Owner: ITIL Service Management URL:http://itservicemngmt.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2007 06:25:28 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: ITIL Service Management, about ITIL and ITIL3, widely accepted best practice framework for IT Service Management Site statistics:Click here
ITIL Service Definition 2007-10-01 07:14:00 "A service is a means of delivering value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific cost and risks. ""Service
Management is a set of specialized organizational capabilities for providing value to customers in the form of services. "I could be wrong, but this is the definition of a Service! And it is finally here, after almost 20 years of ITIL. So at last we know what are we talking about. Read more:Definition
A Brief History of ITIL 2007-09-25 08:28:00 I have looked arround the web a little and was bored with the general ITIL history articles found on the web. There are a few inconsistencies and interesting myths circling around, like the one on the Falklands war and possible general war threat with Argentina, which are denied by the authors of V1.The fact that Mrs. Thatcher came to power in 1979. and that ICT budget of UK government exceeded 8 bil. UK pounds was probably one of initiators of GITMM (or GITIMM, not sure).So, here is a short list of important milestones:1972: IBM starts research on quality service delivery called information Systems Management Architecture (ISMA).1980: IBM publishes Volume I of the IBM Management series titled "A management System for the Information Business", first public edition of ISMA.1986: CCTA authorizes a program to develop a common set of operational guidance with the objective of increasing efficiencies in Government IT.1988: "Government Infrastructure Management Method (GITMM)", is formalize Read more:Brief
, History
ITIL V2 Mind Maps Free Download 2007-09-19 09:05:00 I have took the liberty of posting my ITIL Service Support and Service Delivery mind maps in .mmap form. I have created these while preparing for my ITIL Service Manager exam.They are simple reference documents with basic bullets per process, but I hope you can use it and upgrade them if you wish while you study.Documents will be on eSnips for the first time, until I migrate this blog to another domain.Links to documents can be found in the upper left part of the homepage.Soon I will post some of my V3 maps and graphs in the same place. Read more:Download
ITIL V3 And The Vacuum 2007-09-04 07:42:00 I had a brutally long vacation, as you have maybe noticed from the lack of posts here.Most of the time I did nothing but enjoyed the sun and the sea, and of course, long reading sessions of new V3 ITIL books. First week I read Strategy, Design and Transition books cover to cover, and couldn't remember much after the first reading. Books are NOT dull and boring like the previous version. Most of the material is well written, but the perspective is new and the flavour is of an acquired taste, especially for an old IT dog accustomed to years of process-based approach to Services. So I read some more and parts of it started clicking in place.A funny thing happened with this ITIL V3 rollout. Seems like things are getting worse before they will get better. Previous V2 story got a huge and powerful dimension with this new service lifecycle aspect. The result is a vacuum window for all animals in the ITIL food chain. Certification organizations and education companies are waiting for new syla Read more:Vacuum
ITIL V3 - What's New? 2007-07-20 08:26:00 So here are the five new core books. In V3, ITIL remains a descriptive best-practice framework, but it covers a lot more ground then V2, and the evolved part focuses mostly on IT & business integration.New processes and functions aim to form a tight connection between business and IT organisation, anticipating business, technology and regulations changes in last 10 years since the last ITIL update.Five essential core books represent basic ITIL Service Lifecycle elements:Service Strategy: Creating the set of services that help achieve business objectives.Service Design: Designing services, from technical and business perspective.Service Transition: How to change live production infrastructure, implementing the needed services.Service Operation: Day-to-day IT business, operating. A place to start if you are new to ITIL.Continual Service Improvement: Evaluating and improving services in support of business goals. Processes are nicely reshuffled and strategically grouped to ensure a be
ITIL Service Support Process Interaction 2007-07-09 04:42:00 ITIL ServiceSupportProcessInteraction
