The secret of success: structure and discipline! (ITIL/ITSM people – are you listening?!) October 19, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in business, itil, itsm.Tags: capacity management, change management, IT Service Management, itil, service management, time management, value
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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.
Why The Australian Taxation Office needs to improve its Demand and Capacity Management. ITIL anyone?! March 17, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: capacity, capacity management, Demand, IT Service Management, itil, service management, the art of service
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OK – here’s the deal:
On Saturday I received an email from the ATO (Australian Taxation Office) notifying me that I need to renew my digital certificates. These digital certificates are important as I can’t do my company tax, payroll tax and Sales Tax declarations online without them.
It is now Tuesday and so far I haven’t been able to renew the certificates due to a number of reasons:
- The ATO application only seems to work on Internet Explorer. My laptop defaults to Mozilla Firefox so the initial attempt to renew ran into an error code…
Not too worry, I’ll re-run the renewal in Internet Explorer… or so I thought: - The website didn’t work on Internet Explorer and I had to send 2 requests for support before somebody contacted me this morning with a known error:
The Skype add in to Internet Explorer has to be upgraded as this is incompatible with the Java Applet that the ATO uses for the digital certificate renewal process.
OK… I think I get it… and lucky me: it worked! That is…. it worked for 1 certificate! Now – I need to do 2 certificates and the process started again:
“General Process Error – An unexpected Error has occurred. Please contact your service desk for technical support” - So I called the Service Desk again… And you know what the answer was? (you’re going to LOVE this one!)
A lot of people are trying to use the renewal system at the moment. The server can’t cope – can you try again later?!?!
WHAT THE?!
Hang on – let me get this straight: the ATO sends renewal notices to a number of business owners (I now suspect I wasn’t the only person who received the email on Saturday). But when these business owners actually renew the certificates, the server can’t cope???
ITIL Demand Management and Capacity Management 1-0-1:
When you send an email to 100 people asking them to renew their certificates…. you need to be able to deliver this service to 100 people – in the unlikely event they ALL decide to renew their certificates at the same time!
If you don’t want this for whatever reason….(I can understand that this might be cost prohibitive) stagger or tier the notification process so you can manage the demand for the service… you can do this! You can schedule emails to go out on different days to alleviate the demands for service and spread it out over a longer period of time.
Maybe the ATO needs some TLC from The Art of Service… 
I’ll be happy to have a chat to them over a coffee. I’m sure we can work something out and make this world a less stressful place for business owners!
The secret of ITIL Service Level Management is… manipulation! February 25, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: business, capacity management, customer, Demand, IT, IT Service Management, itil, management, service management, SLA
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No, it’s not a bad thing to compare ITIL Service Level Management to manipulation! Basically, what I mean to say is that we as IT professionals know what we want to do and NEED to do to support the business goals and through Service Level Management we make sure we offer our clients and customers options in such a way that they choose what is best for the company and therefore exactly what we wanted!
In my books that is manipulation! Let me explain how I think it works:
- The Service Level Manager needs to figure out what the business needs in relation to IT Support and IT services. The information is collected through discussions with the customers, Business Relationship managers and Demand Manager. Based on this information an analysis is done on the future trends for the business and how IT can best support these needs and desires.
- Based on this analysis we develop a service offering, ideally with a number of options for the client. Through technical and financial restrictions we can make some choices more interesting than others. Because we as IT professionals know exactly how this service interacts with the other services and what the corporate consequences are of certain choices. We therefore design a service package that presents the options in such a way that the customer chooses the option which is best for the organization (and easiest and most cost effective for us to manage and support)
without an accurate and up-to-date Service Catalogue, supported by a Configuration Management Database and the strong interaction between Demand Management, Capacity Management and Service Level Management we wouldn’t be able to do this… But now we can!
And trust me… manipulation can be used for good causes as well! It is the secret weapon of ITIL Service Level Management, and it helps to have all our customers working together towards the overall corporate goal.
ITIL V3 Service Strategy Process Demand Management works with other processes January 24, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: business, capacity management, change management, customer, Demand, IT Service Management, itil, ITIL V3, management, service, SLM, value
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The ITIL V3 lifecycle phase of Service Strategy puts a strong focus on Demand Management and the role it plays in the strategy towards, and design of, IT services that meet the expected demands. However, this process can not work in isolation…
Demand management needs to work closely together with the processes in the other lifecycles to manage and control all aspects of demand for IT Services. Some examples follow…
Service Strategy:
- Financial Management is involved in costing and pricing issues, but also in preparing a value proposition and ROI calculations. It helps with preparing financial constraints measures.
