Life will never be the same again! I remember the day in the last century when I purchased my first mobile phone so I could continue the conversations with my clients while I was stuck in one of many traffic jams in The Netherlands.  I also remember that most of my consultancy clients didn’t have email addresses, although there was inter-company electronic mail and those big yellow internal mail envelopes for paper memos etc. To connect with clients you used the phone or fax.

fast forward to 2009:

Our current clients have email addresses, a skypeID, google chat, twitter accounts, a facebook or myspace page, a google Wave account and everybody always talks on their mobile computer (isn’t it amazing that the Apple iPhone has this cool apps that you can download so you can even make phone calls with it?)

So what did I do? Over the past few months I have been more and more active with social media for The Art of Service. For one reason: we want to continue to create  long-lasting relationship with our clients and course participants.

For me this is natural and logical: Our clients discuss important and urgent issues on twitter and facebook (as well as the not so important but still urgent), so where are there to answer their questions and to engage in the conversation.

So how has the interaction changed?

1. I have my own twitter account http://www.twitter.com/ivankamenken . I use this account to share my research findings, ideas, comments and general communication around IT Service Management, ITIL, Cloud Computing, Business Management and personal ’stuff’
2. Because not everybody is interested in my thoughts and rants, I also create a corporate twitter account to discuss our events, programs, products and generic information. http://www.twitter.com/taos_events
3. I started promoting my mobile phone number on my business card and email signature again to encourage clients to speak with me directly, rather than going through my PA.
4. I have a personal SkypeID, and the company has a corporate SkypeID so nobody has to feel they can’t connect with a client at the other end of the world
5. The Art of Service has a corporate blog, posts ideas and links on posterous
6. We encourage people to send in their questions and requests for help via the forms on our websites
7. and of course there are the multiple of RSS feeds, Digg and delicious bookmarks, the hyves and Linkedin profiles

So when I look back at my first years as an ITIL and ITSM practitioner and compare it with the current situation – I would say that social media is a must for every ITIL and ITSM consultant or practitioner who wants to stay connected with the industry, their clients, peers and colleagues.

The way we did business 20 or 30 years ago doesn’t work (as well) anymore, we can’t stop growing… if you don’t use social media yet… change, and embrace it!

Last week somebody accused me on being too much process focused and not enough focused on the end result.

After my initial emotive response (and the associated defence mechanism), I started to analyse why this person would say such a thing.

• In my discussions with people, and in my articles I talk a lot about the need for processes, disciplines and frameworks. (so yes, I can see how I come across as being purely process focused)
• Reason for this is that most of these discussions start around my professional expertise. This expertise is built around a niche in the IT industry: IT Service Management and how this can be combined with Cloud Computing Offerings. (so yes, I can see how my opinions, messages and comments may come across as one-sides erring on the side of the process)
• Where is see that a lot of people miss their goals, it is often because they stop following the processes and start ‘free wheeling’ without structure and discipline

Am I focused on the processes? Yes, I think I am. And the reason is because the lack of processes seems to be the driving force behind why most IT organisations don’t connect with the rest of the business.  In the pat 2 months I have spoken with almost 100 CEO’s and Managing Directors and not ONE of them said that they really enjoyed and appreciated their IT organisation.
Not one of them commented on the fantastic level of communication and service focus of their IT groups.

This is why I am so passionate about IT Service Management and ITIL with its processes, procedures, work-instructions and activities. IT Service Management has the ability to make a major difference to many companies, small to large in revenue or size.

Do I lose sight of the end goal? I don’t think I am… in all my discussions with CIOs, CEOs and IT directors we always focus on the reason why there is a need for IT Service Management. After all – you don’t want to spend time and money on something that doesn’t make sense for your business, now do you???

Caveat and pre-warning. This might turn into a little bit of a rant…

Today I was notified that we didn’t win a large training opportunity. This doesn’t happen often, but still.. not happy with the results. And as always I try to figure out where I could have assisted the client better in their purchasing process.  Good thing is that this time I know who I lost the opportunity to, so I decided to check out what the differences are in our approach.

Now here’s the deal: The Art of Service is accredited with EXIN for all ITIL V2 and ITIL V3 certification courses, both for our classroom delivery and our eLearning delivery methods.  And yes, the full list is:

1. ITIL V2 Foundation
2. ITIL V2 Practitioner IPAD, IPPI, IPSR, IPRC
3. ITIL V2 Service Manager
4. ITIL V2-V3 Foundation Bridge
5. ITIL V2-V3 Manager Bridge
6. ITIL V3 Foundation
7. ITIL V3 Intermediate Capability SOA, PPO, OSA, RCV
8. ITIL V3 Interemediate Lifecycle SS, SD, ST, SO, CSI
9. ITIL V3 Managing Across the Lifecycle

This is important to us, as we want to do the right thing AND have that independent validation of our course materials.