DiagramI have been putting ITIL V2 Service Support info here for some time, sabotaging the fact that V3 is out there for more then a month. In the meantime I visited a local ITSMF conference with ITIL V3 presented by Vernon Lloyd and David Wheeldon. I got the books with nautilus, peas, starfish X-ray design covers. They are stashed near my bedpost, efficiently putting me to sleep almost every night for some time. Besides, much is said about V3 recently on the Net and I was constantly lacking time for V3, since I had to prepare for my ITIL Service Manager exam.Now I will have some spare time to dedicate to V3, and I will put here my observations in near future, while I am still fresh with ITIL ITSM data.To wrap this Service Support series of articles I am giving you my CMAP diagram of process interaction, very simplified and adjusted to my level of complexity tolerance.Mind mapping is nice and all, it works for some people more then for the other
ITIL Release Management Quick Reference 2007-07-04 10:08:00 "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.” - Albert EinsteinReleaseManagement
is an ITIL process that on first sight looks like a logical part of Change Management, to most heads. As we consider the number of changes and their possible impact in business organizations, it becomes clear where this process came from: practical need to coordinate things.It has a lot of goals/objectives, but it is not an overly complicated process. It just takes care that all changes are implemented in accordance with other ITSM processes and aligned with business needs.Here are the main elements of Release Management to have in mind:GoalsTo plan and manage releases to the customer successfullyTo consider all technical and non-technical aspect of a release by taking a holistic view of implementing changes to IT servicesObjectivesTo plan the successful ro Read more:Quick
Change Management Quick Reference 2007-07-02 09:12:00 "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." -Author unknown, commonly misattributed to Charles Darwin."It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory." -W. Edwards Deming."The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them." -George Bernard Shaw.ChangeManagement
(CM) is the most complex process in Service Support. It'simportance resides on a fact that over 80% of incidents emerge from performed changes. Therefore changes should be managed. Most of the ITIL compliancy projects fail at CM. It requires a high level of collective discipline, skills and mindset.There is a connection of Change with all other ITSM disciplines, but especially with Release, Configuration and Capacity Management. For your convenience, here are Change Management quick reference data I gathered for my ITI Read more:Quick
MS SC Service Manager Beta 1 is Here 2007-06-21 08:20:00 Is Microsoft a serious new player in Service
Management field?I had the pleasure of downloading and installing Beta 1 Microsoft System Center Service Manager last week. I am not the fan of MS, or any other tools vendor, so this post is not an add. Since I have some experience in ITSM and have seen, implemented and developed some tools, I have something to say here.Service Manager is slow and forms are ugly. It is slow because it is in Beta 1 and running on sub-optimal code. Forms are ugly because it is in Beta 1, they are very simple unpolished InfoPath forms.Other then that, I look forward to this product, because it seems to me that it is based on firm theory (ITIL/MOF/DSI), relies on mature Microsoft technologies (SQL Server, SharePoint, .Net, Office) and it will give a high level of integration with other System Center products, like Ops Manager and Configuration Manager.Console resembles the Operations Manager 2007 Outlook-like console, so short learning curve and quick adoption i
CMDB - What You Need To Know 2007-06-17 15:51:00 "Take care of the luxuries, and the necessities will take care of themselves." -- Dorothy Parker, an American writer and poetMuch is said about Configuration Management Database in IT information circles and literature. More or less, everyone agrees that CMDB is some kind of hub of all ITSM processes, but opinions differ on the scale of it's importance. From "nice to have because ITIL says so" to "first thing you have to do, without it nothing makes sense". Well, I am with this second extreme bunch.ITIL is full of details and descriptions, but without a direct prescription how things should be done. Data model, relations, APIs? I don't blame them, technology is moving fast and things that will be possible tomorrow are imaginable by fewer and fewer people, so this vagueness in ITIL is given with a good measure of direct guidelines and freedom of interpolation. After all, CMDB became a kind of religion, even better, a Loch Ness monster parallel story: everyone is talking about it, and
