project

IT project portfolios are bursting while BAU crumbles!

skeptic — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 04:08:30 -0600

Perhaps it is just New Zealand, but I'm seeing a pattern amongst a majority of clients where IT operations business as usual (BAU) is crumbling under the load of project work.

Why IT projects fail: underspend

skeptic — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 14:00:56 -0600

Here's my theory on why so many IT projects fail to deliver the expected result: we underspend on what matters.

The IT Skeptic presents on Owning ITIL

skeptic — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:23:47 -0600

Here is a presentation given to the New Zealand Computer Society on 25th June 2009, on the topic of "Owning ITIL". it covers why ITIL is pretty much always a project, what to watch out for in ITIL projects (ITIL the Cult, ITIl the fad, CMDB can't be done...), what to expect from ITIL.

Owning ITIL: project horror stories

skeptic — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:01:19 -0600

[Bump to top - any more good stories out there? ] The IT Skeptic's new book Owning ITIL® is out now. The first ten people who contribute an accepted ITIL project horror story get a free copy of the book.

Checklist post ITIL implementation review

skeptic — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:35:34 -0600

14 questions for a post-ITIL-implementation review

1. How has this changed the way people think, speak and act? Describe instances/anecdotes.
2. What has been the feedback from customers? Suppliers?
3. How did we measure success? Did we measure against something other than ITIL? Did we succeed?
4. What has been re-scoped, deferred or dropped since the business case?
5. Are we measuring the ROI? When will we review again to check that we got the ROI expected in the business case?

Checklist progress of an ITIL project

skeptic — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:43:51 -0600

14 questions to check on progress of an ITIL project

1. Have you encountered resistance? (Resistance is good). How have you / will you overcome that? (Ignored resistance is bad)
2. What champions have you ‘converted’ to the cause, who weren’t on board at the beginning?
3. What cultural change activities have you conducted: workshopping, communications (newsletters etc), consultation, walkthroughs, training, coaching, monitoring, feedback, celebration? NB. Emails don’t count as communication

Checklist ITIL project proposal

skeptic — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:02:37 -0600

14 questions to ask about an ITIL project proposal

1. What is the vision? What is the strategy to achieve that vision?
2. What is the driving need or requirement?
3. How will success be measured? Relative to what benchmark measured now? Are we measuring with something other than ITIL? (See p36) Do the metrics measure the benefits stated in the business case?
4. What process maturity level(s) is the objective? (see p36)

PRINCE2 2009 refresh spookily familiar to ITIL users

skeptic — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:40:44 -0600

PRINCE2 gets a new version this year. For those who went through ITIL V3 Refresh, it is deja vu all over again.

Dead cat syndrome

skeptic — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 04:14:22 -0700

[Hi! IF you came looking for insight into the rebounding world economy, you are looking for Dead Cat Bounce. This post below is about IT project management. But thanks for dropping in! If you are interested in IT, please take a look around]

One of the things ITIL3 improves is the whole development/production interface, introducing radical concepts like production readiness, acceptance, evaluation... oh and testing. Heady stuff. But something that was omitted from ITIL V3 was documentation of Dead Cat Syndrome.

Project Mgmt in ITIL V3 - The IT Skeptic

skeptic — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:37:42 -0600

A podcast of the original article Why is Project Management almost invisible in ITIL V3?

PM is the engine that moves much stuff (hopefully just about everything) from Development to Production, which is pretty important now that ITIL has muscled into Application Management. PM should interlock with Change Management and Testing. PM should provide most of the Early Life Support. Release and Deployment shouldn't move without PM: if it is big enough to be a release it should be a project. And so on.