Availability Management in Action
Availability Management intimidates many new practitioners, and they often leave it to last or skip it altogether. This is too bad, because even without a formal ITIL program, Availability Management can yield dramatic results, as one of my clients, a major University, found out...

ITIL Service Outage Analysis (SOA) in 7 Steps
The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) refers to Service or Systems Outage Analysis (SOA) as a method to improve availability. Unfortunately, the ITIL does not indicate how one actually performs SOA! This article explains the benefits of SOA, and gives you a 7-step guide to performing SOA.

The Paradox of the 9s
While customers dont understand 9s they do think that more 9s is better. What they dont understand is that too many 9s actually costs more than it returns. Which leads to the question, how many 9s do customers really need?

Availability Management On A Budget
Availability Management is an ITIL process not many are familiar with, but with virtually no added costs, IT can realize improvements in availability in as little as a few weeks!

Fault Tree Analysis Made Easy
If you are ITIL certified, youve heard of Fault Tree Analysis, or FTA. But if youre like most, you probably have no idea how to actually perform or use FTA!

3 Steps to Success with CFIA
Many know Component Failure Impact Analysis (CFIA) is somehow related to Problem and Availability Management, yet it remains at best a fuzzy concept for most. While CFIA is impressive sounding, it is really just a way of evaluating (and predicting) the impact of failures, and locating Single Points of Failure (SPOF).

Capacity Management On A Budget
Capacity Management is one ITIL process that daunts virtually everyone. It is often "left to last" because of its (apparent) complexity and scope, but, at its heart, Capacity Management answers just four simple questions...

Capacity Management in 90 Days
A key requirement for any IT organization is to ensure capacity to meet the evolving demands of the business. Many IT executives think upgrade with then hear capacity -- relating a capacity plan to a spending plan.

Automating Change Management to Ease Compliance Efforts
Failures in the area of Change Management have grave and far-reaching consequences. It has been widely recognized that poor Change Management practices can result in a failure to meet service commitments, but have you considered the impact if a poorly managed change affects your compliance efforts as well? This can put an organization in a precarious position involving audits and result in a negative public image.

Accelerating Change Management
Few realize Change Management has two purposes: to limit change-related incidents and to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of day-to-day operations. Yet, that last part is what most implementers forget, often resulting in a Change Management process perceived by staff as bureaucratic, unrealistic, and impossible to manage.

What Did the Chicken & Egg Know About Change & Configuration?
If there is a "burning question" as an organization drives its ITIL process implementation through the planning stages, it is "... which comes first - Change or Configuration Management?" And, as if that were not enough of a challenge, it is followed by, "Can you do one without the other?" and, close on its heels, "If you do one without the other will you achieve any meaningful level of success?"

Changing The Way You Change Things
Anyone that has worked with or around IT folk know they don't like change. In our IT careers we've probably been part of an implementation of at least one major new service that might not have gone as well as we'd hoped. The key to surviving the next "big one" is learning to change the way we change things.

When Project Management Is Wrong For Your Project
One new office, two new offices, three new offices, more... If planning for major, repetitive projects at your organization sounds like the childhood game, "Hot Potato," maybe formal Project Management is just what you don't need.

Impact Assessment in 5 Simple Steps
IT is its own worst enemyGartner and others have documented that about 80% of all Incidents occur because of failed change management activities. However, it does not have to be that way. Change Impact Assessment is well known outside of IT...

CMDB 3.0
ITIL v3 has radically redefined Configuration Management and scrapped the CMDB as we know it. Oh, and this is a really, really good thing!

How to Select & Implement the Right CMDB
Just 2,000 employees with just two devices per user can result in 20,00060,000 CI lifecycle, status, and/or attribute modifications in a one-year timeframe! Manual CMDB population and maintenance is a nearly impossible endeavor -- automation is the key to success with a CMDB project.

Future CMDB
ITSM Industry powerhouses have stopped fighting and are now working together. They recently released a joint whitepaper describing how they plan to work together to solve the thorniest CMDB technological hurdles...

