Showing posts with label ITIL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ITIL. Show all posts

March 30, 2019

This Is The IT Help Desk

This was a funny true story that happened recently. 

Someone found a roach walking around their desk in the office. 

Not knowing who to call...they call the (IT) Help Desk.


Hello. What is the asset number on the device you are calling about?


Asset Number! You don't need my asset number.


Well, what is the nature of your problem?


I'll tell you what my problem is. The problem is that I have a cockroach walking around on my desk!"


Ah, do you know that you are calling the IT!!! Help Desk?


Ah, yes I do. Can you give me the number for who to call about this roach?


Ah, you are calling the wrong number. Why don't you try finding out who your facilities person is?


Facilities person! But you guys are the Help Desk! Can't you tell me how to get help to get rid of this roach? And by the way--where there is one, there are definitely more.


Ah, We don't typically handle roach problems, but thank you for calling the Help Desk. {{click}}

I know many organizations are moving to Enterprise Service Desks where you can call and get help for all sorts of issues at work. 

Even then, I wonder if the employees answering the line will be trained in who to call to get a Roach Motel or some Raid. 

Perhaps this is the next evolution of support.  ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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May 11, 2018

Kanban Visual Task Boards

Just wanted to share this best practice for Kanban or Visual Task Boards

This is a way to layout work/workflow and track and communicate progress. 

Previously, many professionals use colored sticky notes on a wall or whiteboard.

Today, tools like ServiceNow have the capability built right in. 

This was an example that I created in just a few minutes. 

Visualize your team's work and focus on what needs to get done, who the tasks are assigned to, the status, and keep driving continuous improvement in the workflow and project. 

Color coding can be used for different tasks and you can see the legend at the top.  

Tasks can be easily dragged and dropped from one column (status) to another. 

Create transparency and collaboration on your projects--try Kanban Visual Task Boards. ;-)

(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)
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March 19, 2015

What Type Of IT Error Was That?

So true story...

One of my collegues was giving me a status on an IT problem in the office. 

With a very straight face, he goes, "Yeah, it was an I.D. 10 T error!"

I'm just looking at him with a sort of blank face (I must have been emanating something like, "What are you talking about Willis?")

And he repeats, "An I.D. 10 T error...uh?"

Ok, one more time, I haven't had my coffee yet.

So he goes dotting his head, "What you haven't heard about an I.D. 10 T error?"

"All right, you got me...What is an I.D. 10 T error."

And as I'm saying it out loud and visioning it on paper, his little joke is out of the box.

Hey cut me some slack, I'm a Jewish kid from the Bronx and so I innocently say, "An IDIOT Error?"

Now he's nodding his head up and down in excitement, "An end user--IDIOT--error!"

And he starts laughing his head off. 

Ok boys and girls in IT...rule #16 of office etiquette, please don't call the end-users, idiots.

Back to customer service (and sensitivity) training for some of the jokesters on the team... ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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September 6, 2010

ITIL Version 3 - Serving Customers Like A Fine Restaurant

This is not a framework or vendor endorsement, but I liked this simple video explaining ITIL version 3.

It explains the five key IT service cycles by comparing them to business services in a restaurant, as follows:

1) Strategy to headquarters creating restaurant theming
2) Design to chefs developing the restaurant menu (to meet customer needs)
3) Transitions to cooks running the restaurant kitchen (reliably)
4) Operations to waiters/waitresses delivering services (and owning customer satisfaction)
5) Service Improvement to the maitre d' ensuring quality standards

The video is a little quirky in the way it cycles back and forth between ITIL and the restaurant, but overall I think the analogy works!


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December 3, 2009

Federal Computer Week - Discussion of ITIL and EA

Services listed under ITIL and enterprise architecture models are
different in nature, said Andy Blumenthal, chief technology officer at
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who did not
speak on behalf of the agency.

“When we talk about services in an EA context, we refer to those that
are used for mission and business purposes,” he said. “In contrast,
ITIL-type services are underlying support functions to the customer,
such as problem identification and resolution. An example of an EA
service versus an ITIL service would be a document management solution
versus a help desk or network management function.”

...

“Traditionally, architecture efforts have been notorious for being an
ivory-tower effort that results in shelfware,” Blumenthal said. ITIL
proponents also tend to be squirreled away in data centers and not
inclined to consult with architects.

A cultural shift is necessary, Blumenthal said. Enterprise architects
in particular must become more user-oriented if they’re going to stay
relevant in a changing technology environment, he added.

To read the entire article go to:
http://fcw.com/articles/2009/12/07/comparing-ea-and-itil.aspx


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November 11, 2008

Improving Project Management and The Total CIO

IT projects are notorious for coming in late, over cost, and not meeting the customer’s needs.

