It was an awesome day today. To follow up on my previous post about our participation at the annual itSMF Arizona Local Interest Group summit, this was indeed the day for sharing best practices - a packed, day-long event filled with industry veterans and luminaries.
Continue reading "Infosys' day out at the annual itSMF AZ LIG summit" »
Every now and then, one comes across the term 'Best Practices' especially within the IT Services industry.
This term is used far and wide by teams within the enterprise, IT leaders and service providers. Ever wonder what this truly means? Or to put it in a more structural context--
· What is the meaning of 'Best'- i.e. 'Best' as compared to what?
· What is 'Good' and is 'Excellent' better than best?
· Does 'Best' result in value for the business always or only sometimes?
· What is it's shelf life? When does 'Best' become obsolete?
· How many people does it take to recognize a 'best practice' and do they need to be in particular roles?
Continue reading "The truth about Best Practices and everything in between" »
Are you actively in pursuit to increase value, optimize costs and induce innovation into your IT services BUT instead...
Well, if any of the above symptoms are showing then it is surely a sign of something I call SaS, 'Service anxiety Syndrome'.
Firstly, you are not alone! This is prevalent in most of the IT organizations of the corporate world today. Strangely even some of the hottest (or the coolest depending on how you look at them) technology companies suffer from it. This syndrome does not discriminate on the size, capacity, location, domain, experience or resources of the company. It's also one of those where prolonged avoidance actually causes further collateral damage causing the service maturity of the entire organization to rapidly deteriorate. To make matters worse, we are all nurturing IT in isolation and each organization seems to have their own prescription to battle and survive this. With all the lessons learnt and knowledge being kept within closed doors it's a huge loss with zero collective healing.
Well the first good news is that IT is moving higher! A little background first... IT units were always 'told' or directed by the business. It was only after years of being in the basement that IT was finally placed somewhere higher when it let loose its pack of Business Analysts. Although a lot of 'requirements' were being gathered very less of 'analysis' was really being done. At best it was just listen, document & build (to make matters worse... troves of wisdom was getting lost as the requirements were sometimes just a single point of view). No one's really to blame... the engineering was so heavy that it left very little time and resources for anything else. To add further pain, engineering (or rather the tooling) was everything. Even business seemed to be excited to brush up and spill a few technical jargons within rounds of being confused, lost and nervous at the same time.
So where do we go from here? Well, SaaS changes this... IT is no more about just the tool but more of utility. In simple terms quite a lot of the engineering and maintenance is already done and managed somewhere else and only the services (benefits) are available to pick and choose from. This is a welcoming change as IT can now focus on the 'value essentials' (i.e. analysis, processes, design, innovation, strategy, user experience, integration, reports, dashboards and other features). This is enabling the gap between what the business expects and what IT tries to provide to reduce. This is a striking difference as IT organizations will now create and own 'process' rather than just hone 'tools'.
The fact that the process is the focus changes the pattern of dialogue. IT teams will now be expected to participate and engage with richer thought contributions to business. The role will be more of an advisory. The shared knowledge contributions will be beneficial to building process ownerships and this will be what the organizations will find competitive advantage in. A successful process design will need to be tool agnostic. Conversely, a great SaaS offering will need to be process absorbing (following some best practices and being domain aligned). The best SaaS tools will be able to manage multiple permutations as needed with pure configuration. IT will need to understand and learn to operate faster, leaner and higher up the value chain with focus on business value by helping with fitment at the macro as well as the micro level.
Unfortunately, there is no single magic (or pill) to overcome the 'Service anxiety Syndrome' as this is no 'common cold'. Yes, SaaS alone does not cure SaS. It is also not just about jumping into SaaS by signing-up or bringing in some consulting/technical expertise to fix things up. It's a lot lot more and rather combined. As in the case of all anxiety cures the healing has to first start from within and with eating well. In the case of 'Service anxiety Syndrome' it starts with having an appetite for change!
