A bit of context setting first: businesses are going digital in a big way and the majority of these businesses have highly intensive IT needs. Healthcare has electronic health records, telehealth and digitized medical devices; Utilities have outage management systems, mobile workforce management…
The Capita/UK Govt JV is having a planning session on 23rd May. This is your opportunity to suggest agenda items. Don't mess about with paragraph numbering or translating into Bulgarian. Here's what I suggested. read more
ITIL has been sold (and Prince2 - the following discussion applies just as much to all of the "Swirl" products sold). It is a commercial product. No more half-way house with OGC outsourcing publishing and accreditation: they've gone the whole hog and flogged the Swirl suite off for…
Customer Satisfaction Is All About Strong Positive Relationships!As IT is emerging from its technology centric shell and stepping up to its role as a strategic partner and service provider within the business value system the roles required to manage this relationship have evolved over time. The…
I wrote last week about how we are in the dark over the new joint venture between her Majesty's UK Government and Capita owning the "Swirl portfolio": ITIL, Prince2 and assorted other IP products. A bulletin (pdf) has fluttered down from the castle wall today. read more
A supposed to be big news that didn’t make the expected kind of ripples in the ITSM domain recently was regarding the joint venture of Cabinet office with Capita which will have the joint ownership of Best practice frameworks like PRINCE2 and ITIL®. If you haven’t already, you can read the…
Lots of people are asking what the IT Skeptic makes of the recent announcement of a joint venture between the Cabinet Office and Capita to exploit the Best Practice Library. They're asking why I haven't made any comment yet. Two reasons: (1) I was off-grid for 10 days and (2) we…
The Cabinet Office has entered into a joint venture with the outsourcing firm Capita to develop the ‘Best Management Practice’ portfolio, which includes ITIL and Prince2. For readers outside the UK the early announcements may benefit from some context. The UK treasury is between a rock and a…
How exactly does the UK Government spend time and money building a "Government Service Design Manual" targeted at builders of the Gov.uk online services that only once mentions ITIL? And how does Gov.uk think that essential public services like passports, BD&M, benefits, justice,…
Special guest David Cannon gives his views on ITIL, IT as a business and what he sees as the information revolution, plus talks about his move from BMC to Forrester
The UK government decided on ITIL's future. Rights will be sold to a UK provider, but the government will participate 49% in a new joint venture with the new ITIL owners, Capita. In the press release the government talks only about profits for the UK tax payer, the profits for the two parties…
Once upon a time a teacher was telling the children in her class a fairy story. Oddly the story begins the same way as this one, with those same magic words "Once upon a time there was a lonely Princess living in a castle. Once she had been a much loved Princess, but her fairy godmother…
ITIL & PRINCE2 Sold By UK Government To Capita - is this the opportunity we’ve been waiting for?This morning we learned that the long awaited decision about who the UK’s Cabinet Office has chosen to enter into a joint venture partnership with for exploitation of Best Management Practice IP…
I would love to talk about this year's Service Desk and IT Support Show that has just finished at London's Earls Court. Actually I would love to be able to talk about anything, because after two days of intense, insightful non-stop discussion about all things ITSM I've completely lost my…
Sometimes Rapid Incremental Improvement is More Important Than Game Changing TransformationAt Pink my team and I have the privilege of having several conversations a week with customers who want to improve their ability to deliver customer value via improved practices. However, before offering…
At the beginning of this month we launched our e-materials strategy for all education products. In a nutshell, what this means is we no longer automatically provide printed manuals & handouts for our courses. Instead we load everything up to a server and give students the ability to download the…
At the end of March, 1997 the 1st Annual IT Service Management Conference and Exhibition (Pink97!) was almost 9 months away. More to the point, it hadn’t been planned, or even thought of yet!If memory serves me right, we came up with the idea of the Conference some time during the summer of 1997.…
ITIL documentation (Ref: Service Transition Publication) includes Definite Media Library as a part of Service Knowledge Management System (SKMS). This has always been a key debate points in training and consulting discussions for me – the reasons for the same, will be given below. I also had an…
Having worked for a number of large organisations who are fairly strong in the adherance to the ITIL framework it's astonishing how much the post implementation review process (PIR) can be seen as a complete and utter waste of time. This isn't to say there is no place or need for it (I'm…
Our LinkedIn groups normally get serious attention, and they're highly appreciated because they don't have commercial spam posted as Discussions. Comments in discussion streams may contain commercial messages, but that's because the market is commercial by nature. One of the other groups…
