Complex systems are by definition broken. They will always break and sometimes they will break when everybody did what they are supposed to. Fixing the problem won't necessarily reduce the risk of another incident.

It's a tough life being a consultant. Here is a peek behind the scenes at the IT Skeptic working on IT governance research in one of the corporate breakout areas on the Two Hills headquarters campus:

[Updated with a Health Warning] Recently I wrote "It seems Technical Service Catalogue is often misunderstood to mean a catalogue of different services from those in the Business Service Catalogue. It's not. It is a different view of the same services". And those views are quite complex.

Why not? Everyone else has tried to list what they are, right after they tried to define what Cloud Computing is. My turn.

It is not too late to sign up for Pink Elephant's 14th Annual ITSM Conference in Las Vegas next month. I'll see you there. If you come along, we'll be introducing an entirely new feature: an Exhibit Hall Optimizer. I have created the EHOBOK, the Exhibit Hall Optimizer Body Of Knowledge, as a tool for you to extract maximum value from the vendor exhibits, usually a dead zone for some of us at a conference. Check it out on the Conference blog and discover important principles such as

It is pernicious the way the vendors and analysts talk as if CMDB is a given. In fact it is more than a given, it is “the heart and soul of service management” apparently, according to an email about an itSMF Brighttalk. No it isn’t. 95% of sites don’t have a CMDB. Perhaps that explains why service management is so heartless and soulless. And now it is happening with CMS - which by the way doesn't exist. [Updated January 2010]

With a new itSMF Board meeting as we speak, perhaps it is salient to review what we got in 2009 as members of itSMF and ISACA, two similar-sized organisations with supposedly similar functions and similar annual membership fees. I've written before about how the two are chalk and cheese, and that remains true.

The itSMF International Executive Board is meeting right now, and has announced the result of the latest Board election to replace the outgoing Sharon Taylor. The new Board member is Marianna Billington, an active member of itSMF New Zealand. And they have elected the new Chair, David Cannon.

Three loosely connected thoughts about root cause:

For all those who have paid lots of money to be accredited ITIL V3 training organisations (ATOs), be aware that APMG-International the Examination institute (EI) - as compared to their parent APMG Group the official OGC accreditor of all EIs - is not directing any business your way if you accredited through another EI. You know who your friends are in the ITIL world.

Automate to make systems more reliable. Automate to make them more effective. Even automate to make them more efficient. But don't automate to eliminate people, at least not if the system is mission critical. You need even more highly trained, professionally-alert staff, to step in when it all goes pear-shaped. And it will.

It seems Technical Service Catalogue is often misunderstood to mean a catalogue of different services from those in the Business Service Catalogue. It's not. It is a different view of the same services. ITIL SD 4.1.4 sadly refers to "supporting services, shared services" within the TSC which I think contributes to the confusion, but diagram 4.3 makes it clear - the services are the same in both, just the perspective and detail differ because of the different audiences: internal and external.

The IT Skeptic has made some New Year resolutions for a better IT Service Management - read them here