One year ago Rob England's (a.k.a. The IT Skeptic) book “Introduction to Real ITSM” was translated to Russian. A second book of the author is now also available for Russian-reading audience.

Owning ITIL is actually a “Skeptical Guide for Decision Makers”. Rob England explains the most important aspects of practical application of ITIL. According to the author, ITIL is now “plummeting down the other side of the Hype Curve into the Trough of Disillusionment”. But in Russia and other CIS countries it is still “soaring to the top of the Hype Curve”. Many ITIL consultants and their victims (customers) in these countries are really in need of independent and sober view on ITSM projects and practices they consider or experience. “Owning ITIL” is more then well-timed now.

“Every IT department in the world is at least pondering ITIL”, says Rob England.  “As the ITIL projects proliferate, this book is for the executives who must fund them or manage them, and for those who ask those executives for money. It's important that they hear the other side. ITIL is often very badly done (zealous, anal, officious, misdirected, overblown, dogmatic, theoretical, detached...), and people's bad experience results in them blaming ITIL itself while the cause is often in misunderstanding, misinterpretation and misuse, and never in ITIL itself. The book explains, in lay-manager’s terms, what ITIL is. It reveals what ITIL is good for, what it is bad at, what to expect from it. It describes how to ensure an ITIL project succeeds, what to look for in the business case, and how to measure the results. I'm delighted to see it appear in Russian because I'd love to spread the message as widely as possible”.

The book is translated by Cleverics. Roman Jouravlev, director of education at Cleverics: “It was a great pleasure to translate Rob’s book. He proved again that ‘talking seriously’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘talking tediously’. And I’m sure that besides the pleasure the book brings real value from owning ITIL to a reader. IT professionals in our country experience a lack of practical guidance in Russian (in fact, as well as theoretical materials) and we at Cleverics are aiming to provide them with a little help in this area.”

About the author
The IT Skeptic is a commentator on IT's sillier moments, especially those related to ITSM in general and ITIL in particular. This is not because the IT Skeptic wishes to focus on ITIL – it is just that ITIL and itSMF provide such great material for a skeptic. The IT Skeptic is the pseudonym of Rob England, an IT consultant and commentator. Although he works around the ITIL industry, he is self-employed and explores other non-ITIL ventures. He has twenty years experience mapping business requirements to IT solutions, ten of them in service management. He has written many articles and papers, and several books. He is active in the itSMF (the professional body for ITIL) and a member of ACM, ISACA and the NZ Computer Society. He is also a paid-up Skeptic. He has been around. He lives with his wife and son in a small house in a small village in a small country far away.