Configuration Management Basics 2007-06-06 18:07:00 MissionTo identify, record and report on configuration items and their relationships that underpin IT services.GoalsTo account for all IT assets, configurations and services within organizationTo provide accurate information and documentation on configurations and assets to other SM processesTo provide a sound basis for Incident, Problem, Change and Release management To verify configuration record and correct exceptionsPicture: ConfigurationManagement
Mind MapDefinitionsConfiguration Management: The process of identifying and defining Configuration Items in a system, recording and reporting the status of Configuration Items and Requests for Change, and verifying the completeness and correctness of Configuration Items.CMDB - Configuration Management Database: database which contains details about the attributes and the history of each CI and details of the important relationships between CIs.CI - Configuration Item: basic CMDB element. Component of an infrastructure that is under the Read more:Basics
Problem Management Facts 2007-06-04 17:01:00 Problem Management
process can be roughly defined by a definition of Problem:Problem is the unknown cause of one or more incidents, often identified as a result of multiple similar incidents. It will become a Known Error when the Root Cause is known and a temporary Workaround or a Permanent Fix has been identified.Problem Control scope is transforming Problems into Known Errors.Error Control deals with resolving Known Errors via the Change Management process.GoalTo minimize the adverse impact of Incidents and Problems on the business that are caused by errors within the IT Infrastructure, and to proactively prevent recurrence of related Incidents, Problems and errors.Picture: Problem Management Mind MapInputs Incident details CMDB details Incident Management workaroundsActivities a. Problem control Problem identification and recording Problem classification Problem investigation and diagnosis b. Error controlError identification and recording Error AssessmentRecording error resolutionE Read more:Problem
Incident Priority - What Everyone Should Know 2007-06-01 11:38:00 As ITIL defines it, Incident
priority is primarily formed out of it's Impact and Urgency. There are also additional elements, like size, scope, complexity and resources required for resolution.So, most consultants recommend the simple matrix which will automatically calculate incident priority out of the simple value of Impact x Urgency.Recommended granulation of Priority is 4 to 5 different values.Usually the lower the value - the higher the Priority, thus Priority=1 is the highest one, and Priority=5 the lowest.There are also some sophisticated methods for defining Priority, but eventually it all boils down to something like:Picture: Standard Priority MatrixImpact of the incident is the measure of how business critical it is. Since this is difficult to determine in shoes of overworked and underpaid 1st level operator, some simplifications are necessary here. So impact is usually directly proportional to a number of users influenced by the incident. If an up-to date CMDB is available
All About Incident Classification 2007-05-29 08:59:00 Incident classification is among the main tasks of Service Desk 1st tier people. It adds structured data to a basically hectic unstructured series of info we get from a nervous Customer.Aside from prioritisation, which is another important issue, there are three main reasons for classification of incidents:Assignment and escalationProblem analysisReportingFirst reason gives us a hint why a Customer shouldn't categorize an incident. He is not trained for that, he reports his problem (over the phone, web, mail...) and it is an Operators task to assign the incident to a proper category. Reporting is important because it provides inputs to other ITSM processes (Problem, Change...) and helps us stay in good relations with the Customer and the Management.Therefore, the Incident Management tool should allow assigned people to re-classify the incident (change it's category) along the escalation path. Because sometimes the problem shows to be somewhere else. I.e. it's not the printer but the Read more:Incident
, Classification
Incident Management Mind Map 2007-05-26 13:24:00 I have process mind maps, and I am looking for a free tool to display them on the web. Until then, here is a JPG of IncidentManagement
mind map.