In my last blog I mentioned about the importance of Data Governance and its evolution. I also tried to focus on the reasons behind the need and the opportunities that lie ahead. In this blog I would like to elaborate further on the challenges/needs mentioned and also try to outline ways to prevent/resolve them. I will focus on some seemingly obvious but mostly ignored concepts. Link to my previous blog Data Governance for SaaS (Part 1 of 2)
1. Firstly, the most obvious one... Involve all stakeholders and have expectations and solutions balanced and agreed upon at all times.
In IT Asset Management certain asset types carry confidential information (mobile sim PIN, User password, delegation rights control etc.). Managing security breach due to access of vital data via different screens or unforeseen entry points (i.e. via the reporting module or direct target url entry) is always a challenge.
To avoid this there can be data exchange agreements between the data provider and consumption teams. So by virtue of such agreements across the enterprise there can be a defined understanding for handling critical information across the various system records, archives etc. As the impact of these are fairly systemic its build should include expert advice & consent from Enterprise Architects, Information Security, Access & Risk Managers.
2. Follow the middle path... One should not relying on technology or tool alone to solve all their data problems.
Managing sensitive data (i.e. financial, health, legal data) in Incident, Problem, Change, Release, Service Catalog Management etc. often defy security rules. There are times when the business may need urgent solutions and ignorantly attach/share restricted information. This is unavoidable but nevertheless it is possible to have alerts based on the nature of the data that is being shared (A form of context driven help and support).
Sometimes, simple features and a little more thought goes a long way towards preventing inappropriate data sharing and mishandling. Process design, usability and training along with technology should be managed as a single piece to help achieve effective outcomes during implementation. Don't just focus on one aspect too much but rather focus on the whole (Ashwani's blog has some well compiled best practices around this).
3. Innovate... Have an integration framework in place and continuously weigh out options, consolidate and evolve.
Building interfaces, channeling data/triggers for Deployment provisioning, Product Catalog etc. and compliance could be the biggest security juggernaut. Having reliable interfaces to data sources and to be able to equally disperse information is priority for SaaS systems.
In one of our implementations we managed this via 'web services' as it was a strong capability of the platform we chose (Please refer to my earlier blog 'ITSM - Choice Matters'). With the right data structure we were able to have it exchange real-time updates across different tools (i.e. Scheduled jobs via inbound email rules is also effective but not preferred in all cases). The needs can be different but having a consolidate way of managing this maintains predictability and is more reliable & scalable option.
4. Think!... Getting a little more out of the tool by means of customization is tempting but it is important to first challenge the need and thoroughly evaluate the solution.
There will always be a need for new processes and modules (i.e. items which do not form a standard module in some tools). Most SaaS tools generally come with powerful admin configuration features. These are sometimes extendable to create one's own modules which can be integrated to leverage the combined benefits with existing modules (i.e. To avoid email overload to end users the need to build a subscription based project/release communication management module).
It's important to map and keep an alignment on the requirements, processes workflows and overall data architecture of the tool. Of course there is always a fine line between plain configuration and the need to customize (Please refer to Satsang's brilliant blog where he weighs out the options). Customizations are usually an overhead and this should be seriously weighed against priority and needs with the feedback from technical architecture and the vendor.
5. Celebrate... Dashboards are infact the most alive part of the system where the benefits of Data Governance become apparent. Groom and cherish it!
Graphical plans and charts (for incident, problem change reports, rollout plans, conflict detection, release schedules etc.) are no more nice-to-have's but rather a must. Data governance is not just about data security but also about combining data to create meaningful information for tracking, reporting, continuous improvement & business value. Reports were usually assumed to be basic and at best just data dumping capabilities.
Powerful visualization and report generation features are a valuable assets of SaaS tools today and some have taken a leap in redefining this. The concept of dashboards is a powerful one and this should be factored in early during requirements so that data structures can be defined with useful outcomes in mind.
Just to summarize... its common that project teams tend to ignore the most obvious. They sometimes push too hard in one direction and tend to deprioritize other important aspects. It's often a shame that innovation and brain power (or even gut feel and experience) has to give way to bureaucracy and heavy processes. The solutions are there and we obviously know them. It just takes a little more from all to appreciate and manage it instead of letting things go out of control...