CIO.com has an excellent article on ways to improve project management in an article entitled, “When Failure is Not an Option,” by Meredith Levinson (3 July 2008).

For organizations, good project management is a critical success factor!

“Project management is the number-one success factor for getting anything done in the organization. A firm’s ability to execute its strategy lies with its ability to manage projects,” according to Sam Lawler, the director of GlassHouse Technologies’ project management practice.

Yet, for years, organizations have faulted CIOs and IT departments with failed IT projects. As recently as 2004, a study by The Standish Group found that only 29% of IT projects “were completed on time, on budget, and with all features and functions originally specified.”

Project management methodologies work when business and IT work together as a team.

There are various methodologies being employed to try to improve project’s success, such as PMBOK and ITIL. However, IT projects’ success depends on IT and business people working together to achieve results; if this partnership and collaboration doesn’t happen, then no PM framework will bring us the project success we desire. Our organization’s business people are critical to ensuring project success—they develop the business case, identify requirements/functional specifications, realign and improve business processes, and test technical solutions to ensure they meet mission and business needs.

No longer is it about tossing the proverbial hot potato to IT and then pointing fingers and assigning blame when something doesn’t work right. Instead, the business and IT people are on the same team, sharing accountability, and working toward the success of the project and the enterprise.

Performance measurement is a must:

Improved project management needs to be accompanied by measurement of project success and reporting on these to executive management. We can’t manage what we don’t measure. And we need transparency to senior management to ensure that everyone—business and IT—have “skin in the game.”

Further, there are trade-offs in project management between cost, schedule, and scope/performance. Changing one affects the others, so we need to manage projects harmoniously in this triad. If for example, a project is delayed or costs more, but delivers on added functionality requested by the business, then the project can still be a success. At the end of the project, success is defined by the business!
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October 31, 2008

IT Governance and Enterprise Architecture

I came across an interesting IT Governance Global Status Report 2008 from the IT Governance Institute.

The study and report was conducted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was the third one of its kind—the first two conducted in 2003 and 2005. In this latest study for 2007, interviews were conducted with 749 CIOs and CEOs in 23 countries.

Here are some interesting findings from the study on how enterprises are fairing on IT governance and my thoughts on these:

Championed by—in most cases CIOs champion IT governance (40%), followed by CEOs (25%), and then by CFOs (9%).

Since CIOs are predominantly responsible for IT governance, they need to step up and elevate governance as well as its complementary function, enterprise architecture, and resource it as a priority for effectively managing IT investments.

Business management engagement—68% of respondents said that business management participates (42%), leads (14%), or is fully accountable (12%) for IT governance.

From my experience, often business managers are more engaged in IT governance than IT managers; we need to work with the all the SMEs (IT and business) to understand the importance of IT governance and encourage and engage them for their active participation.

Positive view of IT—“Non-IT people…have a much more positive view of IT” than do IT people. 72% of general management agree strongly on the value creation of IT investment versus only 46% of CIOs.

We need to explore why IT professionals have a more negative view of IT than our customers on the business side of the house have and to reconcile this. Is it just that we are professionally self-critical or that know more about our dirty laundry?

Importance of IT to overall corporate strategy—“93 percent of respondents answered that IT is ‘somewhat’ to ‘very important’ to the strategy.”

IT is important to the business achieving its strategic goals. We need to ensure sufficient time, attention, and resources are allocated to developing an IT strategy and enterprise architecture that aligns to and support the business strategy.

IT governance implementation—Only 52% are ‘in the process of’ (34%) or ‘have already implemented’ (18%) IT governance; however, another 24% are considering implementing.

We need to pick up the pace of IT governance implementation. IT governance is critical establishing and enforcing the IT Strategic Plan and enterprise architecture, to vetting IT investment decisions and sharing risks with project shakeholders, and providing oversight and due diligence to ensure successfully project delivery.

Current IT governance practices—Some of these include: “IT resource requirements are identified based on business priorities” (80%), “boards review IT budgets and plans on a regular basis” (72%), “IT processes are regularly audited for effectiveness and efficiency” (67%), “Central oversight exists of overall IT architecture (IT Architecture Board or Committee)” (63%), “IT project portfolio is managed by business departments supported by the IT department” (59%), “Some form of overall IT Strategy Committee exists” (58%), Standard procedures exists for investment selection (IT Investment Committee)” (55%).

IT governance best practices are well established through frameworks such as COBIT, ITIL, and ISO20K. We need to leverage use of these frameworks to develop our organization’s IT governance solutions and ensure this vital enterprise architecture enforcement mechanism!


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May 23, 2008

Frameworks and Enterprise Architecture

One of the issues facing IT professionals these days isn’t a scarcity of IT frameworks, but rather many good frameworks that can be in conflict if we do not sort them out.

