Australia's National Electricity Market Management Company (NEMMCO) publishes an excellent example of a Change Management IT Procedure Manual on it's site at www.nemmco.com.au
For anyone who wishes to begin creating their own Change Management Manual, or for experts who wish to validate their own manual against another high quality one, this link will provide you with free access to read the 49 page manual in order to gain some insights.
In our view, the NEMMCO manual complements the ITIL standard and keeps commerciality to the fore. Some of the contents include:- Objectives and Principles, Definition of Change, Scope, Change Management Criteria, Implementation of the Change Management Process...Authorisation for Change to Proceed, Participant Involvement, Dispute Resolution...Roles and Responsibilities, Delegated Authority, Change Management Working Group, assessment/authorisation and implementation process, response windows and release management.
Please read the NEMMCO disclaimer & reservation of rights:- >>Nemmco Disclaimer<<
Access to read the manual:- >>Change Management Manual<<
"I Want To Audit My Change Management Process - Where Do I Start ?"
Here's a special Audit template designed to help 'kickstart' your own document when you need assurance that your Change Management Process (and the people and tools within it) delivers and protects what it really needs to.
The five objectives of the audit are:-
#1: To ensure a formally documented change management process exists and is maintained to reflect the current process.
#2: To ensure change requests are properly initiated and approved.
#3: To ensure changes made to applications/systems are adequately tested before being placed into a production environment.
#4: To ensure all changes are being tracked adequately.
#5: To ensure all changes are adequately reported to stakeholders.
>>Link to Report Template<<
The five objectives of the audit are:-
#1: To ensure a formally documented change management process exists and is maintained to reflect the current process.
#2: To ensure change requests are properly initiated and approved.
#3: To ensure changes made to applications/systems are adequately tested before being placed into a production environment.
#4: To ensure all changes are being tracked adequately.
#5: To ensure all changes are adequately reported to stakeholders.
>>Link to Report Template<<
Why ITIL Alone Is Not The Answer
The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) may be a standard, consistent and repeatable way of managing IT services, but international expert Malcolm Fry warns that banking on ITIL alone is one of the leading causes for the methodology's failure.
"What you do wrong is often more important than what you do right," says Fry, a UK-based executive advisor on ITIL to BMC Software and other major business software vendors and organisations.
Fry explains that while ITIL provides a framework for best practices in managing IT, it does not contain detailed process maps or provide work instructions. "One of the most common reasons ITIL fails is because business ignores other best practice frameworks."
"What you do wrong is often more important than what you do right," says Fry, a UK-based executive advisor on ITIL to BMC Software and other major business software vendors and organisations.
Fry explains that while ITIL provides a framework for best practices in managing IT, it does not contain detailed process maps or provide work instructions. "One of the most common reasons ITIL fails is because business ignores other best practice frameworks."
The Evolution of the CMDB
The concept of a CMDB has evolved over the years from a collection of isolated data stores to integrated data stores to a single, central database, writes Doug Mueller.
Each time, it gets closer to being the source of record for configuration data without taking a toll on the infrastructure. However, those who have tried these approaches find that they have serious drawbacks that make them difficult or impossible to scale. A better alternative is the federated data model.
Learn about the evolution of the CMDB and the federated data model in the full article.
Doug Mueller is the chief technology officer for the Service Management Business Unit of BMC Software and a co-founder of Remedy, now a part of BMC.
Each time, it gets closer to being the source of record for configuration data without taking a toll on the infrastructure. However, those who have tried these approaches find that they have serious drawbacks that make them difficult or impossible to scale. A better alternative is the federated data model.
Learn about the evolution of the CMDB and the federated data model in the full article.
Doug Mueller is the chief technology officer for the Service Management Business Unit of BMC Software and a co-founder of Remedy, now a part of BMC.
The Greatest ITIL Challenge: Building The CMDB
"Building a CMDB has been one of the greatest challenges for enterprises adopting a process maturity model like ITIL," said Siki Giunta, CEO of Managed Objects: www.managedobjects.com
"Managed Objects' vCMDB approach assures that multi-vendor tools work together to alert IT operations about planned and unplanned changes to the service configuration. This is a significant catalyst to acceleration onto the ITIL adoption highway."