It's critical that IT Departments are abreast with not only the current but also future needs of their business. This is easier said than done... but with SaaS in the picture, software development and deployment is not the same anymore. The ease of evaluation and adoption is quick and hence it's important for IT leaders to be ahead of the curve in knowing what's around and introducing these within the organization where they see fit. This should be done before the businesses start taking independent decisions without IT in the picture.It is important to understand and realize that rapid prototyping possibilities of SaaS does not necessarily reduce the expected time for analysis and testing. These are still critical and required. Cloud adoption is quick but this should not make it vulnerable to business pressure and prone to hasty signoffs or decisions. SaaS does not make Data Governance easier nor does it make it riskier. The paradigms are shifting, the possibilities are surely greater but dealing with it will require more focus on vision, innovation, creativity and most importantly leadership.
Organizations aspire to comply with the ITIL v3 processes and implement an ITSM tool with holistic deployment of these processes. However, the important piece we need to look is the type of data that flows among the various ITSM processes and how quickly we can capture the specific data elements to achieve the optimum results during tools and processes implementation.
Due to numerous data flows it takes enormous amount of time to identify all the data elements, their integration points and relationships which results in the following impacts:
· Prolonged duration for ITSM tool implementation
· Less visibility for IT alignment with Business
· Ineffective rules for Data validation for various processes
· Identification of internal and external data relationships
Driven by the customer needs, Infosys has built an 'Integrated ITSM Data Architecture Model' that is strongly positioned to enable faster ITSM tools implementations.
The 'Integrated ITSM Data Architecture Model' is a structured and holistic view to demonstrate the data elements and relationships that need to be built for successful deployment of IT Service Management processes into the respective tools and platforms. It can be used as a guiding reference to manage and govern these entity relationships during the overall ITSM tools development lifecycle. This model has an effective future proofing mechanism which will enable an organization to assess their data requirements based on their existing service management processes.
This Data Model was being created by preparing individual data model for key ITSM processes: Incident, Problem, Change, Release, Service Asset and Configuration, Service Level and Access Management, integrating them all to arrive at the comprehensive Data Model. Each process is identified as an entity and respective attributes are listed in entity column to form a reference point for all other associated entities. The explicit data elements are available as related within the entity relationships among various ITSM processes.
Integrated ITSM Data Architecture Model enables the Application Architects and Process Analysts to analyze the organizational needs in terms of process relationships and the respective data elements that are required and managed throughout the information management lifecycle. The Data architecture model also accelerates the requirements elicitation process and enables faster alignment for the overall requirements. This truly reduces the overall systems requirements analysis time by 15% - 20% and also builds the foundation towards better Data Governance.
Employee Self Service
(ESS) portal is one of the most used tools within an organization - with a user
base that is organization-wide and hosting most frequently accessed utilities. ESS
portal is a one stop shop for employees to utilize internal services offered in
an organization. Users can have direct access to support information and
knowledge, made available through the portal. Users are also facilitated to
manage basic support transactions by themselves.
I
worked on project for a social networking giant in US, where the challenge was
to build and evolve a self-service model that enables a friction-less, easy access
to internal services. The features of the
ESS portal were to create an interface to raise tickets, manage raised tickets,
browse related knowledge base articles, request hardware, download software,
view one's allocated asset information, manage allocated assets [report
incident, request upgrade, report lost/stolen, ask questions etc.]. The two
main themes were - 1.) User experience 2.) Converging utilities and knowledge
onto a single interface
As
far as user experience is concerned, the requirement was to have a fully custom-built
ESS portal frontend. It is, in fact, the
case with a majority of other organizations as well, to have their Self Service
portal with desired theme, banners, font and overall design. There was strong
emphasis on aligning the ESS interface with the company's design ethos.
A case for Content Management System (WCMS)
All
ITSM product suites offer out-of-the-box self-service portals, but the extent
of customization is often limited. Customizing the out-of-the-box solution does
not have the same effect as building desired content, since customization
retains the flavor of the tool being used. On the other hand, building an ESS application
independent of an ITSM suite is not the advisable path. A comprehensive ITSM
tool suite, which is process aligned, is like the glue which seamlessly
integrates all services into one integral piece; it is crucial for process
compliance.
