itSMF International Seeking Publications Partner

Submitted by skeptic on Thu, 2009-08-20 20:37

itSMF has gone to RFP for a publisher for itSMF's own publications. The relationship with Van Haren has ended (Along with finally prying the brand from itSMFUK's grasp, dissociating from VHP is another of the old itSMF roots falling away. Watch with interest for VHP's next moves - they are likely to be canny ones). I doubt itSMFI are rushing into TSO's arms.

Job title inflation is out of control

Submitted by skeptic on Tue, 2009-08-18 10:22

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.

Is ITIL KEDB so important or should we always look broader?

Submitted by skeptic on Tue, 2009-08-18 01:34

A discussion on LinkedIn prompted me to comment that KEDB is a subset of knowledge management for service desk. I think it is important to take a broader view and provide access to more general information about solutions to incidents and resolutions to requests, not just workarounds to known errors. I've seen folk micro-design that one bit without considering a more generally useful system. I never quite understood why ITIL seems fixated on KEDB, giving it a disproportionate amount of attention vis-a-vis the more general support knowledgebase. Thoughts?

Confused change management in ITIL V3

Submitted by skeptic on Sun, 2009-08-16 10:35

I believe ITIL has aspirations beyond its station. ITIL is an operational framework for IT production environments. So long as it knows its place and sticks to it, all is well. But every now and then it gets an inflated view of its own importance and starts poking into the development aspects of IT, or worse still the strategic ones. This is an example of the latter, where the book is confused between operational and strategic aspects of change. The forums are littered with confused postings.

Say it ain't so!! ITIL V3 Incident and Problem processes do not determine the affected service

Submitted by skeptic on Wed, 2009-08-12 03:15

This BOKKE (body of knowledge known error) has been posted for a day or so, hundreds of views. I was sure someone would say "no you idiot, service impact analysis is right here" but not one. It seems to be true.

SO 4.2 Incident Management process never determines the service

Submitted by skeptic on Mon, 2009-08-10 07:00

[corrected:] At no point in section 4.2, Incident Management, is determing the service ever mentioned. in fact services in general are hardly ever mentioned, other than refering to SLAs (for details see comment below).

Not even in incident categorisation or prioritisation or any activity. There is no mention of service impact analysis.

The CMS is only accessed to 'identify the CIs affected' and get 'relationships between CIs'. The Service Catalogue apparently doesn't exist.

The IT Skeptic looks at the COBIT Body of Knowledge - a layman's view

Submitted by skeptic on Mon, 2009-08-10 03:45

This is a video (and synchronised powerpoint) of a presentation by the IT Skeptic given to itSMFnz Wellington chapter on "the COBIT Body of Knowledge - a layman's view". 42 minutes, no download required.
Using COBIT as the framework for ITSM, ITIL shouldn’t be centre of the universe: COBIT as more than just an Audit Tool

Crap Factoid Alert: Implementing an IT Service Management Solution Can Save a Business More than $500,000

Submitted by skeptic on Wed, 2009-08-05 21:35

Chokey the Chimp says today's Crap Factoid danger is HIGH. Axios Systems have released a classic piece of crap that will spread rapidly. Watch your shoe soles.

The value of CMDB seldom exceeds the cost of doing it

Submitted by skeptic on Tue, 2009-08-04 02:38

Let us summarise the skeptical arguments focused around the value of CMDB . [Updated to move some text up from comments]

Does a cloud computing infrastructure obviate the need for IT Service Management systems?

Submitted by skeptic on Sun, 2009-08-02 20:40

Does a cloud computing infrastructure obviate the need for IT Service Management systems? The IT Skeptic thinks not.

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