- Portfolio Management is involved with the strategic planning decisions for this new service. How does it fit into the service pipeline and the current live service offerings? It keeps a high level overview of interactions and possible contra effects of this new service.
Service Design:
- Capacity Management is involved with the design of the service offering AND the supporting environment to deliver the appropriate level of capacity to deliver the service as agreed.
- Information Security Management plays an important role in the analysis of the PBA’s differentiation criteria. Different PBA’s have different security requirements, and the IT organization needs to respond with the correct level of security measures and associated policies.
Service Transition:
- Service Validation & Testing receives test criteria from demand management and the service design processes. These criteria will be based on the Service Package description and especially the Service Level Package descriptions. Based on these criteria, appropriate type and levels of testing are designed to ensure that we can predict the performance of the service and if it is in line with the demand requirements stated by the customers.
- Change Management plays an important role in the overall control of the IT organization. It has to ensure that changes in the infrastructure, processes or services do not negatively influence the service delivery performance. Change Management actively controls and coordinates changes made to Configuration Items, including critical documentation like service catalogues and descriptions of PBA’s.
Service Operation:
- Event Management enables the operations to perform a lot of the support monitoring tasks automatically. This is important in the context of demand management as the event management systems may pick up variations in the use of the IT Service that haven’t been noticed by the Business Relationship Manager or Customers. The reports coming from Event Management will help to identify variations and differentiations within the PBA’s.
- Problem Management, especially proactive problem management will be asked to provide input into Demand Management. Problem Management will analyze demand requirements and compare this to current known issues and hotspots in the IT environment, it also does trend analysis on incidents and feeds this information to Business Relationship Manager for discussion with the customers.
Continual Service Improvement:
- Service Level Management not only works within the Service Design phase where it is involved in negotiating and agreeing on Service Levels, it also plays an important role in the continual improvement lifecycle phase. As a result of ongoing performance monitoring we know where unexpected flaws are and can plan for improvements toward better ‘business outcome based delivery’.
- Measurement & Reporting works with all other processes but demand management specifically needs standards and guidance on measurement, metrics and reporting to ensure that the demand expectations based on the analysis of the Business processes is measured consistently and doesn’t differ from month to month due to inconsistent reporting processes.
Does ITIL still cover all Service Management aspects when you utilize Cloud Computing? January 22, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in cloud computing, itil, itsm.Tags: capacity, capacity management, cloud computing, IT Service Management, itil, ITIL V3, ITIL V4, SaaS, service management, SLA, the art of service, virtualization
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This week I have been engaged in an email discussion on the subject of the limits of ITIL when it is used in a cloud computing environment. Should there be an extension to ITIL specific for Cloud Computing environments? (hey – idea, just thought of this.. we could call this ITIL V3.1 or ITIL V4… just kidding!).
Following is the summary of some of the emails we exchanged as I thought that it might give some food for thought for other people who work in this space.
The question: where does ITIL fall short in a Cloud Computing environment?
My initial response is: no-where… but let me think about this a bit more
This is an interesting question as it links in to two (and probably more) factors:
- Do you see ITIL as an operational framework, or as a component of IT Service Management as a whole
- Do you see cloud computing as a collection of various internet / virtual based IT services?
Cloud computing is more than only desktop or server virtualization although most organisations are working with Cloud Computing concepts in this context. Cloud computing is also Software as a Service, Platform as a Service and Storage as a Service, as well as Web based (hosted) database and application services.
When you continue on this train of thought, you can also think about WHERE the ITIL framework is being utilized: at the delivery side of cloud computing services, or at the receiving side of cloud computing services?
OK –first scenario: Let’s assume that we are part of an IT organisation that DELIVERS Cloud Computing Services (and SaaS in particular). Which areas of ITIL are not coherent with this delivery model? Myanswer is easy: NONE.
All components of ITIL are of interest and importance as the SaaS is a service delivery to external customers so you need to consider all phases in the lifecycle from Strategy to Operation and CSI.
You will need to have controls and management structures in place to build a sustainable IT infrastructure that has the ability to deliver the Software Services as per the agreed Service Levels. You probably need MORE controls because you always have the unknown factor of the ISP or internet connection to deal with.
Second scenario: Virtual server environment as part of a data centre that utilizes ITIL processes for Service Management controls. The ‘boxes’ still have to fit in with the overall service offering, you still need to manage their entire lifecycle. Capacity management and Configuration Management are extremely important as automated sniffing tools might have some issues with an accurate overview of the Configuration Items.
I fully agree with the fact that is only the process component of IT Service Management, and there is a whole lot more to managing your IT Services in a consistent and quality way than to simply look at the ITIL books.
