Today’s question: What would you recommend- ITIL or PMP certification? October 17, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: itil, management, PMP, project, service management
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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.
EKKA 2009 – 1 year celebration, and random thoughts on the success of ITIL implementation August 12, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: EKKA, IT Service Management, itil, ITIL V3, project, success
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Last year I started a series of blogs on a public holiday for the EKKA, or the Royal Brisbane Agricultural Show. It started due to the fact that I couldn’t comprehend why people need an annual leave day to go to a show. (you can read my very first post here )
Exactly 12 months later (yup – today is Wednesday.. people’s day at the Ekka and thus a public holiday for all employees in Brisbane) and I still don’t understand it. But as with so many things, you grow to accept that this is the way things are happening.
But hang on… isn’t this the root of all evil, procrastination and failed ITIL implementation projects? If only we wait long enough, we get used to the status quo and take it for granted…
It’s easy to see how this way of thinking hinders our progress, and our aim to achieve more within our IT organization. Yes, in the beginning we spoke about how things didn’t make sense, and how we could improve these things. But over time we stopped talking about it because we were busy fighting fires and dealing with an overload of operational issues. And after a few months we were used to the situation… ” this is how we do things around here” . We stop looking into our processes from the outside, and don’t see the forest for the trees. We stop complaining and ‘ just get on with it’… Until there is a new manager, a new co-worker or a new consultant that comes in and asks the $64,000 question: “WHY do you do the things this way?”
It’s important that we all know the answer to this question, and there is no ONE correct answer. There could be many correct answers – ranging from : “we chose to do it this way because of budget constraints” to ” We chose to do it this way because we investigated various options and this one worked best in our corporate environment”. The only answer that would not be satisfactory is: ” Err.. .I don’t know.. we sort of always have been doing it this way…”
That type of complacency does a lot of damage, and when we simply accept the status quo we will not improve our services or our delivery. The fact that we haven’t done it any differently doesn’t mean our current way is correct or the most optimum way!
Imagine what the world would look like if the Monks in the Middle Ages accepted that they would be hand writing the books, or people would have accepted that travel was done by horse drawn carriage… simply accepted this notion without thinking about other solutions or different ways.
ITIL Service Strategy: Demand Management, and the top 4 resistance you can expect during implementation January 25, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: business, capacity, Demand, IT Service Management, itil, ITIL expert, ITIL V3, itsm, management, project, service management, SLA, the art of service
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Every process that you implement into the organization, will initiate some form of resistance. A large component of your project planning should revolve around communication, education and awareness. It is through these activities that people in the IT organization AND in the business units start to understand what Demand Management is trying to achieve.
It may take anywhere between 6 months and 2 years before people start to actively believe and evangelize about the benefits of Demand Management, keep that in mind!
Some potential reasons for resistance are listed below:
- Difficulty to produce a service before the demand materializes.
Developing products and keeping them in stock is easy: as long as you have a manufacturing process and the warehouse to store it. With services this might be more difficult. For services you not only need physical assets, but also the capabilities of Human assets. In order to prepare for the delivery of a service you need to train, up skill or employ people with the desired skillset. When the demand is not there yet, these people might feel frustrated because they can’t do the job that they were promised. - Aligning Capacity Production cycles to PBA (Patterns of Business Activity).
This is also a potential area for resistance as the Business processes might be fluctuating more than initially expected. With the help of Demand Management you spend a lot of effort in aligning the Production cycles to (what you think is) the PBA, but all of a sudden the business activities change. This also may lead to frustration of staff members and you will hear the catch phrase “I told you so… this new process doesn’t work!”
- Customer resistance to Demand restrictions
Potential resistance doesn’t only come from within the IT organization, but you can also expect some to come from the business side. Especially since most of the communication around demand and business activities has been between the Business Relationship Manager and the Customer…. Most end-users won’t necessarily have been involved in this process but they will be affected by the potential demand restrictions that are a result of these discussions. This form of resistance can be managed by strong communication messages to all stakeholders, including end-users. - Loss of business growth due to too many restrictions
One of the possible challenges that you may face is that the Demand Manager will be a bit ‘too enthusiastic’ about the way the process is implemented. The process and associated controls go from one extreme to the other (being from no formal demand restrictions at all to too many restrictions). The pendulum needs to swing to a happy medium where the business is supported in its growth strategies by appropriate demand restrictions and controls. This issue won’t happen as clearly when the Service Level Packages are clearly aligned with the desired business outcomes.
