Outsourcing, ITIL and the ISO 20000 Certification

Vendor (Service Provider) Selection is a vital process in Outsourcing Management. Vendors go on to become partners in an outsourcing relationship.Clients Project Managers are very well aware that vendors whose IT infrastrucure is ITIL processes driven are capable of delivering high quality IT services. Therefore it is imperative for the client to specify ITIL process compliance as mandatory requirement in RFP at the Vendor Solicitation stage. It is therefore very clear that External Service Providers are looking at adapting ITIL process to demonstrate their quality service delivery capabilities. It is also a huge advantage if a Vendor (service Provider) can adapt IEC/ISO 20000, the only international standard for IT Service management. A vendor organization can claim compliance with a standard such as IEC/ISO 20000 and can put such claims in their documentation. Read this article.

5 Infrastructure Trends to Watch for in 2010

Earlier this week i happened to read Ram Mohan's article on IT Trends to watch in 2010. This article highlights the importance of ITIL and predits increased adoptation of ITIL standards in 2009-2010. Read the article here.

New complimentary qualification in ITILV3 Certification Scheme

Service Catalogue Management which is a new Process in ITILV3 is now a specialization qualification in ITILV3 certification.The importance of service catalogue should not be underestimated in IT Service Management. Pink Elephant which has been teaching this course at Practitioner level (in ITILV2) is associated with this qualification along with newScale, the world leader in Service Catalogue solutions. For more details please read here. There is a book authored by Rodrigo Flores and Troy DuMoulin called "Defining IT Success through the Service Catalog". You can order the book here

The ITIL Tool Assessment from APM Group

APM Group has launched a new ITIL Tool assessment scheme where ITSM tool vendors can apply for independent assessment and obtain an ITIL process compliant badge. This is an advantage to customer/users as they do not have to go through the tedious process of tools assessments in their ITIL Projects. ITSM Tool vendors will be given permission to use the ITIL Trade Mark to confirm that the software has been licensed by OGC.

Organizational Change Management for ITIL Success

One of the Key Success Factors in ITIL is Change Management. ITIL explicitly states that as a success factor. Senior Management commitment and support is necessary for Organizational Change Management during ITIL implementations. Why? Because ITIL implementation is an Organizational Change Project. When we talk about Change Management here we are talking about the "P" in People, Process and Technology (PPT). Please do not forget the other invisible "P" (Guess?). Change expected is in the Attitute and Behaviour which are culturally constrained. Therefore this requires a Cultural change. Changing Behaviour and Attitude is difficult. Change does not happen after training courses. Behaviour change is complex and requires commitment. An approach to Manage Change from lamarsh & Associates.

Next step in your ITIL Certification Journey after V3 Foundation

Intermediate level courses are the next step after V3 Foundation Certification. I have listed 3 of the "Capability" courses available in the market today and explained each of these and the target audience. All capability modules are 5 day courses and all Life Cycle modules are 3 day courses. There are Four "Service Capability" Modules. Service Capability Modules are role based.
Intermediate Service Capability Module: Operational Support & Analysis (OS &A)

This course explains the processes, roles and activities of the Service Operation phase of the Service Management Life Cycle based on Version 3. This course is for participants who wish to have a deep level knowledge on the process activities of the service Operation Phase. Key processes like Incident Management, Problem management are taught here along with the Technical, Application, IT Operations and Service Desk functions and how these functions contribute to the Service Operation and Analysis. This course is ideal for those who are working in Operational Roles.
Intermediate Service Capability Module: Release, Control & Validation (RC &V)

This course explains the processes, roles and activities of the Service Transition phase of the Service Management Life Cycle based on Version 3. This course is for participants who wish to have a deep level knowledge on the process activities of the service Transition Phase. Key processes like Release Management, Change management and Configuration Management are taught here along with the Service Validation & Testing, Service Evaluation and Knowledge Management which are new to Version 3.This course is ideal for those who are working in Operational Roles.
Intermediate Service Capability Module: Service Offerings & Agreement (SO &A)
This course explains the processes, roles and activities of the Service Design phase of the Service Management Life Cycle based on Version 3. This course is for participants who wish to have a deep level knowledge on the process activities of the service Design Phase. Operational staff involved in Service Portfolio Management, Service Catalogue Management, Service Level Management, Demand Management, Supplier Management, Financial Management and Business Relationship Management who wish to enhance their role-based capabilities.

Certification: 90 minute examiniation on the last day of the course consisting of 8 multiple choice, scenario based, gradient scored quetions. Participants need to score 28 out of 40 (70%) to obtain a pass and certification.

I will write about Lifecycle modules in the coming weeks.

Project Health Check Documents

Below are a few Project Health Check documents for your reference:

1. Neville Turbit's Project Health Check
2. Software Quality Associates Project Health CheckList
3. Calculate the Probability of Succes of your project

You will find Neville Turbit's document useful.

PPT of ITIL Implementation

ITIL is a comprehensive set of guidelines. It is not a silver bullet for improving IT service or to solve all your problems in your IT department. Since every organization is unique and different it is up to the organization to make the guidelines workable and effectively implement in their specific environment. ITIL is a process framework and it has work in harmony with two other important components of an organization - people and technology. People are drivers of the ITIL implementation as they have all the knowledge and skills to operate the vehicle (tools/technology) and make it a success. Technology (Tools) is like a vehicle on which these processes work, technology is also an enabler, and processes are like a plan (roadmap) which shows the way.