Enterprise CMDB
A CMDB is a nebulous thing, and can exist in the minds of the organization, 3x5 cards, or any other medium. However, an enterprise CMDB is different. For large organizations only software will, but not traditional relational database software, what we need is a new breed of software products...and they might be coming...

Configuration Management for the Rest of Us
Configuration Management is probably the least understood and most important service management process. Yet most have no idea how to start and many think it requires huge investments. But you don't need to spend big bucks to get real benefits. It all starts with a single word...

How to Win with BIA
Throughout the ITIL, you see Impact Analysis or Business Impact Analysis (BIA) as critical to effective IT decision making, and invaluable to overcoming objections. However, few actually know how to perform a BIA; and fewer that a BIA is not something you do by yourself!

Continuity Management: Planning for Unnatural Disasters
Natural disasters like floods and fires can cost enterprises significant lost revenue and customers. Unnatural disasters like identity theft and software viruses can be even more costly. IT organizations need to consider both natural and unnatural disasters when using ITSM best practices to prepare their disaster responses.

10 Steps to Do It Yourself CRAMM
The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) promotes the CCTA Risk Analysis and Management Method (CRAMM) for risk assessment. Everyone agrees managing risk is critical, yet few actually use CRAMM or any other formal system!

Process? Process! We Don't Need No Stinkin' IT Process!
Lack of IT process costs the average Fortune 500 company the equivalent of $261,000,000 a year. No wonder more than half of all CEO's question the value of their IT organizations.

How to Budget for Real World IT
Keep in mind as you work on your Budget that "dollars and cents" are "the language of the Business," and that Budgetary figures are perhaps the ultimate way to measure and analyze your success in meeting the Business’ requirements.

Tips For Effective Communications
The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®) requires IT to communicate clearly internally and externally. For example Operating Level Agreements (OLAs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are examples of stakeholder communications. However, most IT communications are complex and so full of jargon they force stakeholders to wade through irrelevant information, driving them away instead of engaging them. Engaging communications require you know your audience and present your message in ways that keep your reader's interest. Yes, our reports get read and you have readers!

Are IT Budgets too Big?
46¢ of every $1 spent on IT could be wasted due to lack of process control. Can a new, easier and more agile "BSM least practices" framework help the 100,000 companies of the mid-market?

ITIL ROI
Every vendor trumpets cost savings from ITIL. They are often quite nebulous in describing where the money came from. I am going to be specific; here is how a real client used a CMDB service management product to save over $180,000 a month and avoid a $600,000 purchase as they took on significant new IT service requirements.

Overcoming the Isolation of IT: Financial Management and the Cost of Service
This article examines the strategic role of IT Finance by emphasizing the concept that IT Finance cannot be strategic by itself. Finance must be joined with other IT processes in order to develop harmony with company strategy.

Justifying ITIL
In today's cost consciousness climate rife with the mistaken belief that IT can no longer deliver a competitive advantage, more and more IT professionals struggle with justifying IT expenditures. The ITIL offers much more than process control it provides a roadmap to doing more, for more, with less.

ITSM Leadership Lessons from the 'Expert'
As an IT leader, are you aware of the knowledge and lessons that come from one of the greatest leadership and process-driven organizations on the planet? You may be surprised to learn that this expert is none other than the U.S. Army!

Hand Me the Remote - Ensuring a Successful Remote Learning Session
The convergence of three trends - high-speed internet access, new technical education requirements, and time and budget restrictions - make Remote Learning an attractive item on anyone's on-going education budget. But, does Remote Learning truly mean a remote, 'hands-off' training session? This article will describe ways that both students and training coordinators can involve themselves in the process to ensure a successful result.

Why ROI Calculations Will be the Achilles' Heel for CMDB Implementations in 2009 and What You Can Do to Avoid the Pain
There are two common answers to the question as to why to undertake a Return-On-Investment (ROI) calculation for a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) implementation. One is right. One is wrong.

