It is customary for pundits to end the year by summarizing their predictions. This futurology is an art, seeking the right balance between the shocking and the utterly meaningless. Swept away by this tsunami of blustering badauds and recalling the words of the sage, dulce et decorum desipere in loco, I lay my humble offering before you.
Service Management
Supplier Management according to ISO/IEC 20000
Increasing dependency on suppliers
As we depend increasingly on third parties to provide to our customers the services they expect, the capability of a service provider to manage those parties and govern the overall network of suppliers increases in importance proportionally. There has been a slow, but steady, adoption of practices as defined by ISO/IEC 20000 for managing suppliers. Unfortunately, that standard is not always well understood, especially in terms of the scope that it covers. Any organization concerned with compliance with this standard must maintain a clear understanding of what it requires. [Read more…] about Supplier Management according to ISO/IEC 20000
Case vs. Process is a matter of scope, innovation and maturity
First, a reminder about why processes are used
Perhaps the most important contribution of ITIL V2 to the realm of IT service management was its emphasis on working according to well defined processes. This contribution has undoubted merits, although its unthinking, blanket adoption has come under considerable criticism. Be that as it may, the fundamental argument of working according to well defined processes is four-fold:
- attempting to work in the same way for each instance of an activity allows that activity to be measured each time, and allows for comparisons and analysis of those measurements
- working in a process-oriented way enables the principle of perfecting via practice
- perfecting an activity makes it more effective, more efficient and more predictable
- the measurements of processes may be used to determine in what ways it may be improved.
[Read more…] about Case vs. Process is a matter of scope, innovation and maturity
How many incident models should you have?
I recently made a presentation, in the context of the TFT12 event, on techniques for advanced incident management. One of the important tools to use is the incident model. During the presentation, a tweet was made by a listener asking if the number of different incidents types, and hence models, would get out of hand. Since Twitter is not an adequate medium to respond to that excellent question, I will attempt to respond here.
There are three distinct issues to be addressed:
- What makes for a distinct incident model?
- Under what circumstances should a type of incident be modeled?
- How can we find a specific model if there is a large number of them?
I will conclude with a brief discussion of maturity levels in the use of incident models. [Read more…] about How many incident models should you have?
TFT12
5 December 2012 will be the start of an adventure in the art of sharing knowledge and building connections via conferences. An event, called TFT12, is planned for that date, integrating many of the social technologies available today. TFT12 is to be a 24 hour event presenting 24 different speakers on various subjects in the realm of service management. Yours truly will be one of those speakers.
Knowledge and BYOD
In an interview of Rohit Ghai, of EMC, on an ACMLive event [no longer available on line], an interesting twist was given to the traditional goal of knowledge management. This goal is often described as “providing the right information to the right person at the right time, to support making the right decision.” Rohit spoke of “providing the right information to the right person at the right time on the right device…”
The link with BYOD is the fact that many organizations chose not to allow their users to have the devices that the users themselves would most want to use to perform their knowledge work. It is said that the upcoming generation of knowledge workers is better equipped at home than at work. While this statement may be more folklore or spin than fact, it highlights the great inefficiencies that result from employees and consultants being denied the right to use the tools that help them be most effective and efficient. As a consultant I have frequently faced the issue of having precisely the information required to resolve an issue, but the documents are on my personal equipment, which I have not been allowed to bring into the customers’ sites. So, I get the right information, but because it is on the wrong device, I get it at the wrong time.
I look forward to the results of the itSMF International survey on the management of end user personal devices.
The scope of change control
With the publication of ITIL® ver. 3 in 2007, a clear stance was taken regarding the scope of change management. The authors of the Service Transition volume pointed out the rather obvious fact that changes at almost any place in the value network of service delivery could impact the quality of the services. Therefore, it is desirable for those changes to be under control. This includes changes at the strategic and tactical levels, as well as the operational level. It includes, too, changes among the suppliers and customers, as well as changes within the service provider organization itself. Changes under control might occur at any time throughout the service life-cycle.
With so clear a statement in place, it is curious to note that the scope of change control remains a major open question in many organizations. Curious, but understandable. For there are many issues underlying the decision on scoping change control. I mention here the more salient issues:
- the historical use of change control in an organization
- the desire to start with operational changes in production
- the inability to progress change control beyond the initial scope
- a deep divide between application development and production management
- a single change control process is not applicable to the full enterprise
I will review each of these points in greater detail.
[Read more…] about The scope of change control
What is meant by severity?
Standard Terminology
Most service management practitioners will agree that there is an advantage to using a shared and a standard terminology when speaking of how to manage services. To this end, the definitions provided by ITIL® are most often cited. Some terms, however, continue to be used in diverse ways, only adding to the confusion of those who attempt to follow industry standards. This might be due to multiple industry standards, to poetic license, to ignorance or, indeed, to laziness.
The Case of Severity
One such term is severity. Severity is normally used to describe an event or an incident.
However, some practitioners appear to use this term interchangeably with other attributes of events and incidents, such as impact or priority. I propose here a simple way of distinguishing severity from impact, one that is loosely derived from ITIL®.
Events or incidents may be viewed from two perspectives: how do they influence the customers of services and how do they influence the providers of services. We propose that the term impact should describe the influence of an event or incident on the customers, while the term severity should describe its influence on the service provider.