Managed Objects' BSCM is in effect the next innovative evolution in the rapidly growing industry of Business Service Management (BSM). BSM software enables large organizations to holistically manage IT components as related elements that collectively deliver IT services to the business such as e-mail, supply chain management or e-commerce systems.
"Managed Objects' vCMDB approach assures that multi-vendor tools work together to alert IT operations about planned and unplanned changes to the service configuration. This is a significant catalyst to acceleration onto the ITIL adoption highway."
Managed Objects' BSCM is in effect the next innovative evolution in the rapidly growing industry of Business Service Management (BSM). BSM software enables large organizations to holistically manage IT components as related elements that collectively deliver IT services to the business such as e-mail, supply chain management or e-commerce systems.
Process Modeling and Simulation within the ITIL Framework
Process Modelling & Simulation within the ITIL® Framework, posted by: Birchwood Solutions Limited. A new free ITIL Handbook for the Service Management Community.
Birchwood Solutions Limited are pleased to announce the publication of a new free Handbook for the ITIL® and Service Management community.
Until quite recently all you could do is implement ITIL® processes, and using your experience, slowly but surely tailor the flows of information a little, adjust resources to support the workload and tailor the processes over time.
This approach is risky - you cannot afford service implementation to slip, or Quality of Service to be impacted. You need full assurance that your end-to-end processes actually work, and that you are convinced that the resources you have in place can cope with the workload, and that they fully support the organisational structure you have.
However, imagine if you could simulate end-to-end processes and try out ‘what if’ scenarios, perhaps use Activity Based Costing within the model, identify the costs associated to each process, or even validate the business case for new service management tools.
This approach enables the opportunity to simulate the real environment and test the processes, tools, resources and costs of the implementation thereby greatly reducing risks.
Process Modelling & Simulation within the ITIL® Framework considers the techniques and approaches available today and shows how they can be applied to implementing the ITIL® Framework.
The free Handbook can be downloaded from:
http://www.birchwood-solutions.com/handbook4.html
For further information see: http://http://www.birchwood-solutions.com/handbook4.html
Birchwood Solutions Limited are pleased to announce the publication of a new free Handbook for the ITIL® and Service Management community.
Until quite recently all you could do is implement ITIL® processes, and using your experience, slowly but surely tailor the flows of information a little, adjust resources to support the workload and tailor the processes over time.
This approach is risky - you cannot afford service implementation to slip, or Quality of Service to be impacted. You need full assurance that your end-to-end processes actually work, and that you are convinced that the resources you have in place can cope with the workload, and that they fully support the organisational structure you have.
However, imagine if you could simulate end-to-end processes and try out ‘what if’ scenarios, perhaps use Activity Based Costing within the model, identify the costs associated to each process, or even validate the business case for new service management tools.
This approach enables the opportunity to simulate the real environment and test the processes, tools, resources and costs of the implementation thereby greatly reducing risks.
Process Modelling & Simulation within the ITIL® Framework considers the techniques and approaches available today and shows how they can be applied to implementing the ITIL® Framework.
The free Handbook can be downloaded from:
http://www.birchwood-solutions.com/handbook4.html
For further information see: http://http://www.birchwood-solutions.com/handbook4.html
Changing the DNA of IT: Sarbanes-Oxley and Service Management
For many organizations, implementing ITIL has resulted in cost savings through improved management and IT governance.However, organizations should recognize that ITIL isn't an automatic path to good governance.
For example, a key element of ITIL is the configuration management database (CMDB) designed to control changes to configuration. The CMDB defines the relationships between configurations to minimize the risk to a business when it plans and implements change. This is an excellent practice, but it won't succeed if the CMDB itself is fragmented and not adequately maintained.
Maintaining a CMDB is impossible without a view of IT enterprise management that touches every IT process. Without this view, the unified database quickly degenerates to a collection of unconnected spreadsheets used by isolated departments. These islands of data don't reflect the true state of the infrastructure and result in a mad scramble to collect data when an audit is imminent.