(and I must admit – I am very critical of the fact that we have to be accredited for ITIL Foundation programs, when people can do self study or no study and sit the exam anyway… but we want to cover all bases hence the full suite of programs.)

This is what the friendly lady on customer service told me when I quizzed ‘the other company’ on their accreditation status:

Today I chaired a meeting with 6 other entrepreneurs.  (in my role as Forum chair for the Brisbane chapter of EO) The funny thing is that these entrepreneurs are very like-minded and they are all used to making the decisions.

But I didn’t prepare the meeting very well (these things happen) and the funny thing is: due to the lack of structure and strict timelines on the agenda we went 15 minutes over time.

Would the meeting be more valuable with the additional layer of structure and discipline? ABSOLUTELY! It seems contra-indicative, but the more structure and discipline you bring into an organisation the more you get done and the more satisfaction people get from doing it.

Same thing is true for the IT industry – from where I am standing I see a lot of time (and money) being wasted because of people going around and around in circles, going off on tangents due to a lack of structure in the organisation.

Think about it – when did you feel most valuable in your job? When you get a lot done! Most of the times this would be the day before you go on a holiday. You get so much done because your have your priorities straight, have a clear plan on what you want to achieve, have a vision of going home and leaving behind a clean desk and an empty inbox; and you structure your days around these disciplines…

So tomorrow – when you get back to work, just think about the benefits of structure and discipline when you do a walk-through of an ITIL process, embrace the benefits of discipline when you sit in on a CAB meeting.

Ultimately you will feel more valuable as a result of it.

This question arrived in my inbox this morning and this is what I answered:

There is quite a big difference between ITIL and PMP and I suppose it really depends on your other skills and preferred job type to be able to answer your question.
PMP is a Project Management Methodology, which is mostly used in an IT environment, but is specifically created for the management of projects. PMP is a product of the Project Management Institute in the USA.

ITIL is a framework specifically created for the management of IT Services across the entire lifecyle. Most activities in the framework are combined in processes and because of this the framework has a focus on continual improvement of process, product, people and partner relations.

There are touchpoints between the project organisation (which may use PMP) and the strategic & operational side of an IT department (which may use ITIL ) and the two methodologies complement each other to enable the IT organisation to produce its IT Services to the best of its capabilities.

I hope this helps you to make the decision on what would be the better study path for you. Follow this link to read more about our eLearning pathway for the ITIL framework certification.

I am packing up as my stay in Cairns has finished. The last 2 days were very good – I was invited to attend the EXIN partner event to hear about the direction EXIN is going to take in the future.

As always the presentations are mostly marketing and sales from EXIN to the training providers, but I did learn a few things that may be of interest to non-trainers as well:

1) Of all exams taken, approx. 40% are still ITIL V2 exams.

I was quite amazed at this number as my assumption was a lot lower percentage. We still have clients,  in Europe and the Middle East mainly, who prefer ITIL ITIL “>V2 to ITIL V3 but I was not aware that this number is this high.

2) APMG / OGC are alledgedly taking the V2 exams out of production

The current understanding is that the ITIL ITIL “>V2 Foundation exam will no longer be available after June 2010 and that the ITIL V2 Practitioner exams and ITIL V2 Manager exams will be phased out between June and December 2010. There will still be the option for resits until somewhere in early 2011 but no new exams will be issued.

So when I take both of these together, that means that 40% of the market must change certification strategies.. OR we are going to lose that part of the market because these companies take an “ITIL V2 of nothing” approach.

On facebook there is a video going around about a massage therapist complaining about the fact that he has to massage beautiful models all day – every day.

Sort of reminded me of my experience with IT people (sometimes). In my opinion ITIL consultants and IT Professionals have the best job in the world! We get to improve the way businesses work – and we get to play with some serious toys. We get access to the latest and greatest and still…. still most IT professionals complain!

WHY?

I think that no matter what type of job you have after a while it gets normal.. same with this guy: he sees beautiful models all day, every day… it is normal. That becomes his reference frame and he complains.

We can learn from this in relation to our IT Service Management Framework as well: not matter how sophisticated our service is.. eventually our clients will start complaining about it. When our clients get used to the level of service they start to poke holes in other areas of our service delivery.

This is the exact reason why the ITIL framework has a lifecycle phase called “Continual Service Improvement” as this phase keeps ahead of what clients want and need. the activities in this lifecycle phase help to keep the service fresh and up to scratch so that the clients ar continually reminded of the fact that we achieve our service levels and deliver a fantastic service!