There is intense debate about the value of methodologies. Supporters and opponents regularly cross swords. Being (un)valued, ITIL and other methodologies are no different to any other item being exposed to the same stages of grief from the Kubler Ross model (see picture below). And when you finally…
All Good Orchestra’s Need A Common Score In Order To Play In Harmony Or Else They Delivery CacophonyThe power of a good analogy is that it allows someone to describe a complex and sometimes conceptual idea in a simple manner that most people can understand without interpretation or detailed…
The term “Best Practice” has been part of our lexicon for at least the past 20 years now. It is used to describe everything from how to install and configure software to how to run IT operations (ITIL v2 anyone?), to the how to best treat patients with critical illness, to how we run our minor…
APM Group has released their ITIL exam statistics for the whole year 2012. I have compiled their statistics and present them with a little more context. 1 ITIL Foundation Over 263,000 exams were administered in 2012, up 5% from 2011. Over 236,000 certificates were issued. This number finally…
Every now and again I peek behind the curtain to see what people are looking for when they come to this blog. I thought you might be interested to see a handful of the most recent:ITIL COST REDUCTIONHOW TO MEASURE ITIL PROCESS COMPLIANCE INCIDENTITIL V3 PROCESSES FRAMEWORKFREE ITIL RESOURCESITIL EN…
This year everyone attending Pink13 - Pink Elephant’s 17th Annual International ITSM Conference & Exhibition - were welcomed by Pink’s CEO, Fatima Cabral Ratcliffe.Here’s what she had to say .....Hello!! On behalf of everyone here at Pink Elephant, it is my pleasure to welcome you to…
ITIL is growing in demand and some employers are paying a premium for certifications and experience in the best practices methodology, but the first question is what exactly is ITIL and is it right for you or your company?
As organizations become decreasingly skeptical about the cloud, they are increasingly willing to outsource ITSM to a SaaS provider. Doing so lowers costs, improves flexibility and easily accommodates ITIL framework principles.
Looking Forward With Great Anticipation & To An Amazing Event!On today’s show Chris and I invite you to a Pink13 Preview - Trailer with our Special Guest George Spalding who shares his inside knowledge about the must see elements of this years IT Service Management conference.Show…
Managing The IT Service Portfolio Can Sometimes Feel Like Spinning PlatesThe only constant in the universe is Change! This is certainly true when we look at managing the incoming business Demand for IT Services. The question then becomes how do we effectively manage the volume of change through the…
Taking A Look At PinkSCAN OnlineFor those of you who may be interested in Pink Elephant’s Online ITSM Self Assessment Tool I have recorded a screencast this weekend while checking out the cool new features of Camtasia for Mac 2.3Show Notes:Blog Article: Deploying vs. Documenting Best PracticesBlog…
Just over a year ago I wrote a blog about about how unhelpful and judgmental some of the perceived divisons in the ITSM world are. Sadly as 2013 begins it seems that it is once again open season on consultants and our contribution to the ITSM community. Oddly I'm finding that most of…
For the simple reason they are still in my drafts folder. 1.The Road to Hell : Why pundits who with the best of intentions dumb down advice and distort reality for those starting out in ITSM ultimately harm us all. 2. The Enemy Within : The danger from ITSM trolls in the community and in your…
Last year’s post on my predictions for 2012 turned out be very popular. So I guess it is worth taking time to look back and say where I was right and where I have yet to be proved right. I’m going to make a smaller set of new predictions for 2013 because in some ways I think we’ll see more…
Looking Ahead by Looking Behind!As I work in my home office during the Christmas Break I have already seen several year in review TV documentaries looking at the highlights of 2012 and looking forward with hope at what the new year will bring.In keeping with this tradition join Chris and I as we…
Looking At Self Support Options Through A Practical LensProduct Support is a DNA element for all service providing organizations. As such many organization’s begin their Service Improvement efforts in this area. Customer Support when done right is a great contributor to customer satisfaction, when…
In the last episode of Brandon's Dickens and ITSM fueled fantasy he met Ian Clayton, the Ghost of ITSM Future and was sacked by the CEO. There is, of course, no connection between these two events. Now read on... "TO BE HONEST I WAS EXPECTING YOU TO BE A LITTLE MORE DISAPPOINTED, AND…
A quick recap, because after all it is exactly a year since the last chapter appeared. I've been busy, so get over it. Brandon Lane CIO fell asleep whilst waiting for his first Monday morning team meeting, and has been visited in turn by Ivor Evans, the Ghost of ITSM Past and Jimbofin, the Ghost…
Today’s Fast Paced Online & Connected Workforce Is Looking For Virtual Learning Opportunities In our business and home lives we are increasingly becoming connected to online social networks which parcel out to us our daily dose of news, entertainment, communication, shopping and family…
In Improvement in COBIT5 I discussed my preference for the Continual Improvement life cycle. Recently I was fact-checking a post on ITIL (priorities in Incident Management) and I became curious about the guidance in COBIT5. The relevant location is “DSS02.02 Record, classify and prioritize…