Stepping Up to Process Automation: Why You Should Care
"Automation" may not be a term prevalently used within the ITIL libraries, but it is one of the key enablers for stepping up to operational efficiency, minimizing human error and ultimately enforcing governance to support industry compliance and minimize risk.

From the Ashes of Failed Quality Initiatives
The gems of IT service quality can be found in the smoldering embers of failed Six Sigma deployments and botched Total Quality Management initiatives.

CSI - Tips, Tricks, and Worst Practices to Learn From
So you're going to improve your IT services? Go ahead; pick anything - as long as it is small, manageable, has to do with the Service Desk, does not have to do with a CMDB, does not need a $500,000 tool investment in the first year, and does not need any resources that span across our customer service, infrastructure or application silos?!

ITSM Service Lifecycle Consulting - A Lifecycle within A Lifecycle
Imagine the following scenario. You are a senior-level IT Service Management (ITSM) consultant with many successful ITIL process implementations under your belt. An enterprise IT organization recognizes the potential benefits of ITIL. It also recognizes that ITIL is not a 'plug and play' project due to the many dynamics of organizational goals, priorities, leadership, maturity, etc. Thus, it has retained you to counsel its IT leadership team as it begins its transition to the process-driven ITSM Lifecycle.

The Emergence of the Constituency-Driven CMDB System - ITIL's CMS in a New Context and What it Means for You
The concept of the Configuration Management System (CMS) in ITIL v3 is potentially a game-changing catalyst in shaping Configuration Management Database (CMDB) deployments. If properly understood, the CMS can promote flexibility and innovation; if misapplied, it can lead to overarching complexity that can stall even the hardiest CMDB initiative.

How to "Do" ITIL
It's a common scenario: You complete your ITIL certification program. You feel good, you feel empowered, and you have been exposed to some of the most brilliant logic ever put to paper on the topic of IT service management. Congratulations! You're certified, now what are you going to do?

The Next Killer App for IT: Leadership
A study of 3,000 people in various jobs came to the conclusion that IT workers have the most stressful job in the world. IT even beats out the medical field for reported job stress. I think I know why...and what to do about it.

Service Measurement Framework in Four Steps
As IT organizations transform themselves into service providers, one of the major issues they must come to grips with is how do they create a meaningful measurement framework that enables the continual improvement of IT services as well as clear and unambiguous accountability for quality of those services.

SDLC or ITIL? Wrong question.
Ever-increasing business and technological complexity are driving successful IT organizations to search for methodologies to ensure that new or changed IT services meet the requirements of the business customers, and create value for the business by being designed, delivered and operated in an efficient and effective manner. Application groups point to the use of a Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC) as their solution. Some of the technical functional groups have jumped on the ITIL® bandwagon. So which should it be; SDLC or ITIL?

10 Traits of Successful ITIL Adopters
All IT organizations face similar challenges adopting the best practices of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®). While not all succeed in overcoming these challenges, many do. Those that face these challenges and overcome them provide valuable lessons about what it took to succeed.

Mentoring - The Resurgence in ITSM Implementation
In today's business environment, an enterprise's competitive advantage is based on its ability to develop leadership capability throughout its organization. This is especially true in IT. Leaders within IT play critical roles in coaching or mentoring their staff to become high-performing teams.

Community Organization Principles and ITIL
In the alphabet soup favored by successful IT Service Management (ITSM) organizations today, the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) describes how ITSM works; CoBIT enables IT managers to control the IT infrastructure; the Project Management Institute (PMI) provides project management guidance; Lean Six Sigma builds effectiveness and efficiency; and, the list goes on. What can community organization principles developed a half century ago add to this heady mix?

Governing ITIL with CobiT
ITIL is clear that it does not stand alone, and in fact, you cannot "do ITIL" without some form of governance. But what does "governance" mean? ITIL requires a framework of policy, process, procedures and metrics that can give direction to IT operations (and ITIL activities.) Control Objectives for IT (CobiT) does just this.