In
order to solve this problem of choosing between a stand-alone ESS portal and an
ITSM tool suite based portal, we leveraged the concept of Content Management
System.
A web
content management system (WCMS) is a software system that
provides website authoring, collaboration, and administration tools
designed to allow users to create and manage website content. A WCMS has
several capabilities such as access control, easily editable content, workflow
management, collaboration, document management etc. For the purpose of ESS
portal in our project, however, we dealt with the use of WCMS mainly as a
presentation layer over an underlying IT Service Management module for
Self-service. We then integrated the WCMS front end with an ITSM tool backend,
which had an out-of-the-box feature for accommodating the CMS web pages.
So
the power of WCMS can be leveraged to align the desired Service Management
module/application portal to the general theme of the organization, both UI
design wise and functionality wise. Self Service portal makes a compelling case
for WCMS to be used in such environments where there is special emphasis on
building applications in tandem with the organization's ecosystem.
A
comprehensive, functional Self-service portal is a definite sign of maturity of
IT within an organization. It is the first step towards User-driven Service Management.
In these turbulent times, large Organizations are heavily investing into IT Service Management implementation. It becomes necessary to build Technical platforms and tools that support the ITSM processes on a daily basis. There are numerous business cases that prove the business value derived from the investments on ITSM tools.
However, our experiences show that many organizations do not proactively assess the Application Infrastructure and identify the real-time requirements. This leads into performance issues down the line especially when there are global users and the Infrastructure is hosted at a single location.
Few steps that can minimize the risk of failing Application Infrastructure are:
· Forecast the application performance according to business functions and use cases
· Plan a suitable hosting solution
· Perform Server Sizing / Datacenter Consolidation
· Assess the Network requirements
In the event of multiple ITSM tools and integrations, we need to build an organizational assessment framework for Application Infrastructure.
An ITSM application infrastructure Assessment Framework has the following elements:
Hardware (Workplace Items, Mobile & SIM Card): Hardware Support will have the overall responsibility of an organizations' entire desktop and laptop hardware, software and peripherals along with their workflows and respective relationships to manage the inventory.
Network Topologies: Network Management will have overall responsibility for the organizations' entire network and liaison with 3rd party suppliers. Organizations conduct much of their business through the Internet and are therefore heavily dependent upon the availability and performance of their web servers.
Server, Storage & Datacenter: Server Management / Provisioning are specialized facilities used to provide flexible and accessible services for hosting applications. Datacenter consolidation plays a pivotal role in enhancing the application performance.
Middleware & Mainframe: Middleware is software that connects or integrates software components across distributed or disparate applications and systems as Cabinets & LAN rooms. Middleware enables the effective transfer of data between applications, and is therefore key to services that are dependent on multiple applications or data sources. Mainframes form the central component of many services and its performance will therefore set a baseline for service performance and user or customer expectations.
Integration Points: Database Scripts, Internal In-house software / application, External software / application & other instances (production and pre-production) also need to be considered during the assessment.
All these parameters will help to assess the overall complexity of an organization's IT environment. So that they are aware of the intricacies in their Infrastructure environment that need to be scrutinized or assessed to determine the overall relation of those parameters to the ITSM tool implementation.
So I happened to meet an old friend of mine at a mall. We got chatting and she happened to refer to my last blog. She was quite interested in knowing how, in reality, can an ITSM organization integrate output from multiple vendors and look at it holistically.
She ordered some chopsuey for herself from one of the stores at the food court while I got myself a cheeseburger from a burger store at the same food court. We, of course, could sit together as the entire food court was managed by the mall instead of having each store manage an area of its own. Somehow it seemed to be related to what we were discussing, isn't it?!
I just finished working on an engagement which involved ITSM consulting. We work on so many projects which involve ITSM consulting every day. So what is so special about this one? – Well, this one was in a completely new field (for ITSM) called Cryptography. Rarely do we find ITSM being applied to cryptography. But after having worked on this one, I would vouch for the fact that cryptography and ITSM do go hand in hand.
