Infrastructure management is undergoing a transformation. ITIL can help manage conflicting demands like – “low cost but high service quality”, “ubiquitous access but enhanced security”?

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September 18, 2007

Service Catalog - The tip of the iceberg

Some years back, when I was just getting introduced to ITIL (in its version 2 then), I read about the Service Catalog in the Chapter Service Level Management Process. The concept intrigued me - that just as any organization offering products would publish a catalog of its products, IT organizations should publish their catalog of their services to business.

 

In the last few years, I have come across Service Catalogs that were very well structured and meaningful to the organizations offering the services. I have myself assisted and guided IT organizations implement Service Catalogs. During the course of which I have discovered that Service Catalogs are like icebergs – only the catalog is the cynosure, while a whole gamut of questions lie (unanswered, many times) underneath:

 

What are our services?
Who are our customers?
Why do we need to publish our services?
What do we publish in our service catalogue?
Who should publish the catalog?
Who will read this catalogue?
….and many more

 

While these seem simple enough, one would be surprised at the variety of answers that a single IT organization can come up with, which often mirrors the complexities and confusion prevailing in IT services.
 
In my blog, I am going to share my views on all these questions and I invite readers to share their views as well.

September 04, 2007

ITIL V3 on Wikipedia

"Put in almost any name into Google - Bill Clinton, Jeremy Thorpe, Tony Blair - and it is likely that the Wikipedia entry will be the thing that comes up first." Says Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator for the Financial Times, in his latest blog.

So, what's the first entry that turns up when you type in ITIL V3 on Google?

wikipedia.JPG

 

So what do you see? 

Ignore the sponsored links and chances are the first thing that turns up is indeed the Wikipedia entry. Interestingly, the Best Management Practices website that hosts the online ITIL V3 content turns up at a respectable number three.

But come back to the Wikipedia entry for ITIL V3 - and click on.

What do you think about the content available? Sadly, not too much in there at the moment. Yes, I know - ITIL V3 is just out, there are five books and not many (anyone?!) who have got around to reading them all, let alone start putting their take on Wikipedia. But still. Should we take this as an indication of how quickly V3 will get adopted? Hmmm ... we'll see. Ken Turbitt says it will take at least 18 months for V3 to start gaining adoption. Hopefully, it won't take that long for enthusiastic ITSM practitioners - like you and I - to update the ITIL V3 Wikipedia entry!

Of course, one could still argue that today's ITSM Practitioners are too busy implementing ITIL V3 to be updating content about V3 on Wikipedia. Well, anyways that's what I would like (you) to believe Laughing

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