The IT Skeptic - Comments for "Planning for ITIL V3 - or staying with ITIL V2 "

clunkers for cash

skeptic — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:47:27 +0000

Actually a good 74 Kingswood will cost you $20,000 to $30,000. They rust out in the maritime environment (which is all of NZ). Even in Aussie they are getting rare because they race them over there and are slowly trashing them all. So it is more clunkers for cash.

P.S. what's a Rambler? :) (Yeah i do actually know but I'm not sure I've ever seen one)

New car right ?

buraddo — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:26:52 +0000

They are still selling 1974 HQ Kingswoods new in NZ right ? People are trading in "Ramblers" in a very special cash for clunkers scheme :)

Brad Vaughan

Kingswood

skeptic — Tue, 05 May 2009 08:35:17 +0000

Now this my friends is a Kingswood. Found the old photo today. Nearly shed a tear. Ain't he handsome? (Most cars are "she". Kingies aren't, not for me anyway)
Holden Kingswood HQ 1974

He came to a terrible end

Sniff.

I’m inclined to agree.

Visitor — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:43:36 +0000

I’m inclined to agree. The challenge with IT-based capabilities is that they are seldom perceived as services and hence not designed and managed as services to customers. Instead, they are managed as a collection of admin routines where efficiency and costs are the main levers of control. Predictably, customers therefore see IT as a collection of back-office administrators rather than as a service provider.

Efficiency and costs are important but they are seldom enough. The natural inclination for many IT organizations is to work on so-called pragmatic activities focused on “business as usual – only better” or “the one best way.” This approach often solves the wrong problems, improving services in ways that are either irrelevant or too inflexible to customers' needs. A well-designed Incident Management process, for instance, is irrelevant if customers require services that never break down. Or worse, competitors offer the same services which never break down.

When IT management doesn’t grasp the concept of services, they inevitably miss key factors. For example, services are inherently relational. (This point is missed when we say the purpose of IT is to “manage data flow.” That’s the purpose of the technology.) Unlike a hammer or automobile--which can be inspected for quality before it leaves the factory—IT services only exist during the act of consumption. The real challenge, therefore, is to identify what customers perceive as value – and only then converting these desired outcomes into appropriate responses (by cycling quickly through the organizational learning cycle; AKA the service lifecycle). In practice, this is seldom easy.

Incident, Problem, Change

ITIL citizen — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:20:10 +0000

Most organizations I worked with a couple years ago had made great progress towards implementing Incident, problem and Change.
Configuration Management was always a Utopia, and Release was controlled by the developers who snubbed their noses at ITIL, because they have their own processes which were working just fine.

I think the benefit of V3 is that it promotes perception of IT as a Service. I think it may be too early for many people to wrap their heads around this concept. In many of my courses a few years ago, I warned particpants "start thinking of IT as a Service" because every book in the next version will have that word in the book titles.

I think the main difficulty is not the ability of people to think of IT as a Service but it is the political ramifications that come with it.........

ITIL V3 the next generation

Visitor — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:40:06 +0000

Hi All,

Not sure if this is relevant but it does show that changes are happening in awareness.

Just got through interviewing people for a change management position.
One of the general questions asked was "Can you name the Service Support Processes?"
One response, "I don't know those V2 processes, I know V3."

SO we asked if he could name the goal of change.... he could not.

Hang heads in shame

JamesFinister — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:19:30 +0000

I've been delaying responding to this post in order to avoid an overly emotional response, but of course the Skep and Liz have hit the nail on the head. Back when I started delivering v1 training we were helping people not only see the world differently, but also to change the world they inhabited. sometimes that meant opening their eyes to what was possible, sometimes it meant them realising, in a positive way, that the world we were presenting wasn't one they could buy in to. If training doesn't chnage things, what is the point of it?

many leave the course the same as when they started

skeptic — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:44:00 +0000

What a great line Liz! "many leave the course the same as when they started, except with an exam pass".

I wrote in the past about the dangers of the freshly sheep-dipped Foundation graduates out to change the world. Somehow I feel that won't be such an issue with V3 Foundation.

or is it just a teething problem? As we get more comfortable with V3, and as we hone the best areas to focus on, and maybe even the syllabus improves again, could the situation change and we start cranking out ITIL happy-clappers again?