Managed ITSM Services
Today's multi-faceted business world demands that Information Technology provide its services in the context of a fully integrated corporate strategic model. By coupling the tenets of the burgeoning Managed Services Provider business model with the five domains of ITIL Version 3, IT can find tested guidance to what it takes to transform from its technological heritage into a place in the enterprise business leadership circle.

The Importance of Knowing What is Right
Today's IT shops constantly have to deal with changing business priorities and technological change. Scarce resources are stretched thin, or worse yet; to the breaking point. You know you are doing things right, but are you doing the right things?

Automating Self-Service IT
When was the last time you dealt with a live person to perform a financial transaction, book a flight or schedule a service call – or even pay for your groceries at the supermarket? Automation of self-service has become pervasive and is even making inroads into IT Request Fulfillment and Access Management.

Smoothing the Way to ITSM
Today's IT managers live in an alphabet soup of best practices: ITIL®, COBIT®, PMI®, Lean Six Sigma, so on. They all mention the needs and desires of staff during the implementation. Failure to realize that IT staff makes or breaks any best practice implementation can result in failure.

8 Traits of Effective IT Leaders
To Lead, You Have to Follow. A study finds that IT workers are more stressed than firefighters and doctors. The reason may be that IT leaders don't know how to follow...

Function, Process, Role - Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?
Is it animal, vegetable or mineral? That parlor game question seems particularly appropriate to ITIL V3 as it devotes a segment of each domain to detailing "Function, Process and Role."

Automation for the Rest of Us
Automation is a hot topic, but its dirty little secret is that you cannot automate something if you don't understand how it works... making ITIL process definition a cornerstone to automation success.

ITIL v2 or v3? Wrong question.
Question: Should you go with ITIL v2 or ITIL v3? Answer: It doesn't matter.

Request Fulfillment - Short-Cut or Dangerous Misstep?
There's a move afoot in ITIL V3 that leads to a radically shortened Change Management process. It's a move that allows the Service Desk to approve and initiate changes on its own without the full rigor of the well-documented Change Management procedures. Isn't this putting us back on shaky pre-ITIL Ground?

Integrating Continual Service Improvement into the Service Lifecycle
Something seems to be missing from the Continual Service Improvement (CSI) volume of ITIL v3; ITIL guidance.Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition and Service Operation each lay out guidance on specific processes, functions and roles that take place within that Lifecycle domain. However, a review of CSI’s Table of Contents reveals little in the way of specific IT guidance. Maybe the authors of ITIL v3 should have integrated the concepts of Continual Service Improvement into the processes of the other IT Service Lifecycle domains.

Agile ITSM
"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is." - Yogi Berra.

The Rise of the Internal Outsourcer
Today's IT organizations find themselves competing with cheap technology and aggressively priced outsourcing alternatives. Only those IT organizations that can adapt to this new ecosystem will avoid extinction.

BSM - ITSM Done Right?
Business Service Management (BSM) is a term that is all the rage. I used to think ITSM meant BSM, but I have recently changed my mind. It all started when I went out to get Six Sigma certification...

ITIL Doesn't Matter Any More (or Less)
After a long wait the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®) version 3 was released. Among the requisite hype, pundits started pointing out the missed opportunities, and I realized that ITIL still doesn't matter...

How to sell ITSM to the Business
If the old rule of selling ITSM was to talk it up until the business bit, the new rules say you've got to start by listening and then helping the business executive connect the value of ITSM back into his or her business unit value chain.

Why Doing ITIL Doesn't Work (And How to Fix It)
For every complex problem there is a simple and appealing solution that is wrong. For many, ITIL is that solution. This illusion of simplicity is similar to the illusion the Emperor had about his fine new clothes. To succeed with ITIL you have to understand why the Emperor has no clothes.

6 Steps to Successful Outsourcing
Like the Grim Reaper and the IRS, IT professionals need to be prepared to deal with outsourcing. Based on the trends Im seeing in the industry I think we can add outsourcing to death and taxes as an inevitability of life. If you cant beat em -- manage em as the saying goes

7 Steps to Selecting Software
I believe that all ITSM enabling software solutions should carry a warning label that says, Caveat Emptor. It is up to you, not the software company or some "paid verifier to understand your needs and validate your decision...