For example, a key element of ITIL is the configuration management database (CMDB) designed to control changes to configuration. The CMDB defines the relationships between configurations to minimize the risk to a business when it plans and implements change. This is an excellent practice, but it won't succeed if the CMDB itself is fragmented and not adequately maintained.
Maintaining a CMDB is impossible without a view of IT enterprise management that touches every IT process. Without this view, the unified database quickly degenerates to a collection of unconnected spreadsheets used by isolated departments. These islands of data don't reflect the true state of the infrastructure and result in a mad scramble to collect data when an audit is imminent.
Detailed Information on Sarbanes-Oxley
Following this weeks popular article on Sarbanes-Oxley and ITIL - here is an excellent link to another Blog highlighting quality Sarbox links.
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Low pay and a lack of training is driving away IT helpdesk workers
Low pay and a lack of training is driving away IT helpdesk workers. writes Karen Gomm
A lack of skills and training opportunities is driving helpdesk staff away from the industry, according to a survey by Vivid Interface for magazine Helpdesk and IT Support Week.
The research, based on interviews with 1,000 IT helpdesk staff, found that 66% of support workers have no IT qualifications and 33% have not received training in the past year.
Despite this, only staff with helpdesk qualifications or those on a certification programme were likely to receive a pay increase, the survey found.
Employers recognise that qualifications such as ITIL certification (a set of best practices for IT management) are good for career prospects. But this is not reflected in the number of staff who are actually certified, the survey found.
Helpdesk operators are the most likely to change jobs, according to the survey, because of low job satisfaction and salary levels. Both helpdesk operators and support technicians cited lack of opportunity with their employer as the biggest reason for leaving their last job, with insufficient training opportunities coming second. Inadequate training forced 18% of 22- to 25-year-olds to leave their last job.
At the other end of the pay chart, IT managers were the most likely to be educated to degree level or above and to earn more: the average salary of an IT director was £40,346. But they also work the longest hours, with a total of 68% of IT managers working more than 40 hours per week.
A lack of skills and training opportunities is driving helpdesk staff away from the industry, according to a survey by Vivid Interface for magazine Helpdesk and IT Support Week.
The research, based on interviews with 1,000 IT helpdesk staff, found that 66% of support workers have no IT qualifications and 33% have not received training in the past year.
Despite this, only staff with helpdesk qualifications or those on a certification programme were likely to receive a pay increase, the survey found.
Employers recognise that qualifications such as ITIL certification (a set of best practices for IT management) are good for career prospects. But this is not reflected in the number of staff who are actually certified, the survey found.
Helpdesk operators are the most likely to change jobs, according to the survey, because of low job satisfaction and salary levels. Both helpdesk operators and support technicians cited lack of opportunity with their employer as the biggest reason for leaving their last job, with insufficient training opportunities coming second. Inadequate training forced 18% of 22- to 25-year-olds to leave their last job.
At the other end of the pay chart, IT managers were the most likely to be educated to degree level or above and to earn more: the average salary of an IT director was £40,346. But they also work the longest hours, with a total of 68% of IT managers working more than 40 hours per week.
The Five Pitfalls of Implementing ITIL
Author and Consultant, Dean Meyer, writing for www.cio.com explains his top five pitfalls when implementing ITIL.
Meyer highlights why he believes these are indeed pitfalls and why ITIL has been adopted in an almost "religious" like manner in some organizations.
Meyer states, "ITIL is a great source of best practices for some IT functions, but its scope is limited and there are pitfalls in implementing it that can actually degrade the performance of an organization."
>>Read Full Article<<
Meyer highlights why he believes these are indeed pitfalls and why ITIL has been adopted in an almost "religious" like manner in some organizations.
Meyer states, "ITIL is a great source of best practices for some IT functions, but its scope is limited and there are pitfalls in implementing it that can actually degrade the performance of an organization."
>>Read Full Article<<
What is the single most challenging Sarbanes-Oxley Issue Today? Will ITIL help or hinder progress?
