.

Aale Roos

off topic on this blog?

skeptic — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 10:16:11 +0000

Pardon? "the West's love affair with the ideology of pure reason has made us crippingly dependent on process-minded experts who rational systems are bereft of both meaning and morality" is off topic on this blog? Bang on target I'd say and nicely complementary to Shelley Gare's quote "Anything that can't be put into numerical form is somehow regarded as immaterial or ephemeral, even though we should all know that the most important things in life can never be measured."

Voltaire's Bastards

dool — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:29:18 +0000

Coming from a family of doctors, perhaps I presume to know at least a little about doctors and the medical profession - and some context. For example and to my earlier point:

Doctors were once at the centre of political, social and cultural change. Today, a doctor tends to reach his summit when his view of the human body consciously limits itself to a single organ. They've become technocrats. His is an abstract profession involving narrower and narrower bands of knowledge.

This is precisely what John Saul called "Voltaire's Bastards." Those who hold the absolute belief that the solution to our problems must be a more determined application of rationally organized expertise - ignoring or even disdaining the greater context.

The reality is, as Voltaire pointed out, is that our problems are largely the product of that application.

I hold no derision towards doctors. This is not a commentary on the profession as it is an observation to what Saul described as, "the West's love affair with the ideology of pure reason has made us crippingly dependent on process-minded experts who rational systems are bereft of both meaning and morality."

We are way off topic so I'll move on.

Oops I forgot to make the lawyer point....

Visitor — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 05:05:34 +0000

I was distracted ... its lawyers that draw the ire of mere mortals not doctors. Lawyers will adopt any perspective to make a buck - for or against the point being discussed. they 'interpret' the law as it best suits their side of the case. Doctors have a professional code "preserve life". Lawyers have a variable code that they can adapt to the current situation. ITIL V3 has turned us all into lawyers - it lacks the specific promised guidance touted by many of those who are close to the core and loud during the may 30 launch. Now they, like all of us, need to turn to our doctor code to help folks diagnose the problem and find a remedy that is in the best interest of the customer.

Just a few Voltairisms to even your quote up:

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
Judge of a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

What do we say of the service management professional who know nothing but ITIL.....

Its lawyers not doctors

Visitor — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 04:56:49 +0000

Dool

Your comments make about as much sense to an ignoramus such as me as the Service Strategy book will make to the ITIl fanzine. thank you once again for endorsing the Skeptics point - while trying to shoot it down. Sometimes a degree of ignorance is worth a pound of sense when trying to get to the nub of an issue. The 5 whys are proof of that concept.

doctors

datajar — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 04:10:15 +0000

Dool, this is not ITIL specific but your comments/comparison using doctors is very ill informed. In order for a Doctor to remain a specialist he/she is required to attend conferences, read publications, publish etc. Also while specialising in a specific field they do narrow the scope of their knowledge but are increasing the depth of it in their chosen field. To specialise means to get very good in a certain area because it is impossible in a working lifetime of a person to be good at everything. I don't understand why the public loves to criticise doctors - Doctors are probably paid less than you while actually doing something useful - like helping sick people feel better.

narrow un-contexted views

skeptic — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:46:51 +0000

Your post is apposite to the one I was writing at the same time

Interesting Review

dool — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:39:32 +0000

An interesting review, Skeptic. It caused me to step back and reflect upon other professions.

What is to be thought of doctors, for example, whose annual reading is at best made up of two or three formulaic thrillers? Who, by virtue of their profession's class system, are increasingly rewarded as their knowledge of medicine narrows.

Or what do we make of the banker, called upon to make real decisions in a time of instability and inflation, who has never heard of John Law or has endeavored to forget who he was or what he did?

Or the economist who thinks even less of railway bubbles and the crash of 1880. What does it mean when he talks seriously of the catastrophe which awaits if debts are forgiven, given he doesn't know that the entire civilation of Athens - upon which we still model western civilization - was created through Solon's wiping out of all crippling loans. Or indeed that America's economic strength in the 20th century was in part the result of constant financial defaultings during the 19th century.

What do we think of the professor of English who views fiction as an exercise separate from society? Rendering literature inaccessible except to the most intimately initiated. And in the process, who becomes himself incapable of understanding the movements of the outer world?

I'd say therein lies the tragedy.

Voltaire used to ridicule the elite of his day by pointing out -- through well-placed scepticism, of course -- they were pitifully ignorant. They simply bought knowledge and advice. The elite's ignorance was so profound that it made them incapable of leading.

Voltaire was not arguing that in order to lead you must be a Renaissance man. But there was a need for general and in-depth knowledge in some direction. And on that foundation there was a need to be interested in the ideas and creations of one's time. To read, to think, to ask questions, and to talk in wide circles, well beyond any particular competence.

The technocrats of our day make the old seem profound and civilized by comparison.

Warm regards,
Dool

The IT Skeptic - Comments for "The IT Skeptic reviews ITIL V3 book &quot;Service Strategy&quot;"