terminology

CMDB: what does it really mean

skeptic — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 15:34:36 -0700

"CMDB" means many things to many people. When the IT Skeptic debates against "CMDB" or "CMS" what I really mean is "that huge IT Monument to unnecessary technology which is known to the vendors and their sucker buyers as CMDB". Unfortunately the more precise label is a bit ponderous :) The term CMDB which was originally a label for a Generic Thing has become hijacked to be the label for a Great Big Technology.

Good practice and best practice

skeptic — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:50:57 -0600

ITIL V3 did a little word dance around what "good practice" and "best practice" mean which had more to do with political semantics and digging themselves out of a hole than it did about what the terms really mean. It ought to be straightforward:

Job title inflation is out of control

skeptic — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:22:14 -0600

Job title inflation is out of control. Mr X's job is to give "high-level strategy, corporate vision" to the suits at Fortune 500 clients of a US software vendor, and to do "orchestration of solution sales cycles". In other words he's a high-powered presales guy. His job title? Vice President. There was a time when a Vice President was the sidekick to the President. Now he's the sidekick to the salesman. I bet this is a salary-banding thing. Either that or corporate America has gone mad. Or both.

Terminological debasement of governance

skeptic — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 19:27:59 -0600

Two excellent publications recently commented on what I call terminological debasement of the term "governance".

What should IT call the Rest Of The Business?

skeptic — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 12:44:30 -0600

IT serves the Business. But we are all generally agreed that we must stop talking about "IT and the Business". IT is part of the business. The users of IT include IT itself. Talk of IT as a distinct entity ("align IT and the busienss") is a Bad Thing. So what should we call it?

The word all consultants and writers should avoid: "must"

skeptic — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:35:21 -0600

I am trying to drive a word out of my vocabulary: "must".

Terminological debasement: a committee becomes a board

skeptic — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 01:16:53 -0700

In a recent announcement from APMG, the IT Skeptic identifies a troubling new terminological debasement trend. Apparently a committee is now a board. We had the Combined Strategy Board, the ITIL Qualifications Board. Now we have the Foundation Review Project Board. Come to think of it, ITIL has been doing this for a while: since when was a CAB anything but a committee?

ITIL product compliance

skeptic — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:08:22 -0600

[updated: it seems salient to revisit this post. To the vendor who proudly declared on this blog that your product is "ITIL aligned" you might like to measure that "alignment" against this list. ("Aligned" is the new slippery-speak now that "compliant" is on the nose)]

The IT Skeptic’s ITIL Compliance Alignment Criteria

ISO38500 may be too late; the word "governance" is rapidly equalling "management"

skeptic — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 19:03:54 -0600

The word "governance" is in danger of total debasement. ISO38500 may be only half-cooked but that is because it arrived just in time... or perhaps too late.

What Governance Isn't

skeptic — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 01:57:03 -0600

Governance is hot. "Governance" is the "in" word right now in IT. It is also a word that is suffering badly from terminological debasement, something the IT Skeptic has railed against on this blog before. Look for more on this in the near future.