Achieving IT Operational Excellence
Examining how the concepts of IT Operational Excellence helps the legal industry meet its business objectives provides a sound roadmap for any IT organization trying to deliver excellence.

Top 5 Reasons ITIL Imlpementations Dont Go by the Book
Organizational change is hard, and, as is the case with the process and technology pieces of ITIL implementations, it will vary greatly based on your size, structure, and culture. But there are some common threads that will enable you to get the necessary buy-in to succeed with organizational change...

7 Habits of Highly Defective Practitioners
I have uncovered 7 bad habits that lie at the root of all IT Management Failure! Well, if not all failures enough for the majority of the organizational problems I see. But you can break a bad habit and form a new one in just 21 days...

Service Delivery Tool Gap
The current glut of software tools, suites and bolt-on products oriented towards the ITIL Service Management suite is rich, colorful, and profoundly lacking in one respect -- there are no compelling tools to automate Service Delivery processes.

Achieving IT Operational Excellence
Examining how the concepts of IT Operational Excellence helps the legal industry meet its business objectives provides a sound roadmap for any IT organization trying to deliver excellence.

ITIL Triage
One of key reasons that ITIL does not proscribe an approved priority list for process implementation is that such a list cannot take into account the relative maturity of an organizations existing staff, skills, and operational proficiencies. Only a focused assessment can do that.

4 Steps to Better Process Design
You simply can't practice ITIL from behind a desk. Before you can improve a process, you have to understand the current process. You have to get out from behind the desk and walk the process, which sounds simple, but as in many things, the doing is not so straightforward...

Don't Tear Down Those Silos, Build Them Up!
Contrary to the prevailing popular wisdom coming from of many IT trainers, consultants, and industry analysts, silos are actually a very good thing.... don't waste time trying to tear silos down, instead invest in making your silos even stronger!

The Role of a Coach in Implementing IT Service Management
"The goal of coaching is the goal of good management: to make the most of an organization's valuable resources." - Harvard Business Review

Building Teams
Teams are critical to success with ITIL, and that makes team building a critical but often neglected activity. Being able to recognize the forces in place during the five stages of a teams lifecycle is key to building and participating in an effective team.

How to Organize for ITIL
Organizational structure plays a significant role in success or failure adopting ITIL. Correct organizational structure is critical to your success -- but you probably should NOT reorganize to achieve it!

A Prescription for ITIL
You hear often that the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is not prescriptive it does not tell you where or when to begin. This is a common misconception since Planning to Implement IT Service Management (the ITIL green book) provides exactly this detail!

The New ITIL and What it Means to You
The next version of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is to ship in September of this year, and there are some major changes ahead for the ITIL and those who use it.

Get Ready for ISO 20000 Certification
The ITIL is not a standard and has no auditing criteria. Some chose CobiT for audits, but CobiT isnt a standard either. The British Standards Institute (BSI) created British Standard BS 15000 as an audit standard, but it wasnt an international standard. However, BS 15000 delivered specifications for managing IT, implementing the ITIL, established audit criteria and corporate-level certification.

How to Sell ITIL to the Top
The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is an IT-thing. Yes, I know it benefits the business, but ITIL is inherently a set of IT workflow processes. Non-IT people, even well educated non-IT people (read senior executives with control over the purse strings) often dont understand what ITIL represents.

COBIT and ITIL
As many of you know, our Foundations program presents the idea that ITIL requires something to guide it; that is, ITIL is the "what" not the "how". We have proposed COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and related Technology) as the method to measure ITIL.

Solving the IT Silo Problem
The purpose of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is to optimize delivery of IT services to Customers and Users. The ITIL describes a set of processes, roles and responsibilities that cross many traditional IT silo boundaries.

Scripted Success
Service Desk staff performing Incident Control provides the initial support, investigation and diagnosis to resolve incidents. The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) says that key to Service Desk effectiveness is efficient Incident matching.