Usually each framework is focused on a certain lifecycle, which on one hand helps align it to a certain view on things, but on the other hand complicates things further, because each framework attempts to be all things to all people, by covering an entire lifecycle.

Here are some examples of the frameworks and their associated lifecycles:

  • Enterprise architecture – the IT investment life cycle (Capital Planning and Investment Control, CPIC)
  • SDLC—the Systems Development Life Cycle
  • ITIL –the service lifecycle
  • PMBOK—the project lifecycle
  • CMMi—the process lifecycle
  • Configuration Management—the asset lifecycle

Each framework has plans that need to be developed, processes to be followed, reviews that get conducted, and go/no-go decisions issued.

If an organization attempts to introduce and utilize all these frameworks then there can result a major overlap of structures, processes, and reviews that can literally drive a project manager or program sponsor nuts!

The organization could grind to a standstill trying to comply with all these frameworks.

I believe that each framework has useful information and guidance for the organization to follow and that the key to implementing these is to determine which is the PRIMARY framework at various stages of IT. The other frameworks may overlap in the stages, but it is the primary framework that guides that each stage.

Here’s an example using a few of these:

  1. Enterprise architecture is the decision making framework for IT systems. It has a core function in influencing IT investment decisions based on the target architecture and transition plan and EA reviews of proposed new IT projects, products, and standards. Therefore, EA is the primary or dominant framework in the planning stage of IT (up to the IT investment decision).
  2. SDLC is the development framework for IT systems. SDLC has a core function is guiding the software development process. As such, SDLC is the primary framework for the development phase of the system (which comes after the IT investment decision and before operations and maintenance). Of course, SDLC has planning phases and O&M and disposition phases as well, but SDLC is the primary framework only in the development stage.
  3. ITIL is the service framework. It has a core function in determining how service will be delivered and supported. ITIL is the primary framework for the O&M stage of the system (this comes after the development and before the disposition of the system), since that is when the system needs service delivery and support. Again, ITIL has other stages that overlap with other frameworks, for example planning and configuration management, but ITIL is the dominant framework only in the O&M phase.

The other frameworks should conceptually also assume a primary role for specific phases of IT and then pass off that role to the next framework that is dominant in that particular area.

4. For example, maybe PMBOK would have a dominant framework role also in the planning phase, looking at cost, schedule, performance, resources, risks, and so on (this would be after the IT investment decision of EA and before the development or acquisition phases). Again that is not to say that PMBOK doesn’t shed light and provide requirements for other stages of IT—it does—but it just is not the primary framework for those other stages.

I believe it is only by developing a unified lifecycle and assigning primary framework “ownership” to each stage will we be able to develop a truly workable IT structure and process for our organizations. As the saying goes: ”Two kings cannot sit on one throne.” So too, two frameworks cannot be simultaneously guiding our project managers and program sponsors nor taking up valuable IT resources.

The end goal is a single, simple, step-by-step process for our projects to follow with clear actions, milestones, and reviews, rather than a web of confusion and siloed, redundant governance processes in play.


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May 19, 2008

ITIL and Enterprise Architecture

Both EA and ITIL are emerging disciplines that are growing in importance and impact.
Here are their basic definitions:
EA synthesizes business and technical information and develops information products and governance services to enable better decision making.
ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) “provides a comprehensive, consistent set of best practices focused on the management of IT services processes. It promotes a quality approach to achieving business effectiveness and efficiency in the use of information systems. ITIL is focused on IT Service Management, which is “concerned with delivering and supporting IT services that are appropriate to the business requirements of the organization.” (ITIL IT Service Management Essentials, Pink Elephant)
To me, EA and ITIL are mutually supportive. Here’s how:
  • EA is a decision framework that provides for planning and governance. EA answers the question, what IT investment will we make?
  • ITIL is a service framework that provides for execution of IT services. IT answers the question, how will we support and deliver on the IT investments?
In short, EA is the discipline that handles the decision processes up to the IT Investment and ITIL handles the service management once the decision to invest in IT is made.
What are the considerations for EA and ITIL:
  • EA considers such things as return on investment, risk mitigation, business alignment, and technical compliance. EA focuses on business process improvement and new introduction of new technologies.
  • ITIL practices areas include such services as incident management, problem resolution, change management, release management, configuration management, capacity, availability, service continuity, service level management and more.
How are EA and ITIL similar in terms of requirements management and their goals?
Each seeks to understand the business requirements and satisfy their customers: EA for the requirements for proposed new IT investments and ITIL for the service required to support those.
Both disciplines are goal-oriented in terms of wanting to improve effectiveness and efficiency:
  • EA prescribes in planning, what are the right things we should we be doing (effectiveness) and in governance, how should we be doing them (efficiency) relative to IT investments.
  • ITIL prescribes in service delivery, what are the right service deliverables (effectiveness) and in service support, how we should be providing service support (efficiency).
While EA and ITIL are complementary, ITIL picks up where EA leaves off—after the IT investment decision, but before the service execution.
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January 22, 2008

Portfolio Management and Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise architecture and portfolio management are closely linked activities. EA drives IT investment management (including the IT portfolio select, control, and evaluate phases) by conducting technical reviews of proposed new IT projects, products, and standards, and IT investment management provides important information updates to the EA (baseline, target, and transition plan).