Incident Management Elements 2007-05-24 10:25:00 I will go through main elements of ITSM processes and give my comments as they come. I am going through my ITIL Quick Reference card I made in Excel, preparing for ITIL Service Manager exam. Have been thinking lately to put it on this site for download, please comment if you would like that.IncidentManagement
is usually the first ITIL process implemented in Support organizations.ITIL Incident Definition: "any event which is not part of the standard operation of a service and which causes, or may cause, an interruption to, or a reduction in, the quality of that service"So, Incident is not a Problem, nor a Change Request. And not every Service Call is an incident. Seems very logical, but a lot of business organizations in practice tend to forget this from time to time. Example: a mail server is down. Service Desk receives X phone calls. Is every call an incident, or there is only one incident and all the rest are connected service calls? According to the above definition, there is only
Service Desk Quick Facts 2007-05-21 10:25:00 I will continue with a series of quick facts of ITSM disciplines here.A Service
Desk is a primary IT capability called for in ITSM as defined by the ITIL. It is intended to provide a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) to meet the communications needs of both Users and IT and to satisfy both Customer and IT Provider objectives.ObjectivesProviding a SPOC for customers Facilitating the restoration of normal operational service with minimal business impact on the customer within agreed SLA levels and business prioritiesIt is also a focal point for reporting Incidents (disruptions or potential disruptions in service availability or quality) and for users making Service Requests (routine requests for services). The Service Desk handles incidents and service requests, as well as providing an interface to users for other ITSM activities such as:Incident Management Problem Management Change Management Configuration Management Change Management Release Management Service Level Management Availabilit Read more:Quick
Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2007-05-15 05:56:00 OK, I wanted to cover some more basic stuff before I move to tools description. And I will definitely, later. But here I have a chance to lay out fresh info on a new player on the market, significant new product that will probably change the odds at the market. Pompous announcement, all right, but that's how I see it at the moment.Later this month, Microsoft
will go public with beta1 of SystemCenterService
Manager. You've heard about Microsoft System Center probably, a new set of system management tools revolving mainly around Operations Manager (now Ops Manager 2007) and SMS (now Configuration Manager in Beta). Well, last year MS started the development of the product with a coded name Service Desk. The decision was logical, maturity of MOM and SMS as main system management tools just craved for a service management main tool. The idea was to give as much ITIL/MOF compliant functionality in the first version as possible, with the help of mature MS technologies like SQL server and
Service Desk 2007-05-10 02:21:00 Here is where the Service
Support business starts and ends. At least from end users perspective. Customer problems and needs should be streamlined here and all feedback should come from here. Other Service Support disciplines (Problem, Change, Release, Configuration Management) are PROCESSES, and Service Desk is a FUNCTION. Since Service Desk acts as a Single Point Of Contact (SPOC) for customers, and most of the time other disciplines are initiated from SD, it is rightfully the first SS discipline defined in the Blue book.Support organizations have a Service Desk. Sometimes they call it differently, but it performs basic ITIL SD processes, so it is a SD. Sometimes people call it SD, and in reality it is a simple HelpDesk or even just a Call Centre. The difference?Call Centre's primary function is to handle large volume of calls, and hence the name. These calls can be outgoing (we sell something - telesales of commodities or simple products) or incoming, with prospect or customers inq
Service Support Evolution Model 2007-05-06 05:23:00 Pic: SD evolution vs MS DSI model There are some philosophical arguments in the trade, as to what ServiceSupport
process should be implemented first, and many knowledgeable people hide behind phrases like "each must decide for himself" or "business organizations differ", or "ITIL is prescriptive, not descriptive" and stuff like that. Blah. If you are new in the trade and just began browsing ITIL literature, you WILL implement Service Desk. Why? This is the only mentioned discipline which is not a process, it's a function. And if you are a beginner in Service Support, you are most likely here for firefighting reasons: you want to be reactive and solve incidents that emerge daily on your IT infrastructure. You want to make your customers happy instantly, resolve their incidents and you hope that they will stay happy until the next incident.FIREFIGHTING: So you implement the Incident Management process with the Service Desk. Good. You define who are your users (hopefully you know their Read more:Evolution
