Incidents overwhelm problems

Submitted by skeptic on Sun, 2009-03-01 21:49

Problems suffer from the important/urgent dilemma. They are very important but struggle to get attention in the less mature shops over the incoming bombardment of incidents.

This is over simplistic but cute

Blog SLA change and service interruption

Submitted by skeptic on Fri, 2009-02-27 20:55

Dear user,

The IT Skeptic is unilaterally revising your SLA.
To make the change, there will be an outage on Monday, March 2nd sometime between the hours of 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. MST.
Have a nice day and thank-you for choosing the IT Skeptic

Regards,
Webmaster

Contingency planning

Submitted by skeptic on Fri, 2009-02-27 09:04

As the recession deepens, perhaps we need to lighten up some and make sure we don't over-spend on risk mitigation.

Beetil: a new entrant in the ITSM/ITIL SaaS tools market

Submitted by skeptic on Fri, 2009-02-27 01:22

Here's an interesting new entrant in the SaaS ITSM/ITIL market, Beetil. You can trial it for free.

How much good user feedback is lost by the Service Desk?

Submitted by skeptic on Wed, 2009-02-25 00:51

I'm a good citizen of the internet communities I inhabit. If something is not useful to me or could be improved, then I generally use the written contact mechanism to let them know. I'm a smart guy and tech-savvy so my messages are - I hope - pretty clear and to the point (if a bit abrasive - it's just the Antipodean in me). But I don't have a good success rate with them.

Real ITSM group on LinkedIn

Submitted by skeptic on Tue, 2009-02-24 22:46

itSMFI are celebrating their 1000th LinkedIn group member (congratulations Sue!). Real ITSM is of course much more important to the industry so surely we can get the Real ITSM group to 100 members? Currently we are at 78. If everyone who isn't a member joins and everyone who is invites one friend along we'll blow the 100 easily.

Nicholas Carr and the demise of journalism

Submitted by skeptic on Mon, 2009-02-23 05:10

I just finished writing my non-review of The Cult of the Amateur when I found that Carr's at it too. Nicholas Carr of course. Apparently he too believes blogging is going to lead to the demise of professional journalism. What is it with otherwise intelligent people that they have to extrapolate a trend linearly to an apocalyptic conclusion? It shows a complete failure to grasp even the basics of systems theory.

Not a review of Cult of the Amateur

Submitted by skeptic on Mon, 2009-02-23 04:46

This post has been podcast.
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.

The rules of ITIL V3 certification and training

Submitted by skeptic on Fri, 2009-02-20 21:54

APMG have published a book of rules for ITIL V3 certification and training. This is excellent, exactly the kind of thing that should be public. We now look forward to OGC, itSMF and TSO doing the same in other areas, such as:

  • acceptance of Complementary publications
  • contractual agreements between the entities (for example did you know that itSMF have a contractual agreement with APMG to “use all reasonable endeavours to promote and market their services worldwide”)
  • itSMF member code of conduct
  • IPESC charter and approvals process
  • itSMF charter(s) and constitution(s)

The booklet is excellent. It lays out just what we need to know. More of this please, Castle ITIL.

There were a few interesting bits...

itSMF International needs to unite the ITIL community

Submitted by skeptic on Fri, 2009-02-20 03:08

itSMF International is creating a committee to improve the development of chapters. This is a Good Thing, great to see.

I humbly suggest that chapter development is just part of a bigger issue for itSMFI: chapter integration. This is the dead elephant in itSMF's room: the problem so big that everyone studiously ignores it.

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