Jim Johnson, CEO of Tripwire, writes ,"While it’s difficult to pinpoint the single most challenging issue facing Sarbanes-Oxley, certainly one of the most frustrating headaches for CXOs today is the lack of prescriptive guidance on “how” to become compliant."
He continues...
"In an attempt help identify, document and evaluate IT controls, the audit industry and the SEC have supported numerous open control frameworks and best practices such as IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT), and ISO17799.
While useful in theory, these frameworks do not give comprehensive guidance to IT management on where to start, how to start, and how much it costs to implement initially and sustain over time.
Worse, these frameworks do not provide quantitative analysis of how and why process initiatives using these frameworks affect business success beyond compliance and conversely, what impact -- or damage -- these initiatives cause when they fail."
Read more in the full article...
>>Full Article<<
He continues...
"In an attempt help identify, document and evaluate IT controls, the audit industry and the SEC have supported numerous open control frameworks and best practices such as IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT), and ISO17799.
While useful in theory, these frameworks do not give comprehensive guidance to IT management on where to start, how to start, and how much it costs to implement initially and sustain over time.
Worse, these frameworks do not provide quantitative analysis of how and why process initiatives using these frameworks affect business success beyond compliance and conversely, what impact -- or damage -- these initiatives cause when they fail."
Read more in the full article...
>>Full Article<<
Visit the ITsmf in the U.K. for FREE access to powerful ITIL presentations
Those fantastic folks at the UK's ITsmf have done it again and released over 60 presentations for your viewing pleasure!
All the important presentations from the 2004 Annual Conference are FREE to access.
The ITsmf also have details about this years annual conference in Brighton, England - which promises to be another brilliant event in the ITIL calendar.
Access The Presentations
All the important presentations from the 2004 Annual Conference are FREE to access.
The ITsmf also have details about this years annual conference in Brighton, England - which promises to be another brilliant event in the ITIL calendar.
Access The Presentations
What is ITIL and where did it come from?
Article from Bios Magazine - by Richard Foden.
ITIL, or the IT Infrastructure Library, was the brainchild of the UK government, and dates back to 1989, when the first five books became available. ITIL was originally targeted at the UK government's own IT staff to deliver a better service to internal customers.
This was in the days when new 'structured approaches', were taking the industry forward into a more organised world.Accordingly, it was felt that a similar more structured approach to managing live, installed services would deliver similar benefits.
Indeed the view was that there was considerable room for improvement in terms of actually delivering services. The staff doing this task were predominantly in 'operations' and were generally very much behind the scenes staff.
...In fact, a significant strength of ITIL, and much of its resilience and applicability rests upon the professional qualifications, the training leading to those qualifications, and the support amongst and between professionals available through the itSMF, the world-wide not for profit organisation that represents both user and vendor professionals in IT service management....
>>Full Article<<
ITIL, or the IT Infrastructure Library, was the brainchild of the UK government, and dates back to 1989, when the first five books became available. ITIL was originally targeted at the UK government's own IT staff to deliver a better service to internal customers.
This was in the days when new 'structured approaches', were taking the industry forward into a more organised world.Accordingly, it was felt that a similar more structured approach to managing live, installed services would deliver similar benefits.
Indeed the view was that there was considerable room for improvement in terms of actually delivering services. The staff doing this task were predominantly in 'operations' and were generally very much behind the scenes staff.
...In fact, a significant strength of ITIL, and much of its resilience and applicability rests upon the professional qualifications, the training leading to those qualifications, and the support amongst and between professionals available through the itSMF, the world-wide not for profit organisation that represents both user and vendor professionals in IT service management....
>>Full Article<<
How fast and far can ITIL spread ?
“Best practice” and “benchmarking” don’t have to be nebulous buzzwords that you don’t know how to apply to your IT department, writes Kirstin Mills, who describes how ITIL is 'growing like a weed' across the world.
