publications | The IT Skeptic

A Brief Review of Creating and Driving Service Excellence

Submitted by skeptic on Wed, 2011-11-30 00:13

Creating and Driving Service Excellence looks like a handy tool for selling ITSM to the bosses.

Book(s) review: the Key Element Guides

Submitted by skeptic on Sun, 2010-11-28 23:42

The ITIL V3 Key Element Guides have been out for some time now. Seems I never finished and published a review I started writing long ago, sorry about that. Better late than never, here it is now.

The IT Skeptic looks at ITIL Lite

Submitted by skeptic on Sun, 2010-07-18 09:53

The IT Skeptic was pretty scathing of Malcolm Fry's first ITIL V3 Complementary Publication, Building an ITIL-Based Service Management Department. Personally I wouldn't buy it (again). Malcolm's second "official" V3 book ITIL Lite is different. It is worth buying just for Chapter 2: "a simple but effective approach to ITIL process engineering". I got several great ideas from it and the overall methodology is a good one. But ITIL Lite has several fundamental assumptions that many will disagree with. These assumptions will mislead an already confused user community, and I think they spoil the rest of the book.

New itSMF newsletter - boon or burden?

Submitted by skeptic on Sun, 2010-07-04 19:02

itSMF is planning a new international magazine for itSMF members. What a fantastic idea... at last. It is great to see itSMF finally addressing the lack of international communications and cohesion. This magazine is calling for advertisers, so of course this magazine won't be an additional financial burden on the chapters, right?

What does it mean when there is a Second Edition of a core ITIL V3 book?

Submitted by skeptic on Sun, 2010-05-16 20:23

OGC released a Second Edition of The Introduction to the ITIL Service Lifecycle Book on 12th May. It is too soon for this to be part of the "v3.1" ITIL Update. So is it a major revision? No errata, no change-log (of this book), no way of knowing if you need to buy an updated version or not. This isn't Mills and Boone - these are reference books. The lack of information is ridiculous.

Review of Building an ITIL-Based Service Management Department

Submitted by skeptic on Sat, 2010-03-20 08:42

Some time ago I purchased the official OGC ITIL book Building an ITIL-Based Service Management Department but I have not got around to reviewing it until now. Part of my slowness stems from my disappointment with the book, and partly I was holding off to see what others thought. I hold Malcolm Fry in high regard: I expected much better and I wondered if maybe I had missed something. Apparently not.

itSMF International Seeking Publications Partner

Submitted by skeptic on Thu, 2009-08-20 20:37

itSMF has gone to RFP for a publisher for itSMF's own publications. The relationship with Van Haren has ended (Along with finally prying the brand from itSMFUK's grasp, dissociating from VHP is another of the old itSMF roots falling away. Watch with interest for VHP's next moves - they are likely to be canny ones). I doubt itSMFI are rushing into TSO's arms.

What use is Passing Your ITIL Foundation Exam now?

Submitted by skeptic on Wed, 2009-06-17 20:55

How many revisions of the ITIL V3 Foundation syllabus have we had since Passing Your ITIL Foundation Exam was published? It must be pretty badly out of date by now. [Update: TSO's ITIL Foundation Handbook was revised in June 2009 to fully comply with the May updates. But Passing Your ITIL Foundation Exam is still dated November 2007.
Update update: A new version of the book is available: Passing Your ITIL Foundation Exam (updated to 2009 syllabus)

The rest of this post is obsolete now: here for historical record only]

How to assemble all the ITSM reference library you need for $211

Submitted by skeptic on Mon, 2009-06-08 09:33

[Updated 13th May 2010]
With seemingly everyone gouging the ITIL user these days, is there an alternative for those of us who can't just (or just can't) get the boss to pay the exorbitant prices? You bet.

ITIL V3 core books - the IT Skeptic's impressions

Submitted by skeptic on Mon, 2009-05-18 23:17

[A couple of years ago the IT Skeptic wrote of my first impressions of the ITIL V3 five core books. That article is no longer available online, so I have revised it and reprinted it here]

As discussed in my review of the Service Strategy book, it will take considerable time to really digest these books and their implications, and to test the chisel of theory against the cold hard rock of reality (none more so than that Service Strategy book).

But first impressions can be drawn now and they are good ones.