skeptic's blog

This post is longer than normal but you may find it entertaining as an example of

1. how not to do Level 1 support. All the politeness in the world is no substitute for actually listening, and having some understanding of the environment
2. where email-based support (as compared to actually talking to people) can go wrong
   

Yet another unhappy camper prompted me to hammer on the cold stone walls of Castle ITIL once again, right over the blood-stains of last time I tried. But I won't. I give up. ITIL training and certification isn't going to change. It has been taken over by the money engine and is lost. The real experts are elsewhere.

That's "self-assessment " in the ITSM sense, not the new-age self-help sense.

I'd appreciate it if readers with a spare moment wander over to Real ITSM and take a look at the Assessment [oops! fixed the link]. (C'mon! it beats working). While you do, think about the potential:

The Benchmark is Real ITSM but it could just as easily be something else (and more than one).

I did some work a while ago on SM in SMEs (that's Service Management in Small to Medium Enterprises of course: SMISME? SM4SME [the one I use]? SMESM?). When seen through the distorting lens of SME priorities, frameworks like ITIL look pretty different. Every 70s deadbeat like this writer knew that you can learn by tripping out, so it is enlightening for us to look at ITIL in REALLY small organisations. I wrote an article about it on bITaPlanet.

It is an interesting question: is there a useful distinction between organisational change and administrative production change?

Should we maintain the two concepts as distinct because their natures are so different?

Or should we treat them the same and see one as a small subset at the execution end of the other?

And if so, which is a subset of which? - you'll get opposite answers depending who you ask.

Triggered by a good point made by Burrado.

"Change is about people. Without people, change doesn't happen. Without their assent, buy-in, cooperation, enthusiasm and effort, change doesn't happen. it seems this can't be said too often. The latest survey from McKinsey Quarterly Creating organizational transformations (McKinseys being an analyst firm whose crap factoids are less crap than most) says it all:

[Updated: duh! how could I have forgotten ValIT?] Those who say "COBIT is the what and ITIL the how" either haven't read COBIT, are oversimplifying or are being excessively polite to ITIL.

The long awaited ITIL V3 - COBIT V4.1 mapping white paper is available ... for a price. This is the final paper in a long-awaited series that answer the question left unanswered by the ITIL V3 books - how does ITIL relate to the standards and frameworks around it? The answer is that ITIL is very much a subset of COBIT's more comprehensive coverage.

Welcome to the new-look IT Skeptic. Nothing major: I took advantage of some standardisation of the underlying infrastructure to do some minor decorating, avoiding ETF.

Apparently the IT job market is a great generator of traffic. So much so that any story will do. Up one day, down the next.

Competitions are hard work on this blog. You lot need to spend less time working and more time futzing around on websites. Remember nobody lies on their deathbed thinking "I wish I had spent more time working". The winner of the IT Skeptic's Rogues Gallery photo competition from a small but strong field is

ITIL v3 has shed the down-home, amateur grittiness that provided its appeal, as I wrote recently in ITSM Watch.

Its new commercialism might help ITIL’s appeal in some sectors but it diminishes it in others. While the largest organisations and the Service Management zealots have all embraced ITIL v3 with fervour, many of the less obsessive are lukewarm in their enthusiasm for v3.

[Update: The IT Skeptic's new book is out, and is the prize for best photo in our competition by end of August. LAST DAYS TO ENTER! (if you already have the book you can take a raincheck on the next one!)]

Readers of this website can be assumed to have a certain non-conformist spirit and at least a modicum of independent thought, so "Rogues Gallery" is an appropriate name for images of readers. send us your photo wearing an IT Skeptic T-shirt or cap, or waving an IT Skeptic coffee mug Wally-fashion, and you can join the Rogues Gallery of IT Skeptics.

Best photo contributed by end of August wins a copy of the IT Skeptic's new book (gotta be out by then, surely?)

Question for readers: am I being oversensitive on your behalf or do they have a damned gall? There is a company that wants to pay me advertising revenues to promote free magazines and white papers to you. OK fine, great idea. Except

You can have CMDB for free.