Service Support 2007-05-04 10:02:00 As we mentioned earlier, IT Service
Management consists of Service Support
and Service Delivery modules. Service Support is known as an ITIL Red Book, and if you are starting in ITIL, this is the first book you will reach for.Starting support organizations in an unconsolidated, firefighting phase are usually first interested in Service Desk and Incident Management. We will discuss this later, but let's mention all ITIL Service Support disciplines here:Service Desk - point of contact function for all IT customers for service requests. SD reports customers on statuses of their requests and informs them on any outages of relevant IT services planned in the change processIncident Management - a reactive process of restoration of IT services into a state before the incident. Closely connected to Problem and Change ManagementProblem Management - a very simple process: finds the underlying common cause of a few similar incidents, creates a workaround or temporary fix, and defines a permanent
ITIL 2007-05-02 09:23:00 Here we will shortly discuss a framework that became a backbone standard in ITSM. Everyone in the industry is getting certificates in ITIL, from people to SW. Why is that? Probably because ITIL is founded on best practices in IT since 1980s, and before that on experiences and methodologies of some large IT companies .ITIL was developed in the 1980s, and in 1990s became ITIL v2. Second refresh, ITILv3 is expected in May 2007.What is of interest to us are the 2 main books that define service management: 1. Service Support - Blue Book is focused on the user of the IT services. Function and processes:Service DeskIncident ManagementProblem ManagementChange ManagementRelease ManagementConfiguration Management2. Service Delivery - Red Book is focused on the Business IT needs:Service Level Management Financial Management for IT Services Capacity Management IT Service Continuity ManagementAvailability Management
ITSM 2007-05-02 07:13:00 IT Service Management, as a primary enabler of IT Governance objectives, deals with large IT systems from a customer's view: "What and how my IT contributes to my business?"ITSM is a discipline for managing enterprise IT. It's task is to defocus IT practitioners from technology and put customer deliverables at first place.ITSM deals more with practice, less with theory. It deals more with operations, less with project management.Standards, frameworks and methodologies used in ITSM :ITIL - formerly known as The Information Technology Infrastructure LibraryCOBIT - Control Objectives for Information TechnologyMOF - Microsoft Operations FrameworkISO/IEC 20000 (and its ancestor BS15000)The IT Service Capability Maturity ModelBPM, TQM, Six Sigma in business process modelling and improvementPrince2 as a project management methodology Here I mentioned just a few that I know, understand and use for now.
Service Management 2007-05-02 05:25:00 Have been thinking about service management a lot lately. Since the core bussines of my company is SM, we are educated in most of the known methodologies and implementing most of the best practices from ITIL, MOF, COBIT, ISO...Blogging about it could be a good way of setting some basic knowledge points for the new people in the business. I will take the liberty of reshaping and adding to previous posts according to comments and sugestions of the People. Read more:Service
, Management
ITIL V3 Mind Map Download 2007-10-07 16:25:00 There is a lot of stuff in the new V3 core books. I have read most of it, and I was overwhelmed with new slang, archetypes, processes, acronyms.After the second reading, you start noticing that there even exists a connection between the graphics and the text in these books. One just has to read carefully.Memorizing and putting things in a perspective can be difficult when grasping such a broad scope. Mind mapping can help to some extent. I have created a simple mind map for the purpose of my own data organization. I thought that sharing it with a community would be a good idea. So I have put it for download on this temporary space. Just click on the ITILV3.mmap (zip) link.I took the measure of deleting the content that could be problematic as copyright goes. Still, a lot of public info and my own graphics are left inside. This is a working copy, and will be upgraded regularly. For now it is in Mindjet Mind Manager format, if you have trouble viewing it, let me know, I can maybe export Read more:Download