Author: Satsang Randhelia
Recently I bought a Trek 4500 MTB. As I saw it being put together I couldn’t help but draw a parallel with how we assist our clients implement service management tools. The mechanic started with fitting the basic parts like tyres, pedals, and handle bar etc on the frame, he then adjusted the brake wires, derailleur and the saddle post for my safe and comfortable riding. (Likewise we put together the available modules of the ITSM tool and use their features to support the client’s business requirements. We call it tool configuration). Since I planned to ride mostly on the road, the mechanic suggested replacing the default thick tyres with thinner slick tyres. (Likewise we suggest code modifications in existing modules of the ITSM tools. We call it tool customization)
Continue reading "Configuration and Customization: Enemies or Brothers in Arms?" »
Hello fellow blogosphere inhabitants. I would like to introduce Shaju Krishnan. He is an ITIL certified consultant with the process consulting group of Infosys. He has around 10 years of experience, of which 5 years has been focussed on IT service management. He is kicking off his blogging adventure with a piece on the hot topic of SaaS: ''Configuring ITSM tools on a SaaS platform - A few facts'' whereby he will be sharing his experiences and learnings accumulated during the configuration of a SaaS ITSM tool for one of his clients. Over to you Shaju… (Bruno Calver).
Article by: Shaju Krishnan
The Software as a Service (SaaS) model is a way of providing the same software or tool to different customers via a network, usually the Internet. In other words, the software or tool is not hosted on the customers' individual computers. Under the SaaS model, a vendor is responsible for the creation, update, and maintenance of software. Customers pay a subscription to enable access to the service, which includes a separate license for each person that will use the software. The SaaS model can add efficiency and cost savings for both the vendor and the customer. Customers save time and money since they do not have to install and maintain programs. Drawbacks for the customer are that they do not control the software and customization of programs may be limited.
Continue reading "Introducing: Shaju Krishnan on ITSM tool SaaS implementation" »
In my first posting on this topic I highlighted the trend of customers who wish to enhance the maturity and efficiency of their IT capabilities are looking towards their development and test infrastructure. The next part then looked at why such infrastructure tends to be built as an ad-hoc deployment rather than a service.
In this post I wanted to, by example, highlight some of the differences of building a pre-production environments service in contrast to a Production service. I want to take the example of measuring application/service availability, a critical measure of the quality of service to clients.,,,
Continue reading "The Next Big ITSM Evolution (part 3) – Spot the difference" »
Following on from my previous entry I wanted to highlight why development and test environments tend to be a problem area, a root cause analysis if you will.
Rather than looking at some of the symptoms that we see that challenge the on-going operation of Environment type services I think it is important to go back to the moment of birth. The picture I am going to paint is a worse case scenario, but elements of this situation haunt all major development and test environment deployments.
Outsourcing has been around for many years and most of the time it is seen as a way to contain and diminish costs. At the same time the general expectation from the client is a ‘quicker and technologically superior solution’.
There can often be a tendency to break up the value chain too much to optimize cost efficiency. Driving home the same analogy, the client has a perspective of value and the Service provider tries to do all they can to get to the highest point possible in the value chain.
As with any ongoing arrangement, Outsourcing has to be governed accordingly. So where is the link between IT Governance & IT Service Management in the outsourcing context? Do they work together effectively? What are the challenges?
Aswin works in the IT Service Management & IT Governance consulting practice with specific focus on ITIL, ISO20000 and CobiT standards. Aswin has worked in various capacities in the past that have allowed him to see the outsourcing of IT in various shapes and sizes, be it the off-shoring of product development, business processes, IT infrastructure or even pure process management.
He is an ITIL v3 expert, has ITIL Masters, ITIL Practitioner (IPRC), CGEIT, PMP, 6 Sigma GB and Lead Auditor ISO27001 qualifications.
His current passion lies in exploring how organizations can adopt effective IT Service Management, IT Governance & Information Security practices to become winning organizations. In this series of blogs Aswin will explore these topics further and invites input and comment from readers and colleagues…
Posted by: Mitesh Desai
In recent times, there has been a lot of hype about green computing and the drive to lower the impact of IT on environment. Most of the focus to date has been on how to reduce power consumption in data center. Hardware vendors are coming up with energy efficient computing devices and architectures. On the other hand, software vendors are coming up with products for virtualization to improve hardware resource utilization and as a result save up on energy and reduce carbon footprint.Protecting the environment, more than a good gesture, has become a necessity. Professionals working in diverse areas have one common topic in their discussions – environment protection. Instances such as – Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”, a documentary on global warming and Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio hosting “The 11th Hour”, an environment protection TV feature on HBO – indicates the level of attention this topic has gained.