The biggest challenge in an ITIL implementation project is change management. As ITIL demands to have a service culture it is necessary for you to bring about the change and train your staff to be more service and business focused. You also need to understand which Implementation approach best suits to your organization based on our needs. Implementing ITIL is not about Processes, Technology and People only. IT is also about organizational change. Therefore involvement and communication are important for success. Training is the key for successful implementation because only when everyone can understand and speak the same language we can communicate the vision/goal and work towards that common goal to ensure success.

Project Health Check - Framework & Checklists

Project execution is always a challenge for Project Managers, no matter how perfectly the planning is done. Developing a project health check list before you start a project a is a easy and simple way to keep track of all faults, errors and deviaitions and correct them early. A healthy project makes all the stakeholders happy and this requires to run the checklist at regular intervals. Neudesic provides you some tips on what to examine during project health check. You can find some useful articles on Project Health Checkand Earned Value Management here. Please read a paper by Mr.Hogendijk on a generic approach to develop a Project Health Check Framework. Project health check list is a good tool for a project manager to have to avoid spending sleepless nights.

ITIL, IT Governance and Security - In the coming years

During recession when companies cut budgets they will be reluctant to spend on non-critical IT. But during recession it will be a worthy investment for companies to spend on ITIL implementation for reducing IT Operating costs, increasing productivity and for infrastructure optimization. Organizations which have implemented ITSM Best Practices and acheived success are today better positioned to support the needs of business, have lowered costs, have optimized their infrastructure and had a positive impact on revenues.

The growing importance of service culture (we have seen this during the last 10 years in the call centre industry) in IT departments in India to deliver quality service to users will lead to increase in IT Service desks in organizations which will lead to an increase in ITSM Best Practices in the next five years. IT Governance (COBIT) may not be of high importance today but in the coming five years (2009-2014) there will be an increase in awareness and adoptation of COBIT. We have seen an increase in the awarenesss and demand for other governance standards like Project Management, Portfolio Management and SOX training over the last two to three years due to compliance requirements. COBIT is poised for good growth in India in the next five years. Demand for IT Security (Which is a part of the Risk Management Plan) implementation,training and certification will continue to grow. There has been a sharp increase in awareness and demand for IT Security training & certifications like CISSP, and SSCP over the last five years to eight years.

"While there are obvious concerns surrounding the global economy, we expect that IT management initiatives will continue to gain corporate support and have a positive impact on the business performance of the enterprise" - Dan Twing, COO at Enterprise Management Associates.

Read the Top IT Management Trends for 2009 here.

Measuring Process Maturity and Implementation Approach

There are many maturity models available but IT Service Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is the most appropriate one to measure the IT Service processes of organiations. The purpose of the IT Service CMM is to help organization assess their capabilities and provide directions for improvement of their capability.

Measuring maturity is not so difficult. It requires a thorough understanding of the Maturity Model to be able to use it and apply it consistently. You can learn to do the maturity assessment yourself but it takes time, a process management consultant/expert will be able to do it for you quickly and accurately.

The higher your organizations maturity the more efficient and effective the processes are. ITIL offers three types of implementation plans: Single Process approach, Multi Process Approach and All Process approach. If your maturity measurement result indicates lower levels then you should take single process apporoach. If your maturity indicator is at level three and higher then you should take multi process implementation approach.

Atleast two persons in the organization should learn the tools and techniques to perform maturity assessments. Measuring the effectiveness of the processes is a continuous exercise and therefore the benefit of doing assessments yourself not only reduces costs but it also increases the success rate and better decision making and more importantly increase alignment with business. You can read a white paper on ITIL Process Maturity by Pink Elephant here.

Planning to Implement ITIL (The "Green Book" in ITIL Version 2) gives you a road map to implement ITIL.

ITIL E-Learning

There are a lot of online ITIL(ITSM) courses that are available in the e-market place today which have been well designed but they cannot be substitute for Instructor lead courses. Online courses provide you limited time and content, for example a HP ITSM Online Foundation course has a time limit of 16 hours and fixed set of training slides that the participant will be "shown" during the course. The advantage of online courses is the anytime and anywhere access (on demand ) but they cannot address the following which are the advantages of instructor lead courses:

1. Group Simulation, arouse interest in Particpants.
2. Enhance Participation, getting people involved.
3. Encourage Participant Thinking.
4. Check Understanding, Trainer can seek understanding of the subject and discover if thereare any areas that need to be clarified, repeated or emphasized.
5. Personal and Group Guidance.
6. Games, which are important for process training.
7. Case studies: Based on factual information and students asked to discuss, analyze and suggest recommendations....and many more.

There are lot of online courses which you can try (there is even a FREE five hour introduction course from Hewlett Packard) costing from 495 USD to 695 USD. All these courses are of 16 hours duration. There are also some online training organizations offering Service Desk Institute's (Formerly HDI) Help Desk Analyst Certification Course for 12 hours. You can also find other Foundation courses like COBIT and ISO 20000.