Monday, October 29, 2007

Pink Elephant Australia

Rumour is that Pink Elephant may have closed their operation in Australia.
Stay tuned for updates - but this will be an interesting development for one of the more popular ITIL markets.

Well, there is a press release and what they have done is assign all the activities of the Aussie operation to Auldhouse.

This is a copycat of what Pink and Auldhouse set up in New Zealand. Interesting comment from David Ratcliff, the President of Pink globally says in the press release "it will also enhance Pink Elephant’s commitment to customers in the region"

Oh come on, David it shows anything but that... Pink is hopping out of the Australian market to concentrate on bigger fish and have set up a agency agreement with another company to look after what is a relatively small but vibrant market.

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Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Service Transition says it nicely

We often talk about the difference between IT Service Management and ITIL. My comments are bound to strike and accord with some and bound to be violently rejected by others. Anyway, I have an opinion and I'm entitled to it.

IT Service Management is the broader view of the elements that IT professionals need to be interested in. In the first pages of the new ITIL v3 Service Transition text the authors promote 4 types of IT assets that have to be managed: infrastructure, applications, information and people.

To me, the procurement and management of these assets can be considered as the focus area of interest for IT Service Management.

ITIL has a primary focus on one element: process management of the infrastructure. I will grant in that in ITIL v3 there is a strong recognition that all elements need to be considered together. However, if we assume that ITIL is part of the solution then we can start to understand the difference between IT Service Management and ITIL.

ITIL is not an application/software development methodology, nor is it a tool that has a speciality interest in knowledge (information) management. ITIL does not provide guidelines for people management; but it is an very useful set of guidelines that can assist IT people understand the things that have to be done when it comes to managing infrastructure.

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Service Offerings and Analysis (SO and A)

One of the four Service Capability programs that SO A syllabus outlines the learning equirements.

The course is available only to those who hold the v3 ITIL Foundation certificate or the v3 Foundation Bridge (available to those who hold an early version of ITIL Foundation).

SO and A focuses on process areas related to communication and negotiation. Specifically, the Service Catalog Management, Serive Portfolio Management, Service Level Management, Demand and Supplier Management. Also included in this course is Financial Management and Business Relationship Management.

It is obviously a course for those involved in stratgic planning of IT Services, as well as management of relationships between customers and suppliers.

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Monday, October 15, 2007

Self imposed Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA)

Those of us familiar with ITIL v2 will be comfortable with the concept of a CFIA (Component Failure Impact Analysis).

For whatever reason this logical tool has been replaced in ITIL v3 with the FMEA - Failure Modes and Effect Analysis.

Now, while I don't complain about the changing of a name, I do object to losing the knowledge regarding the concept. The only reference I can find to the FMEA is a Glossary entry in the ITIL v3 Service Strategy book and a very small reference in the section describing a Business Impact Analysis (BIA).

Tell me through comments if you can find it anywhere else. But this is a huge faux pas considering that v3 is a replacement for v2. At least in the Service Delivery text we saw a description and a diagram for the CFIA and it made sense.

In future, all the reader will have for FMEA is cryptic reference to the fact that it is a good thing to do as part of a BIA and a minor explaination that is only useful for those who have "been around a while".

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Friday, October 12, 2007

Delay for Managers Bridge exam + Potential changes to Foundation syllabus

Word is out that the Managers bridge exam is to be delayed, due to the exams "not being balanced across the whole syllabus".

In the same release is a statement hinting at the possibility that the v3 Foundation syllabus may be too heavily weighted towards Service Strategy and Continual Service Improvement.

It would appear that this is a case of "about time". However, on the positive side it is an indication that complaints are actually heard and acted upon. However, how did we reach this situation in the first place.

The blame (for want of a better word) has to rest entirely with the parties on the examination panel responsible for the syllabus and ultimately the Chief Examiner for ITIL v3 - Sharon Taylor.

It would appear to this skeptic that the examination panel is made up of Service Management gurus and not one specialist education analyst amongst them. Was it not apparent that the qantum leap from v2 to v3 had to be handled very carefully and not simply scanning the table of contents and picking concepts at random.

Perhaps the Foundation course for v3 should not include Service Strategy and the Service Lifecycle at all. Keep the entry level for what will deliver the most benefit for the majority of people interested in it - discussions about process activities.

Is it really necessary to introduce the 4 activities of Strategy Generation at this early stage. Save that stuff for those that have an interest.

Is it too late to regain the lost ground - time will tell - what is important is that something has to be done and all indications point to the fact that it is.

Oh and one final point - someone please involve an education specialist who who understands the challenges of adult education and can put some real meaning to Blooms Taxonomy and Awareness, Comprehension, Knowledge - make it real.

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Sunday, October 7, 2007

Latest numbers

There have been two dominant providers of ITIL exams for the last several years. One of these Exin has published some interesting facts and figures, relating to ITIL v2 certification.

Exin claims 420,000 ITIL certified professionals globally. 95% of all those certified are Foundation level (as would expected).

The USA leads the way with over 70,000 certified and Germany also ranks very high.
In terms of ITIL Foundation certified, the following are the top 12 countries.

1. USA
2. Germany
3. The Netherlands
4. Japan
5. Canada
6. Australia
7. India
8. France
9. Great Britain
10. Brazil
11. China
12. South Korea

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Saturday, October 6, 2007

ISO 20000 Scoping Statement examples

There is a lot of confusion regarding the ISO 200000 standard scoping statement. In summary, it is a simple statement that defines the area of interest for an ISO 20000 audit.

The scoping statement has to be provided to the selected RCB (Registered Certifying Body) that an organization chooses to work with. RCB's are appointed by the itSMF and they have auditors that have taken and passed the ISO 20000 Auditors course (2 days) and exam.

The scoping statement will actually feature on the ISO 20000 certificate so it must be carefully defined.

Some examples of a scoping statement are provided here.

Planning, managing and delivery of all internal IT services to <>, as defined in the Service Catalog.

The system of internal IT service provision within <> for the staff located in Dubai.

Provision of the <> and the management of associated systems for the <>, located in London.


From these three examples it is clear to to see that the scoping statement can be defined in terms of Service, Geographic, Functional or a combination of all three.

Importantly, the scoping statement CANNOT include tools.

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