>>Read the Article<<
>>Read the Article<<
ITIL and Your IT Organizational Structure
"Looking at typical IT departments you often find a group of dedicated and hard working individuals; where you expect the sum of the whole outweighs the sum of the constituent parts. However this expectation often falls short in reality, enviably resulting in IT department productivity becoming an agenda item at board meetings in for uncomfortable reasons.", writes Robert Gordon of HP. "When such discussion is undertaken many factors are investigated. Technology investment is debated, training and standards are raised, process and procedure is interrogated but how often is organisational structure reviewed? "
A poorly designed structure will sap the effort of team members, wasting their contributions, as they are miss-directed down inappropriate avenues. Finally petering out in a departmental backwater with most of the value evaporated and reflected only in the level of frustration at the contributor’s end.
A well-designed structure born of ITIL principles, mirroring customer objectives rather than political ambitions, will release the latent potential and energy buried under the weight of traditional organisational structures. Resulting in the focus shifting from doing the job right to doing the right job - the difference between efficiency and effectiveness.
Ultimately not paying lip service to theoretical concepts such as 'team work' but actually achieving pragmatic benefits in getting the 'team to work.'"
>>View the presentation (requires Powerpoint or Viewer)<<
A poorly designed structure will sap the effort of team members, wasting their contributions, as they are miss-directed down inappropriate avenues. Finally petering out in a departmental backwater with most of the value evaporated and reflected only in the level of frustration at the contributor’s end.
A well-designed structure born of ITIL principles, mirroring customer objectives rather than political ambitions, will release the latent potential and energy buried under the weight of traditional organisational structures. Resulting in the focus shifting from doing the job right to doing the right job - the difference between efficiency and effectiveness.
Ultimately not paying lip service to theoretical concepts such as 'team work' but actually achieving pragmatic benefits in getting the 'team to work.'"
>>View the presentation (requires Powerpoint or Viewer)<<
ITIL - The Treasure Trove of IT Best Practice?
How much time do you spend fixing unplanned outages ?
If IT firefighting and last-minute changes often sap your nights and weekends, and you don't know where to begin when a critical system fails, there's hope.
The prescription for this chaos is ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library), a set of best practices for running an IT organization.
ITIL is really common sense. It's what many successful organizations already do--the processes we've learned from the school of hard knocks. ITIL forges a bond between IT, management and external customers by offering them a single language and defined channels for communicating with one another.
ITIL normalizes the language describing best practices. For example, a resolution process like incident management indicates a single failure in ITIL parlance. Problem management, another ITIL resolution process, stitches together all incidents that relate to a particular problem.
Read full article...
If IT firefighting and last-minute changes often sap your nights and weekends, and you don't know where to begin when a critical system fails, there's hope.
The prescription for this chaos is ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library), a set of best practices for running an IT organization.
ITIL is really common sense. It's what many successful organizations already do--the processes we've learned from the school of hard knocks. ITIL forges a bond between IT, management and external customers by offering them a single language and defined channels for communicating with one another.
ITIL normalizes the language describing best practices. For example, a resolution process like incident management indicates a single failure in ITIL parlance. Problem management, another ITIL resolution process, stitches together all incidents that relate to a particular problem.
Read full article...
ITIL comes to Mexico!
Pink Elephant (www.pinkelephant.com), a global leader in IT service management best practices, is presenting its inaugural Latin American IT Service Management Conference and Exhibition from April 20 to 21, 2005 at the InterContinental Hotel Presidente IC in Mexico City. This is the first major event that Pink Elephant will be hosting in Mexico since establishing an office in the capital city in 2004.
>>Read Full Article<<
>>Read Full Article<<
"We Don't have a Blame Culture Here" - "Who's Fault is that?!?"
By ThinkReliability.com - an excellent site to learn more about root cause analysis and 'Cause Mapping'.
Prevention or Blame...
What's the Goal of Your Organization?
Solving problems effectively is a requirement for being an effective organization.
The individuals and groups that tackle problems in organization's today sometimes inadvertently focus on the people or departments involved rather than the specific causes of the problem.
This creates an organizational culture that focuses more on blaming other groups and individuals than preventing problems from occurring.
Learn more about cultural 'blame mentality' in organizations and what you can do about it.
>>Link to Article<<
Prevention or Blame...