How To Prioritize Incidents
IT should work on those things that are of a critical nature first, not simply those things people want done right away. The cold hard truth is that not every incident can or should be Critical.

How To Classify Incidents
Most Service Desk staff (those performing Classification and Initial Support) will not know the cause of an Incident until the call is closed. So how can they identify the problem? The answer is that they can't and don't have to...

9 Steps to Better Incident Classification
Incident classification is one of the most important and most difficult aspects of ITIL to implement. The benefits far outweigh the managerial challenges involved.

The Missing Link: Infrastructure Management
One common complaint about ITIL is that it does not address Infrastructure Management or detailed operations ITIL is descriptive not prescriptive. Another little known ITIL book addresses exactly these areas of concern.

5 Steps to Transparent Metrics
Measuring and reporting on IT efficiency and effectiveness is critical. The ITIL mentions Continuous Service Improvement Programs (CSIP), Goals, Critical Success Factors (CSFs) a.k.a. Key Success Factors, and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as the means to measure success. In fact, ITIL V3 even devotes an entire phase of the IT Service Lifecycle to Continual Service Improvement (CSI)!

CSF’s, KPI’s, Metrics, Outcomes and Benefits – Part I
I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.

Vital Business Function Truths
Many mistakenly think a Vital Business Function (VBF) is an important business function like accounts payable, or even better, accounts receivable. However, this is incorrect, and this misunderstanding results in significant business/IT alignment issues and increased costs to both the business and IT.

7 Dirty Little Truths About Metrics
Everyone knows metrics measure things. What most do not understand are the dirty little truths about metrics -- what gets measured is what gets done, and metrics drive both good and bad behavior. Put another way, people do what you pay them to do.

How to Measure IT Service Quality
IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) tenets are that Business needs drive IT operations; and that User perception is the true measure of IT Service Quality. However, most IT organizations report on technical metrics like jitter and loss, which while necessary, do not show how IT Services meet User needs, and offer little evidence of IT Service Quality.

7 Steps to the TOP
Most IT departments have tools that monitor their systems and create log files. Some are product specific, others are generic. But no matter what the tool, its always the people using the tool that matters most.

Fire Fighting is What You Want
Many IT organizations think they are fighting fires, and that this is a bad thing. I disagree. I think its insanity, and that every IT organization and every person working in IT should strive to become more like firefighters.

The Problem with Problems
One of the first choices to make when adopting best practices is to define what will be Problems. This simple sounding decision is much more complicated that it would seem, and is often the cause of confusion. It does not have to be.

Thinking About Problems: Kepner-Tregoe
The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) describes the steps of the root cause analysis method called Kepner-Tregoe Define and Describe the Problem, Establish possible causes, Test the most probable cause, and Verify the true cause.

Major Problem Review in 6 Easy Pieces
If you are ITIL certified then you remember Major Problem Reviews (MPR). You may still remember that Problem Management performs a MPR after resolving a major problem to identify...

Fishing for Solutions: Ishikawa
Anyone with IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) certification has heard of Ishikawa or fishbone diagrams, usually in the context of Problem Management. Aside from knowing it is a root-cause analysis tool, most have no idea how to use it.

5 Whys to Solve Problems
The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) assigns Problem Management the responsibility for determining the root-cause of an event or fault. Often misunderstood, the role of a Problem Manager is to coordinate and guide troubleshooting activities usually for difficult or cross-domain problems.

Do IT Yourself Communications Planning
Change is all around us. Most Users want change, but they demand to know that change is coming. That is exactly what the "Forward Schedule of Changes" and "Projected Service Availability" do. ITIL v2 specifically identified these two reports; ITIL V3, by inference, includes them in the service release package. However, no matter where the reports are, the critical point is that simple reports such as these can lead the way to gaining customer satisfaction and confidence in IT as a partner in the business’ daily operations.

Accelerating ITIL Implementations
If IT projects are closely aligned with business need and business urgency, it follows that supporting those projects will be of high priority to management throughout the enterprise. Woe to the manager who fails to support fully business imperative projects!