Where ITIL Service Management implementation projects go wrong… and how to fix it! November 14, 2008
Posted by ivankamenken in business, itil.Tags: business, CEO, ISO, itil, itsm, project, service management, value
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Last Tuesday I was having a chat with a CEO from South Africa and he was telling me about their experience with ITIL Service Management implementation. It struck me that the reason why these projects go wrong is universal: it seems that the same issues are present, irrespective of the geographical location!
Most ITIL consultants will tell you that projects failfor one or more of the following reasons:
- No clear vision for the project
- No visible management commitment
- Difficult to keep the momentum going
- Budget and resources not sufficient for a project of this magnitude
- … and so on and so forth.
But you know what I think? All of the above is true and correct! But there is one other reason why a lot of ITIL Service Management projects are over budget, over time and not delivering on its promise: (bit of a disappointment really…)
THE CONSULTANT!
Yup – you read that correctly – I think that there are a lot of consultants out there who are the reason why ITIL Service Management projects are disappointing their clients. Because up until 2005 their clients didn’t have an external benchmark, they didn’t have a standard to check against if their project was delivering the right stuff.
ISO/IEC 20000 is such a standard and in my humble opinion should be used this way:
If you don’t want to go for certification of your IT Services Organisation, use the standard as a validation of the ITIL Project… do we really need to do all this ’stuff’ ?? What is the best practice “bare bottom minimum” that we need to do?
It is a fantastic way to keep the IT group and your external consultants honest and to achieve the best value for money! All the frills and pretty stuff can be added later, after we’ve been running with these processes for a while and we have some measurements on performance. Until that time we will implement the requirements as per the standard and have the confidence that we’re not missing out on something important along the way!
7 tips to achieve successful ITIL implementation October 18, 2008
Posted by ivankamenken in business, itil.Tags: business, IT Service Management, itil, itsm, management, project, technology
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According to the members survey performed by the itSMF Asia (and administered by ITsmF International), and the presentations during the ITsmF Asia summit, the following are guaranteed success-factors for your ITIL implementation:
- Everything you do in IT MUST fit in with the company’s goals and objectives, and having the C-level board members involved in the decision saves a lot of time trying to convince managers and team leaders at the shop-floor that this is a good thing to do.
- Everything you do MUST fit in with the IT strategy
- The reason for ITIL implementation has to be YOUR reason – don’t look at other organisations as you might be comparing apples to oranges.
- Cost saving is NOT a result/benefit/outcome of your ITSM implementation.
- Use external help – according to the ITsmF Asia you will have a much better change of being successful at your attempt.
- Benchmark your ITIL/ITSM project against external standards – don’t turn into blind followers of the ‘ITIL-cult’. ISO/IEC 20000 is very good for this purpose!
- Only use tools that are appropriate for your level of maturity. If you use Excel spreadsheets and it works for you… DON’T change it because the vendor said so.
I know they are mother statements but very valid. Something to ponder over at least…
enjoy the weekend!
Don’t compare Apples to Cloud Computing October 4, 2008
Posted by ivankamenken in cloud computing.Tags: cloud computing, project
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On the flight back from Honolulu I sat next to a man who is involved with the ‘design’ and development of new varieties of fruit, especially apples, pears and cherries. It was fascinating to hear about the projects he runs, and especially at the time it takes from an idea to revenue stream! Because a tree must grow for about 3 – 4 years before it starts bearing fruit, it will take on average about 10 years to find out if your idea for the new variety works or not. (does this apple really give the farmer more crops? Does this pear tree really resist frost during harvest etc.)
WOW – imagine this in the IT industry… your client asks you to deliver a solution / system and your reply is: Sure, we will start a project and in 11 years we’ll know if it works or not!!! This is unimaginable in our industry…. 11 years is, like.. FOREVER!
We go the exact opposite: Cloud computing gives you the opportunity to test ideas immediately! You want to see how things work if we have 20 Terabytes in storage extra? Let’s add this to Amazon S3 and see what happens.. it’s pretty instantaneously.
Also consider budgeting and funding: how will you raise funds when the project will take 11 years before it MAY give a return??? This long term planning and budgeting is foreign to most IT organizations. Sure, we work on 3 – 5 year plans but usually on 1 – 2 year budgets. And projects that run for more than 18 months usually don’t deliver on the deliverables, time-frame or allocated budget. Imagine an 11 year project?!
Nope – I’d stick with Cloud Computing storage and processing opportunities. It’s a lot less risky and easier to manage. At least the planning horizon is in this decade!