In fact – most ITIL implementations fail to deliver any value and measurable benefits because of the isolated focus on ITIL and not ITIL in the context of IT Service Management.
So we absolutely agree on that point!
I have attached the first few pages of one of our Cloud Computing publications – it might inspire you!
ITIL is by no means the holy grail to fix all problems within the IT industry, but the point that I was trying to make is that it shouldn’t make a difference how and where you get your service components – the delivery management controls should stay the same!
Mind you – I am not looking at this from a technical point of view.. I agree that at a technical level a lot of the activities will be (slightly) different, but when you approach this question from a Service Management point of view it stays very much the same.
Even the RACI diagrams for most roles will be unaffected by the introduction of cloud computing services.
______________________________________ end of email _____________________
One of the reasons why I feel so strongly about the need for ITIL Service Management processes with appropriate levels of control and coordination is because I have been at the receiving end of a SaaS service provider who clearly didn’t have those controls. And I can tell you from personal experience that this is highly frustrating!
I am sure I will be writing about this more often…
ITIL Release and deployment management for Windows 7 January 17, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: business, capacity management, change management, customer, customer service, IT Service Management, itil, ITIL V3, itsm, microsoft, service management, testing, value
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With all the hype around Windows 7 I have been thinking about the release and deployment processes that would be associated with a large and very visible project as this one. Obviously, there has been quite some customer feedback from the previous releases and versions (Vista). This would have been the basis for the RFC (request for change). So how would the ITIL processes be applicable to this project?
- It will all be under control of Change Management, as this process is meant to manage all risk associated with changing the IT infrastructure and IT Services. As there will be a major potential business impact for faults and mistakes, I would expect a rigid process and procedures around this project and a strong CAB with firm decision making powers.
- Change Management will rely on the process of Evaluation to gain a better understanding of the expected performance and quality criteria for this changed service and product. This is most likely the reason for the current public beta testing that is being performed, as this is a fantastic way to gather performance information from the production environments.
- Service Validation and Testing definitely plays an important role! Especially as we are talking about software development as well as the development of associated support services. Not only will the project team need input from the support engineers early in the project (as is appropriate when one follows the V-model for testing), but the formal transfer of knowledge – including, but not limited to Known Errors – is very important for future client support. Knowledge Management is considered to be a separate process that is very closely related to both Service Validation & Testing and Evaluation.
- The project will also be heavily involved with the Release and Deployment process of the organization. How are we going to make sure that we manage the transfer from one environment to another with out disrupting the status quo? (things should only get better.. not worse). Who do we include in the training and education, as well as the communication plans around this release? As this project is delivering a product that will be for sale to the general public, you will receive direction and input from the Sales and Marketing departments as well as the technical support areas.
It all sounds so easy, and on paper it will be. However, I haven’t even talked about the connection with Service Asset & Configuration Management, Capacity Management, the Service desk and all the operational processes. It is much more involved than you can type up in 400 words but… in order to manage a project this large and this visible, maybe you have to start very simplistic and state the obvious processes, procedures and work instructions that are needed for a smooth transition. Maybe, just maybe, this will help in identifying all the people involved and the gaps in the initial thought patterns.
Who knows… it might even help Microsoft in delivering a product to the market that actually does what it is supposed to do and is accepted and revered by clients across the world?!
Or would that be too good to be true?!
What Sao Paulo forgot to do…. (follow on from ITIL Capacity Management) December 8, 2008
Posted by ivankamenken in business, cloud computing, itil, itsm.Tags: business, capacity management, CSI, Demand, itil, itsm
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A few days ago I wrote about the license plate based restriction on car use in São Paulo. And you must agree that in theory this sounds like a good idea.
However, what São Paulo forgot to do are the demand forecasting, sizing and modeling activities… The city grew way bigger than expected and so did the use of cars.
So even WITH the restriction traffic is an absolute nightmare. I spoke with one of the federal police people and he mentioned that São Paulo needs at least 450km of public transport lines (mainly metro, tram, train) and they currently have 125km!!
This is part of the problem – walking is not an option as it is too dangerous. Public transport is not an option as there is not enough supply. So people use their car and the taxi system…
So what can we learn from this as IT professionals? Well, I think we can improve the way we do our capacity planning in a number of ways:
- Business focus
Whatever we do in the IT department should be in line with business strategy, business growth and business expectations. At the absolute minimum, review your capacity plan every year. Once we have a solid understanding of the business processes and their patterns of business activity, we can adjust our capacity delivery to support this! - Continual Service Improvement
Things change – and sometimes they change rapidly. So we need to be able to move with the change and to quickly change direction so that we can continue to support the business. This can only happen when we have a structured approach to Service Improvement.