In Architecture and Governance Magazine, Issue 3 Volume 2, Nuttall and Houghton provide an overall framework that goes “Beyond Portfolio Management to Comprehensive Application Governance.”

The framework includes three main areas and one supporting process area, as follows:

  1. Application and License Management (tactical)—“It manages the demand side and user requests, the contract and compliance aspects of determining the number of licenses that are contractually allowed, along with the projects that bring new products into the portfolio while retiring older products that have been removed. In many ITIL organizations, a help desk/service desk would handle the demand for applications, while the license management aspects are often assigned to the procurement and/or configuration management functions.”
  2. Application Portfolio Management (strategic)—“determines the appropriate mix of applications in the portfolio. It s highly dependent on the strategic business drivers for the corporation and includes: portfolio strategy development, optimization, and planning.” Portfolio strategy development determines the drivers and priority of those. Portfolio optimization determines the right mix of applications to support those goals. And portfolio planning determines the risks and constraints in implementing the portfolio, such as architecture, infrastructure, and resource constraints.
  3. Financial Management—“budget and forecasting, account management, and allocations management;” these enable the planning of what money is available for the portfolio and what money is spent for applications.
  4. Supporting Processes—other process areas that impact portfolio management include: “knowledge management, communications management, management reporting, architecture strategy, risk management, operational delivery, and support management.”

“One thing is certain, though, as technology continues to drive productivity, comprehension of application governance will become an even more essential step for companies wishing to manage their risks and costs while continuing to gain strategic value from their portfolios.”

I think this model is very helpful in decomposing the traditional definition of governance from the strategic functions of portfolio selection, control, and evaluation to the additional tactical, strategic, and financial aspects involved in managing it. Particularly, I believe it is useful to separate out the business demand (licenses, new systems and technologies) from the portfolio development and optimization (“the right mix” to satisfy user needs). Additionally, the breakout of financial management from the portfolio development is important in making the distinction between the roles of the Investment Review Board/Enterprise Architecture Board and the financial or resources group that actually budget and accounts for the funding aspect of IT spend.

Nuttall and Houghton do not go into any depth with the supporting processes, so these are presented as high level touch points or supporting processes without any particular explanation of how they support portfolio management and governance.

One critical item, the authors did not include, but should have included is the Systems Development Life Cycle, which take the IT portfolio and governs it from planning through analysis, design, development, testing, deployment, operations and maintenance, and ultimately to disposition. The success of moving systems projects through the SDLC will impact the make-up of future portfolio decisions.


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August 9, 2007

What can ITIL teach us about EA

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and User-Centric Enterprise Architecture are both customer driven and focused on providing users what they need to carry out the mission of the organization. Both are about achieving results.

ITIL and user-centric EA look like they compete, but really are mutually supportive. Here’s how:

  • ITIL is a framework of best practices that seek to provide information technology service support and delivery to the end-user; User-centric EA focuses on the end-user and seeks to provide them useful and usable products and services.
  • ITIL looks to match service levels to user requirements; user-centric EA looks to match technology solutions to business and information requirements.
  • The ITIL framework has both a business perspective and an IT perspective — sounds familiar to EA? EA synthesizes business and technology information for enhancing decision making.
  • ITIL looks at all the following: business, applications, infrastructure, security, service, and planning; EA’s views include business, performance, information, service components, technology, security, and develops the plans for these.
  • ITIL is an outgrowth of the United Kingdom’s Office of Government Commerce; EA is rooted in the United States Clinger-Cohen Act and the Office of Management and Budget’s Federal Enterprise Architecture.
  • ITIL provides goals and activities for all types of IT processes including: the management of configuration, incidents, problems, change, service levels, finance, availability, security, capacity, and continuity; EA provides an as-is, to-be, and transition plan for information systems and technologies in relation to performance, business, and information requirements. Both ITIL and EA are looking to enhance mission execution.

At the end of the day, both ITIL and user-centric EA provide a framework and structure for IT to better service the business and its end-users. ITIL will provide for the process side and EA will do the same for the planning and governance.


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