What's the Goal of Your Organization?
Solving problems effectively is a requirement for being an effective organization.
The individuals and groups that tackle problems in organization's today sometimes inadvertently focus on the people or departments involved rather than the specific causes of the problem.
This creates an organizational culture that focuses more on blaming other groups and individuals than preventing problems from occurring.
Learn more about cultural 'blame mentality' in organizations and what you can do about it.
>>Link to Article<<
Did you Agree with the Pitfalls ?
Did you read the 5 Pitfalls of ITIL article a couple of days ago?
Did you agree with the pitfalls ?
Let's review Pitfall [1] - look out for Dr. ITIL's comments embedded within the text...and feel free to post your own comments anbd let us know what you think...
Pitfall 1: Structuring around ITIL processes.ITIL processes each involve a broad cross-section of the professions (specialties) within an IT organization. **What does involve really mean? Sure there are interfaces, inputs, overlaps in real life - but each process does not comprise of a broad cross section of professions, let';s read on...** Conversely, multiple ITIL processes may draw on any given profession. Thus, if you design your organization chart around ITIL processes, a given profession (needed by many processes) will be fragmented throughout your structure. **Not really, shared service centers work in commercial organisations, plus it benefits from a service approach rather than a silo'ed mentality**
This fragmentation of professions creates two significant performance problems:
Work will be replicated by multiple groups that are all studying the same skills, developing the same methods, and reinventing work products. **This is pushing the argument too far! The degree of fragmentation results from poor management and a lack of control in the service environment - not just because an organisation seeks to drive results through processes** Because work (and skills development) are replicated, costs rise. Due to reinvention of products and methods, consistency is lost. Synergies are lost when multiple processes no longer share common people, information, methods and reusable objects. **As above - this is a doomsday scenario, pushing the argument without considering control and governance in the environment**
With any given competency scattered about, specialization is reduced. Instead of one consolidated group of experts comprising professionals who focus on sub-specialties, many different groups have to know the entire profession. By necessity, they become relative generalists. When specialization is reduced, performance naturally suffers. Generalists cannot keep up with the literature as well as specialists because there is too much to cover, so the pace of innovation slows. Generalists’ knowledge is wide rather than deep; and for lack of depth, quality suffers. Generalists take longer to complete projects, since they are continually at the beginning of their learning curve; therefore, response times are slowed. Furthermore, no one leader will be responsible for a given line of business (now fragmented).
For example, a given service (such as storage) will be managed by multiple process managers (availability, capacity, etc.). No single entrepreneur has the job of planning, budgeting, managing, delivering and growing that line of business. This results in a loss of accountability, entrepreneurship, and customer focus. Additionally, there’s no single owner of infrastructure. This leads to internal friction when multiple groups, each accountable for attributes of the infrastructure (its reliability, security, performance, etc.), compete to control those assets.
A healthy structure gathers everyone of a given specialty into a single group, and focuses them on running a line of business. Infrastructure is owned by these various entrepreneurships. For example, storage devices should be wholly owned by the storage-services entrepreneurship. **If you study the ITIL models the concept of the services layer overarching the underpinning technology layers comes through loud and clear. The two layers work in harmony. You can absolutely have an owner of the Infrastructure and an Owner of Service, as apparent in thousands of IT organizations worldwide.**
This encourages accountability and entrepreneurship. Once structure sorts out the lines of business within IT, ITIL processes can draw on their products and services as work flows across organizational boundaries. In short, ITIL describes processes that need to get done. Structure defines who does what within those processes. **ITIL describes so much more than processes, but it just so happens that the core texts lack a prescriptive approach due to their evolution and multiple specialists having written the earlier books. ITIL V3 promises to address these issues.**
What's your view ?
Post a comment and have your say...
Did you agree with the pitfalls ?
Let's review Pitfall [1] - look out for Dr. ITIL's comments embedded within the text...and feel free to post your own comments anbd let us know what you think...
