book review

Creating and Driving Service Excellence looks like a handy tool for selling ITSM to the bosses.

I didn't read The CMDB Imperative (that's the second time I started a review with that idea). I didn't read it because (a) you've got to be pretty keen on CMDBs to stick with the dry content (although the authors do as good as anyone could to make it palatable) and (b) because I fundamentally disagree with it, which dragged me down after a while. I got to about page 180 and then...

The IT Skeptic was pretty scathing of Malcolm Fry's first ITIL V3 Complementary Publication, Building an ITIL-Based Service Management Department. Personally I wouldn't buy it (again). Malcolm's second "official" V3 book ITIL Lite is different. It is worth buying just for Chapter 2: "a simple but effective approach to ITIL process engineering". I got several great ideas from it and the overall methodology is a good one. But ITIL Lite has several fundamental assumptions that many will disagree with. These assumptions will mislead an already confused user community, and I think they spoil the rest of the book.

Some time ago I purchased the official OGC ITIL book Building an ITIL-Based Service Management Department but I have not got around to reviewing it until now. Part of my slowness stems from my disappointment with the book, and partly I was holding off to see what others thought. I hold Malcolm Fry in high regard: I expected much better and I wondered if maybe I had missed something. Apparently not.

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Months ago I set out to read Cult of the Amateur, by Andrew Keen, Doubleday 2007. I want to review this book but I can't because it makes me so angry I can't finish it. I fling it across the room and leave it for weeks before I try again. So far I've made to page 19. I can't recall when I last read such an irrationally emotive, ill-informed, unbalanced diatribe. I even include here my own writings. What makes it worse is that my own opinions are not that far from the author's - I should be a cheerleader. But he just talks crap.

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[Updated: My review of ITIL V3 "Service Strategy" is no longer available at the original website so I am reposting it here.] If V2 taught us how to walk, V3 teaches us to run. Trouble is, many organizations are still sitting down.

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Can the five core ITIL V3 books be compressed into one without significant loss of content? Yes it would seem so, looking at the itSMF's ITSM Library book Foundations of IT Service Management Based on ITIL V3. How useful is the result? Worth having but still not an all-out replacement for the Five for the simple reason that it isn't the official version.

The Official Introduction to the ITIL Service Lifecycle is a great book, very useful. It is the book that ITIL Version 3 needed. But now there is another official book produced by OGC that may just be a better place for ITIL Version 3 beginners to start.

A Review of "IT Service Management from Hell! Based on Not-ITIL®" by Brian Johnson and Paul Wilkinson, editor Annelise Savill

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IT Service Management from Hell is a silly book. And along the way it makes some serious points. A balanced view of anything is far healthier than blind obedience. Give this book to your staff to lighten the mood and stimulate discussion around ITIL.

Recently the IT Skeptic was given a review copy of the book “I Think Something is Missing from ITIL” by the author, Ian Clayton. While the influence of Clayton’s ongoing scrap with the ITIL powers-that-be colours the book and gives personal or negative content too much space, it still forms a powerful critique of ITIL, and even more importantly a fascinating set of ideas for where ITIL should be.