Making a Project of ITIL
The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) describes a set of best practices processes for stable, high quality IT services. One key to ITIL success is to manage the implementation as a project. There exist best practices for Project Management (PM). The leading PM process is from the Project Management Institute (PMI). PMI offers certification and best practices to manage projects.

How to Roll the Deming Wheel
The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) indicates that systematic process improvement requires a Quality Management System (QMS). As usuall, the ITIL is sketchy about the QMS, but does mention one in particular -- The Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) of the Deming cycle.

IT -- Heal Thyself!
Most Service Desk calls result from failed changes, making IT its own worst enemy and largest customer. This makes IT the #1 preventable cause of IT service outages! The solution is Release Management...

11 Ways ITIL Improves Security
ITIL improves security governance. ITIL makes security easier and more controlled, thus making it easier to comply with regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, FISMA, GLBA, NIST 800-53/FIPS200, FFIEC, and others.

6 Steps to Making Your Security Policies Work - ITIL v.3 Access Management
We have all been in this situation. We know that managing security is a mandate in today's IT environment, but calls are swamping the Service Desk. "I've been on vacation. I've forgotten my password." "I have a new employee starting today. She needs to be able to log into X application." "I've been promoted. How do I get Manager privileges?" And, the dreaded "Some unauthorized changes were made. Who has access to the system?" It is like herding cats to stay current on who is who in the corporate structure, and who should have which level of authority. Access Management, one of the Service Operation processes, provides key guidance to help rein in those Security lions lying in the bushes.

May I Take Your Order? How to Free Up Your Service Desk by Adding Service Requests to its Menu
"Good morning, this is Jane Doe of the XYZ Service Desk. How may I help you?" Countless Service Desks across the nation and around the world repeat a similar greeting every minute of every day, and then they begin a scripted routine of logging the Incident, categorizing it, diagnosing it, restoring service, and closing the Incident. Many Service Desks streamline at least part of this routine by creating self-service sites that allow Users to enter Incidents themselves and perhaps access a knowledgebase to do some self-diagnosis and recovery.

Looking in The Mirror: Part 1
As the saying goes,' If you don't know where you are going, then any road will get you there.' This kind of problem is what many IT organizations face in the beginning of a Continuous Service Improvement Program (CSIP).

Serving Up Service -- Help Desk Evolution
The service desk of today no longer acts as a gatekeeper but as more of an enabler of IT services. The modern service desk is the IT interface to the user community. It acts as the users representative within IT.

The Incident Pit
The "incident pit" is a slang term used by divers to describe a series of events, which by themselves would not normally be dangerous, but each causes a problem, which is made worse by the next event until you end up with a major incident. How many IT managers have found themselves at the bottom of an incident pit and didn't have a clue how they got there?

Putting "Service" in the Service Desk
Drug dealers and IT are the only service providers I know of who refer to their customers as "users." Drug dealers don't seem to be in danger of being put out of business. IT on the other hand may face an uncertain future if they don't start treating their "users" like "customers."

New Service Desk Success in 8 Steps
It is pretty common for Users to go around a new Service Desk, but what do you do when IT groups go around the new Service Desk too? Lack of trust in a new Service Desk cuts both ways and success depends on winning the hearts and minds of customers and internal IT groups - and it takes just 5 minutes.

Debunking the Myth of Over Servicing Customers
The only way you can exceed customer expectations is by doing what you agreed to do, and to treat customers with dignity and respect as you do so!

Service Catalog - The Next Killer Application Has Arrived
Where does the Service Catalog sit in your organization? Most organizations follow the same general format of listing an "IT Service," its description, a few key service levels, its cost, who may use the service, and how to request it. However, this view is far too limiting to fully describe the current realities. The truth is that the IT Service Catalog is growing up and becoming the "Enterprise" Service Catalog - a true killer application, used across the enterprise.