Pitfall 1: Structuring around ITIL processes.ITIL processes each involve a broad cross-section of the professions (specialties) within an IT organization. **What does involve really mean? Sure there are interfaces, inputs, overlaps in real life - but each process does not comprise of a broad cross section of professions, let';s read on...** Conversely, multiple ITIL processes may draw on any given profession. Thus, if you design your organization chart around ITIL processes, a given profession (needed by many processes) will be fragmented throughout your structure. **Not really, shared service centers work in commercial organisations, plus it benefits from a service approach rather than a silo'ed mentality**
This fragmentation of professions creates two significant performance problems:
Work will be replicated by multiple groups that are all studying the same skills, developing the same methods, and reinventing work products. **This is pushing the argument too far! The degree of fragmentation results from poor management and a lack of control in the service environment - not just because an organisation seeks to drive results through processes** Because work (and skills development) are replicated, costs rise. Due to reinvention of products and methods, consistency is lost. Synergies are lost when multiple processes no longer share common people, information, methods and reusable objects. **As above - this is a doomsday scenario, pushing the argument without considering control and governance in the environment**
With any given competency scattered about, specialization is reduced. Instead of one consolidated group of experts comprising professionals who focus on sub-specialties, many different groups have to know the entire profession. By necessity, they become relative generalists. When specialization is reduced, performance naturally suffers. Generalists cannot keep up with the literature as well as specialists because there is too much to cover, so the pace of innovation slows. Generalists’ knowledge is wide rather than deep; and for lack of depth, quality suffers. Generalists take longer to complete projects, since they are continually at the beginning of their learning curve; therefore, response times are slowed. Furthermore, no one leader will be responsible for a given line of business (now fragmented).
For example, a given service (such as storage) will be managed by multiple process managers (availability, capacity, etc.). No single entrepreneur has the job of planning, budgeting, managing, delivering and growing that line of business. This results in a loss of accountability, entrepreneurship, and customer focus. Additionally, there’s no single owner of infrastructure. This leads to internal friction when multiple groups, each accountable for attributes of the infrastructure (its reliability, security, performance, etc.), compete to control those assets.
A healthy structure gathers everyone of a given specialty into a single group, and focuses them on running a line of business. Infrastructure is owned by these various entrepreneurships. For example, storage devices should be wholly owned by the storage-services entrepreneurship. **If you study the ITIL models the concept of the services layer overarching the underpinning technology layers comes through loud and clear. The two layers work in harmony. You can absolutely have an owner of the Infrastructure and an Owner of Service, as apparent in thousands of IT organizations worldwide.**
This encourages accountability and entrepreneurship. Once structure sorts out the lines of business within IT, ITIL processes can draw on their products and services as work flows across organizational boundaries. In short, ITIL describes processes that need to get done. Structure defines who does what within those processes. **ITIL describes so much more than processes, but it just so happens that the core texts lack a prescriptive approach due to their evolution and multiple specialists having written the earlier books. ITIL V3 promises to address these issues.**
What's your view ?
Post a comment and have your say...
Run Your IT Department Like a Business! What?
Richard Yates of Technology Consulting Associates examines process management and running your IT department like a business.
Richard commentsm, "While the ITIL may seem intimidating and overly complex at first glance, what it really does is give structure to the numerous services and functions provided and required of the 21st century IT department. To my way of thinking it’s like a company beginning a journey towards Six Sigma certification. The reward from reaching four sigma from three sigma provides tremendous value to the enterprise even if six sigma is never reached. Similarly, the reward from seeking to deploy best practices within your IT department has the potential to get senior IT leadership out of “fire-fighting” mode and into providing strategic support for the business."
>Read Full Article<
Richard commentsm, "While the ITIL may seem intimidating and overly complex at first glance, what it really does is give structure to the numerous services and functions provided and required of the 21st century IT department. To my way of thinking it’s like a company beginning a journey towards Six Sigma certification. The reward from reaching four sigma from three sigma provides tremendous value to the enterprise even if six sigma is never reached. Similarly, the reward from seeking to deploy best practices within your IT department has the potential to get senior IT leadership out of “fire-fighting” mode and into providing strategic support for the business."
>Read Full Article<
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