V2 training IS still available - despite attempts to kill it off

Liz Gallacher — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:23:38 +0000

Individual trainers (and in the UK, most trainers are like me - freelancers who work for a number of organisations) are mostly pretty to very unhappy teaching V3. We do not benefit from more training courses - we mostly are working to capacity anyway. We DO have to learn the new materials, to a level that we are happy to explain to others, answer questions etc. We have to pay our own money to sit all of the exams, before we can teach them - being an ITIL expert is not enough, apparently. (On this point, Richard Pharro of APMG defended the rule by saying that you would not want someone who studied medieval history in their degree teaching you modern or ancient history. As a History graduate, I had to tell him that that was fundamentally wrong - it is the skills in analysis, examination of evidence etc. which history teaches you, that can then me applied to any period - the same is true for ITIL - once you an an Expert certainly if you achieved that through the Managers certificate + Managers Bridge route, you can apply that "Wisdom" to any given service management area or issue).
Most trainers I speak say the same as those James has spoken to - the courses are superficial, rushed, talk about issues that are of no interest to the average student, etc., Most frustrating of all, many leave the course the same as when they started, except with an exam pass. With most V2 courses, students leave with a new awareness, often a plan to do something practical.
As a small Training Provider, as well as a freelance trainer, I find a healthy demand for V2 training still exists, which I am happy to satisfy. However many training companies rely on sales staff who cannot comprehend the differences between V2 and V3, and so it is easier for them to only have one flavour to sell. Many people do not realise that V2 is still available.
A many people have said, V2 Foundation was an excellent course which enthused people. (Practitioner level was less successful, and Managers too difficult for the majority). If V3 had expanded the V2 Foundation's detailed explanation of several useful processes with an explanation of the Lifecycle, and left the detail to the Intermediate level classes, I think we would all be much happier. Many students leaving a V3 foundation course are glad to pass the exam, but see no relevance of what they have learnt. V2 students are often asking " How can I learn more about this?"
I suspect that after massive course development work, training providers may find that the demand for classes reduces, as more and more people come back to their workplace with less than enthusiastic feedback about the courses they have attended.

Liz Gallacher
Freelance Trainer and Consultant

Not a conspiracy

skeptic — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 11:47:59 +0000

Not a conspiracy, just the wrong people designing it.

The courses are short to make them easy to sell and cheap to deliver.
The material is standardised and short so trainers don't have to be experts.
The material is by the book so it can be easily examined by multichoice
Multichoice is used so marking is automated = big savings

Does that follow?

JamesFinister — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 11:27:38 +0000

Given a choice between a conspiracy theory and a c**k up I alwasys presume the latter. I can't see how the flaws in the training scheme really benefit the training providers.

I prefer to think, that like much of ITIL v3, the training has been developed too far away from the real world, with insufficnet input from the real experts and without learning lessons from previous mistakes.

training designed by the vendors for the vendors

skeptic — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 09:19:57 +0000

Summarising that, James:

ITIL3 training is training designed by the vendors for the vendors, for maximum profit not maximum value

Or less

JamesFinister — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 09:16:45 +0000

Talking to training providers I respect the message seems consistent:

- ITIL 3 is training to the book
- There is too much material to cover anything at a level that isn't superficial
- There is not enough time for exercises and debate to build a practical understanding
- Much of the material is irrelevant to the needs of the delegates or their organisations

**** you - I want V2 training

skeptic — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 01:45:00 +0000

I believe the market is still there for V2 training.
V3 still has not delivered the guidance on how a newbie organisation climbs the V3 mountain, and until they do consumers should hang tough and say "no **** you - I want V2 training and I'll not be bullied into V3 just to aid your profitability"

Imho, the only impact that

Timo — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:00:07 +0000

Imho, the only impact that v3 2ill have on your organization is that you will have to pay more to get people through v3 training. But they will learn same fundamental stuff you would in v2, from the perspective of applying it in this infancy "sitting down" stage your organization is in now. So, I would not worry about it one bit.

Ending V2 training courses

rpmason — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:33:58 +0000

We're one of those organizations "sitting down" - still trying to adapt ITIL (Service Support only) to our world. Several people have V2 Foundations and a few have Practitioners. I received an email yesterday from an international vendor saying that their last U.S. V2 public courses will be in December. If the others are following suit, we'll be forced to move to V3 unless we can fill up in-house training classes.