ITIL V3 Service Portfolio, Pipeline and Catalogue 2007-10-22 07:57:00 View Upload your ownIn ITIL V3, the customer is more into focus then technology. In V2, customer and his satisfaction were important on a declarative level, but minimum effort was made to point out methods, the whats and hows to improve the customer satisfaction.In the age of V2, more palpable problems were of technological nature. Also, primary concern, especially in non-IBM IT communities was IT organisation, processes and procedures. So the main hub of all stories was the infamous CMDB, an organisational gadget with a techie name. Now, the IT mindset is of a grown up, and we turn to what and how we are doing it. Following this thread backwards, we conclude that the main question is Why. We design services according to a market demand, for some of our present and future customers. So why should a customer by a service, why would he buy it from us, what are our competitive advantages, how are we going to charge for the services, what resources do we have... These are some of the st Read more:Service
, Portfolio
, Pipeline
, Catalogue
ITIL Foundations Exam - Go/No Go? 2007-10-29 10:33:00 Some of my friends and colleagues sat the ITIL V3 Foundations
exam this week. Since I am in the business for some time, I helped them prepare. Of course, I was anxious what do the training, materials and the exam look like. I have seen some critiques and exam reviews in blogosphere, and first impression was that things are not very pink (ha, get it?).I have read all five books this summer (some of them a few times) and my impression was that in 3 days of Foundations training you can't cover much more then some kind of extended glossary for these 32 ITIL V3 disciplines. People had two days to cover 11 disciplines (Processes/function(s)) in V2. Extending a training for one day to accommodate (a lot) more then 50% of increase in scope looks very brave and optimistic. What do the students say?From what can be seen in student materials and exam questions, authors had a very high opinion on future attendees. Preparation questions were easy for me, I think I could guess my way thru at least
ITIL V3 Introductory Overview: 'Littler ITIL' Free to Download 2007-11-20 03:46:00 itSMF UK in association with Best Management Practice published a high-level overview of ITIL V3 - "An Introductory Overview
of ITIL V3.This is a small pocket book providing an executive level overview of the new ITIL V3 and its five lifecycle phases. Book has some 50 pages and reminds me of a similar IT Service Management book from 2001. This older one was about Support/Delivery in V2 and was very, very useful, since it was possible back then to put a complete detailed quick reference the core ITSM in cca 70 pages.Now, in V3, scope being so seriously broadened, it would be difficult to compress it in a similar manner to less then 200-300 pages, so this is probably the best we can get (at this moment).Basic lifecycle points are covered briefly and simply, main processes and their cross-references are touched, and it says a few in the end about the qualifications/certification, at least as it is in this moment (I hope to see some changes there).Anyway, in this beginning era of ITIL V3, Read more:Download
ITIL V3 Qualification Scheme 2007-12-03 09:48:00 The Ever-Changing Scheme
Of ThingsSo there is an almost complete ITIL V3 Qualification Scheme for the people!The scheme is comprised of five distinct levels. Every completed level or module earns specific amount of credit points, and upper levels sometimes have prerequisite of minimum credit points from the previous levels or bridged V2 levels.For now, all of the exams are supervised, closed book exams. Candidates approaching the exam in their non-native language usually get 20-30% bonus time from the original defined duration. Picture 1: ITIL V3 Qualification Scheme 1. FoundationITIL Foundation is an entry level introductory course. It is targeted to IT professionals who need understanding of basic ITIL skills and comprehension/awareness of the following: Service Management as a practice (Comprehension)Service Lifecycle (Comprehension)Key Principles and Models (Comprehension)Generic Concepts (Awareness)Selected Processes (Awareness)Selected Roles (Awareness)Selected Functions (Awarene
ITIL V3 Foundation Syllabus Change? 2008-03-04 04:24:30 In a post ITIL Foundation
s Exam Go/No-Go from Oct. 27. 2008. I said something about the possible and needed changes in ITIL V3 Foundation syllabi.For now, nothing has been announced officialy.There is a new version of Interim ITIL V3 Foundation Certificate Syllabus, version 3.1 from 07. Feb. 2008.In change comments it says that the reason for new version is updating the Copyright Statement with Crown Copyright. But also, several points of the syllabus are in red bold print, and I haven't seen the explanation for that.Marked points are mostly from Service Strategy, and most people agree that it was over-emphasized in first V3 exams. ITIL Foundations exams in February indeed had fewer questions from Service Strategy then before.So, risking to be completely off-target here, I presume that som Read more:Change
Recommend Site To A Friend
