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03/05/2012 Introduction to COBIT 5
Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (CobiT) is a set of best practices for Information Technology management developed by Information Systems Audit & Control Association (...
03/05/2012 ITIL Master is here but with strong competition
The ITIL Master qualification is at last available (April 27 2012). Those holding the ITIL Expert certificate now have an opportunity to prove their expertise in implementing ITSM best...
25/04/2012 IT Service Management (ITSM) and Service Desk Implementation Best Practices
IT Service Management & Service Desk implementation is a promising potential which draws an framework of service delivery, although as way of capturing comparative advantages in the face of the...
19/04/2012 COBIT 5 Miscellany
In order to present a 1 day COBIT 5 Update seminar on Friday 13th April, just 3 days after the launch of COBIT 5, I had to make a detailed study of the newly released materials and couple it with my...
10/04/2012 Meet your iceberg. Now in 3D
A service is usually a combination of provider’s behaviour and some pieces of specific resources. From the customer’s perspective a service may seem equal to the resources or to the provider’s...
02/04/2012 CMDB – Just do it
Perhaps the most debated ITIL topic, right after the merits of V3, is the CMDB. Ask 10 people, and depending on temperament, experience and general wind-chill factor, you’ll get 10 different opinions...
20/03/2012 Just how much of a saving is the reduction of heads from an IT support team?
In a bid to meet the demands of an FD who needs to see cost savings across the organisation, often it’s a portion of an IT team that have to go. On the face of it, it’s an easy choice. Those within...
20/03/2012 What Roles are Required for an Effective Service Catalog?
If you think the answer to this simple question is just the service catalog manager, then think again! True, there should be a service catalog manager, or managers depending on the size, scale,...
06/02/2012 There are still opportunities to do more for less
A lot of talk right now revolves around IT projects in 2012 – which mainly means, deciding which projects to scrap due to lack of funds and how to invest the small budget available wisely, as well as...
04/02/2012 BYOD - Bring your own didgeridoo?
I first came across Bring Your Own (BYO) on a visit to Sydney, Australia in 1987. You probably know that it’s a common approach in Australia and New Zealand to the provision of alcoholic drinks in...
17/01/2012 Can lean and ITIL work nicely with each other?
We all understand that ITIL is a best practice framework that is widely used across the IT industry. We know that it can be used to standardize practices, improve quality and reduce cost but why do...
27/12/2011 ITIL 2011 and The Beatles
A holiday challenge. Can you name the Beatles songs used to explain ITIL 2011? ITIL 2011 It seems like years since it’s been clear It’s getting better all the time It’s a thousand pages, give or...
21/12/2011 The Service Desk that could
In my earlier columns I have been arguing that the current ITIL Service Desk model does not work. Now I’m trying to do something much harder, to describe a support model that works. This continues...
16/12/2011 Incident management is not a Service Desk process
I tweeted about this and it seems that it surprised some people so I decided to explain this. Let us first have a look what the books say, as nobody actually reads the books. Incident is according to...
06/12/2011 Process measurement and assessment: why do we do it?
Lost in translation… again. We talk, write and read a lot about process measurement and assessment. Various models have been developed to assess IT processes from various perspectives. We try to...
02/12/2011 Should CIOs report to the CEO or the CFO?
The Forrester Community for CIOs has been debating during the past two months whether the CIO should report to the CEO . Its small group of contributing CIOs agreed 100%.. Earlier this year,...
28/11/2011 Ambiguity of ITIL Definitions – Inherent Communication Risk
In the October column, we discussed diversity of: stakeholders’ functional perspective (e.g., business, architecture, development, operations) educational and cultural backgrounds languages and...
23/11/2011 Service Desk is an obsolete model
The concept of help desk was originally invented in 1970’s but it got its current form in 1980’s and became popular in 1990’s. The Single Point Of Contact (SPOC) was a service innovation as...
15/11/2011 Can I have the Check, please?
The Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle is loved by all because it makes complete sense and couldn’t be simpler. Yet, through no fault of its own, it has two failings. Each of the 4 stages are likely to be...
10/11/2011 An Emerging Benchmark in IT Operations
Among several of the most common questions asked over my past 12 years of ITSM Consulting is “What is the industry benchmark for …”? How many people? Traditionally, one has gone to sources such as...