The volatile our industry is, the quicker we need to be able to adjust. Reviewing your capacity plan every year may not be enough – you may want to do this every quarter! - Out of the box
Just like São Paulo really needs more public transport, so do we need to look at other ways of supporting our business. Conventional way not working, not able to respond quickly to changes in demand? Look for different options. There might be outsourcing options, or look into cloud computing options for capacity related flexibility. There are many ways we can deliver our services… we have to be creative to make these delivery options sustainable!
Again, I probably make it sound easier than it is… but it’s certainly food for thought! After all, a happy client pays the bills on time, and that is what we want to aim for as IT providers!
(right?!)
Capacity Management – the Sao Paulo way December 6, 2008
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: capacity management, itil, itsm
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Sao Paulo is a city with approx. 20 Million people and this amount of people together in a relatively small area creates some problems:
- There is a higher than average crime rate. The police are working very hard on this issue and the city is now a lot safer than it was 5 years ago. I had a major from the Military police in one of my classes last week and he mentioned that in the entire country of Brazil (with approx. 150 Million citizens) there are 400,000 people in jail. Fifty percent of these 400,000 people are in jail in Sao Paulo!
- Many people drive to work in their car. Even if you calculate that only10% of the population drives a car, that is still 2 million cars on the road! Driving in Sao Paulo is NOT funny – the traffic is horrendous and most of the time it takes forever to go to the office, to meetings, pretty much everywhere. Walking is not a viable option for many people (see point 1)
- Because everybody drives their cars, the air pollution is very bad. Air quality is not good and there is often a thick blanket of smog hanging over the city.
So what have they done to ensure that this problem doesn’t escalate even further -(and to stop the air pollution)?
They have implemented a financial capacity restriction measure. I am not 100% sure how it works but on some of the roads, if not all of them, there is a restriction on the cars that can drive on a particular day.
There is a rule that you are not allowed to drive your car 1 day per week. Each day there is a group of cars (depending on the last digit of the license plate) that are not allowed to use the roads on that day. There are people and systems monitoring what cars are using the road and misuse is heavily fined.
This is a very similar system to our Capacity monitoring systems that we talk about in ITIL Service Management. You can shape the utilization of bandwith for example by blocking certain IP addresses from using the service on certain days or at certain times.
It takes a while to get used to but for the people from São Paulo (and Mexico City, and Bogota) it has become a fact of life…
Cloud Computing killed the Capacity star September 28, 2008
Posted by ivankamenken in cloud computing, itil.Tags: business, capacity management, cloud computing, itil, itsm
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The last couple of months I have been thinking about a subject for a presentation and it is about the fact that Capacity Management is going to be the obsolete process for many IT organizations… in the future.
When businesses really embrace new concepts like Cloud Computing and Software as a Service do they still have a need for Capacity Management? These are some of the thoughts I have so far:
- Businesses need to change faster and more often - traditional ways of doing demand management as input into a capacity plan that is to be used for Capital expenditure budgeting (wow – long sentence!!) is no longer sufficient. The business needs the benefits of the systems and they need it NOW…
Yes, I agree that there is still the need for a strategic approach to the delivery of IT Services but with the opportunity to rent capacity on a ‘pay as you go’ basis makes all this a lot easier. - In times of economic instability you need low fixed cost – well, currently we purchase servers and expensive infrastructure like we buy clothes for our kids: they are too big but “they’ll grow into it”. So we end up with expensive boxes that are only used for approx. 15 – 20% of their capacity. Not quite a low fixed cost option. How about we use virtualization opportunities for the infrastructure we currently own and utilize services in the cloud on a ‘pay as you go’ basis to minimize the fixed capital expenditure. This way we can manipulate the variable components of our budgets as needed and respond quicker to changes in the market.
- IT Service as a utility - Many of our business clients talk about IT Service in the same way as they would about electricity and light. Why would you create a capacity plan for electricity? You simply flick a switch and it is there… that is exactly what they expect from IT. “I simply turn on the PC and all the applications I need are there and they work”. It’s quite simple really… no capacity management needed, and it is going to be quite difficult (I think) to be able to justify the expenditure on capacity management when this is the perception as the customer side…
- Business Capacity Management is more important then ever - From a strategic point of view we need to stay in touch with the business, their pain points and business opportunities. This way we can help and support the business now and in the future. Based on our discussions with the business we can add ideas for new or changed services to our service pipeline to keep in mind for future service updates. Changes in business focus, vision and strategy need to be aligned with what we are doing in our IT department.