Who's the Boss? 5 Ways to Stay on Top
How many times have you heard that refrain at your staff meetings when you try to solicit some input or feedback concerning a change or transition? In the extreme, a psychologist may call it passive-aggressive behavior; in daily operations, however, it often indicates resistance to a change.

Are We There Yet? Wrapped Around the (E)Valuation Axle
Are we there yet? And, if we are not there, where are we? It may sound like a line from any of a number of comedy films, but woe be unto the IT department that goes full speed ahead to implement a service change, only to find it does not deliver value to the business. Get back on track with the Evaluation Process, introduced in ITIL V3's Service Transition phase.

Remote Support and Service Management
A thankless job! That's what some would call the role of the service desk analyst, even though service desk staff are perhaps the most customer-facing function in the company right alongside call center personnel - both in a position to positively impact customer satisfaction. Still, the service desk is more often than not seen by executive management as a cost sink: labor-intensive, no contribution to revenue, and challenging to measure its performance.

IT Service Catalogs in 5 Steps
With tight budgets and Customers all wanting the newest gadgets IT has to work smarter, not harder. The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) says to improve IT efficiency and effectiveness you need Service Level Management (SLM). However, the relationships between Service Level Agreements (SLAs), Requirements, Targets, Catalogs, Operating Level Agreements and Underpinning Contracts can be confusing and hard to figure out. Where do you even begin?

A 5-Step Process for Defining IT Services
Managing IT by service and not technology is the message of ITIL v3. Unfortunately, most IT professionals really struggle with defining IT services. In fact, some 30% of ITSM projects are unable to move forward because of this roadblock. Luckily, there is a solution.

ITIL & Service Oriented Architecture
We hear a lot of buzz these days in software circles about Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Software architects certainly place prime emphasis on it. But, beyond sharing the 'SOA' acronym with ITIL's 'Service Outage Analysis,' how closely does Service Oriented Architecture really align with ITIL? Read on ... the answer may surprise you.

How to Define IT Services
ITIL Portfolio Management is all the rage now. It seems everyone wants to define their IT services, create service catalogs and start the process of business IT alignment. Of course, ITIL itself does not offer much guidance on exactly how to do these things, nor should it. But something the ITIL does not mention is exactly what you need...

ITIL's IT Service Lifecycle - The Five New Silos of IT
In my last article I spoke about IT's evolution from its technological heritage into a Managed Services Provider utilizing the five domains of ITIL V3 as its ticket into the enterprise business leadership circle. Much has been written about breaking down the technological silos that have prevented IT from presenting a unified face to the business as a service provider aligned with business goals and objectives.

Why Customer Focus is NOT Service Management
Many IT Service Management practitioners preach that an IT department achieves IT Service Management (ITSM) by building Customer Focus into the culture of the groups who support the IT infrastructure. After all, isn't Customer Focus and Business Alignment what IT Service Management is all about?

Where Has Release Gone?
What has ITL V3 done with Release? It naturally fits into the Service Transition segment of the Service Lifecycle, but, except for one segment called Release and Deployment, it is not there. Has it gone the way of buggy whips - or has it metamorphosed into something greater?

Transitioning to ITIL V3
While my friends, both young and old, are reading the just-released Harry Potter book, I have just finished reading another hefty and long-awaited British title - ITIL v.3 Service Transition...

A CMDB Runs Through IT
In the book and movie "A River Runs Through It" author Norman Maclean and his brother face the pressures of growing up. IT often struggles with growing up as well (assuming of course we ever do grow up!)

The Path to IT/Business Alignment
For many years, an IT Service Catalog was simply a printed document telling users whom to call for service. However, with the increasing commoditization of IT represented in ITIL v3, the concept and value of a Service Catalog is assuming a much more important role – that of unifying IT and the business.

Debunking the Myth of Over Servicing Customers
The only way you can exceed customer expectations is by doing what you agreed to do, and to treat customers with dignity and respect as you do so!

7 Secrets to Successful Service Level Management
Manually creating after-the-fact monthly reports is not performing Service Level Management. SLM must show both current and past status as well as predict future problems, and this requires automation and daily or even real-time analysis of data.