When I listened to Morten’s talk last week initially I wasn’t sure if I liked it or hated it.. didn’t quite know if there were lessons to be learnt and I only made a few notes.

Now, reading back those notes, I see that there are a number of things that IT Professionals – and especially ITIL consultants – can learn from his story.

First of all, this guy has a highly visited Wikipedia page! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morten_Lund . I mean – I don’t see Robert Stroud or Rob England mentioned (yet), and they are pretty big names in the ITIL/ITSM world. It reinforces to me that the ITIL / ITSM industry is quite small – we really work in a niche of a niche of a niche. Morten invested in a startup called “Skype”, that reaches a much larger audience…

One of the one-liners I jotted down during his talk stands out for me:

It’s simple, not easy

How many times have we heard this from our ITIL students? “it’s common sense, it’s so simple” As if the ITIL framework and our knowledge and expertise should be disregarded because of its simplicity.
Personally I find it a good thing that ITIL at its core is simple. But that doesn’t make it easy to implement and follow… This is probably why consultants find it difficult to justify that the implementation of the ITIL framework can take years. Something so simple should be easy to implement, it should only take a few weeks… WRONG! ITIL implementation is a head fake, it is not about ITIL – the framework is merely the structure, or the vehicle – the implementation is about cultural change and organisational maturity.

And to finish with another one-liner from Morten: “there is a fine line between vision and hallucination”, maybe that’s why so many ITIL implementations go off the rails…

The ITIL Framework is based around IT Service Management (so basically the activities that need to be done to create, deliver and manage IT Services).
As the focus is on the management of services it is of vital importance to stay in constant contact with your clients, every phase in the Service Lifecycle focuses on customer interaction.

For Example:
Service Strategy – Demand Management needs to listen to the clients to figure out what the Patterns of Business Activity are. What is it that the client needs from IT in terms of service types and support?

Service Design – This phase has processes like Service Level Management and Service Catalog Management. The Service Catalog has a business component to help clients make appropriate decisions in relation to the type of services they wish to purchase. This phase also starts the creation of a Service Design Package which features User Acceptance criteria.

Service Transition – This phase interacts with the customers about changes to the Services and Service Experience. Change Management will interact with the clients for high impact changes as their input is important in the assessment and authorization of changes.

Service Operation – This phase interacts mainly with the End-users of the service as this is the phase where all day-to-day activities take place. The Service Desk is the first point of contact between the business community and the IT Group.

Continual Service Improvement – This phase needs clear direction from the business and as such interacts with the customers in relation to vision, mission and strategy. Customer Satisfaction surveys are usually initiated from this phase in the lifecycle.

See? Every phase interacts with the clients and end-users at various levels. The IT group can’t work in isolation (anymore…) and needs to know exactly what it needs to deliver to the customers to what level of expectations.

OK – I have a confession to make.. I love hanging out with other entrepreneurs and business owners. It gives me such a buzz and inspiration! When you talk to other entrepreneurs there is always a new opportunity to discuss, or a renewed focus on the business and what customers really want or need. Last week I had the opportunity to spend 3 days talking to  – and partying with – 350 entrepreneurs from across the globe at the Barcelona university organised by EO.

Since I came back I can’t help but wonder: why is it that these entrepreneurs invest their time and money in traveling the globe, only to meet in a city in Spain? And why is it that so many busy entrepreneurs want to get together while itSMF is struggling to get people to attend their conferences?

Another example is the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco this conference is built around one single product (and as such quite comparable to the itSMF which is built around 1 product also). Salesforce has a tribe, a loyal group of followers and clients who love and adore the product and can’t stop talking about it. They want to share their experiences and learn from each other.

Well – I have a theory:

1. EO is all about sharing experiences, and not so much about giving opinions or advice.
   Most people I have met in the itSMF groups don’t seem to do be focused on sharing their experiences anymore. The itSMF conferences seem to be more of a sales based activity where the focus is not so much on the learning and sharing aspect but more on marketing and sales.
2. Dreamforce is all about learning from other people. Everybody wants to know how to use the product to its full potential. itSMF seems to be more about listening to vendor stories.
3. Both EO and Dreamforce have a very clear target audience; EO aims to engage leading enterpreneurs to learn and grow. Dreamforce is aimed at people who want to use the applications and platform to unlock the innovation in their teams. Makes me wonder what the target audience is for the itSMF…

Call me cynical or proof me wrong… I would love to hear examples of ‘unconditional ITIL/ITSM love’ in context of the itSMF.  From where I am standing we – ITIL and ITSM practitioners can learn a lot from entrepreneurs about the art of sharing experiences to enhance further learning and growing.