The UN estimates over 2% of total worldwide carbon emissions are generated just by IT and data centres are singled out for particular scrutiny with energy use projected to double by 2011. CIOs are starting to feel the pressure and industry is waking up. In addition, the increase in energy prices and availability constraints are increasingly pressuring the IT to go Green.
Mitesh, one of our consultants, has done extensive research on Green IT and has studied various dimensions surrounding the subject. He has also participated in Green IT assessments for end-user computing devices. Here are some interesting thoughts on IT sustainability and Green from Mitesh. Over to you Mitesh...
Posted by: Ankur Jain
For quite some time we have been researching and implementing best practices for Software License Management (Software LM) and how can it help organizations cut down their License costs in an effective way. It is very important in the context of the current economic shift in which every corporate level decision is aiming at cost reduction or optimization. So what is Software LM and why and where should organizations invest?
Continue reading "Software License Management –A Professional View" »
How Virtualization would impact Business Service Management (BSM) Tools
Posted by Yesudas Jayson Kurisinkal
Last month I was doing a server capacity assessment as my client wanted to move an isolated trouble ticketing tool to their existing Service Desk tool platform, as part of consolidation. The capacity assessment was initiated as per the established methodology of gathering the target server utilization and application performance metrics. While I was analyzing the processor utilization data, the physical processor details, and comparing it to the benchmark set by the tool vendor- I just couldn’t connect the dots! I realized my lack of understanding of a virtual environment; the Service Desk tool was implemented on a Virtual Machine (VM) and the monitoring tool (which I used to collect utilization data) didn’t support virtualization.
Posted by Yesudas Jayson Kurisinkal
In December, while the entertainment critics were busy compiling their lists of Top music albums and Top movies of 2008, I was toying with the idea of making a year-end list of ITSM tools. But, as my hands-on experience is limited to specific tools in the industry, I felt that my list would be biased. However, I found a coherent list of the BSM winners and losers of 2008 on Doug McClure’s blog. Not surprisingly, Mr. McClure gives the Best ITSM concept of the year award to BSM Lite.
Till recently when I along with some of my peers had the opportunity to provide consulting to an American Bank, I had the perception that Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) was all about Infrastructure technologies, maybe, because I come from a Datacenter background where I spent couple of years designing solutions for clients across industry verticals for Infrastructure Management Services.
As I write my introductory blog I am convinced that ILM is not just about implementing storage solutions – what organizations need is an enterprise roadmap to operationalize ILM.
Continue reading "Design Principles for Information Lifecycle Management" »
“We have too much data, too much information in our shared drives and I guess most of it is of no use to us”. Does that sound familiar??
If No, that is great – you have made your team’s life very simple. If Yes, all the better – you have an opportunity to put a process in place so that you and your team can utilize the vast tracts of data/information that you have stashed away in your enterprise.
- Subbarao Chaganty, Senior Consultant, Infosys
Paying my sincere respects to William Shakespeare for his most famous phrase “To be or not to be” from Hamlet, I took the liberty of reconstructing this phrase to lead us to an important topic.
I’ve come across quality and process improvement methodologies like Six Sigma, CMMI and so on, where you would have to dig deeper to better understand the philosophy and the methodology of the framework. However when we come to Lean it’s as self explanatory as it can get for a powerful methodology that it represents. Kudos also to Toyota for developing and promoting this philosophy in their manufacturing plants to become one of the most popular auto-makers in the world and on top of that keeping it as simple as possible.
Posted by Subbarao Chaganty
Lean has been a successful process improvement methodology adopted across the manufacturing domain that identifies avenues for reducing expenditure through the elimination of waste. I was involved in a transformational initiative at a financial services firm that enabled us to leverage the Lean waste reduction principles in the day-to-day IT Service Management operations.
Event Management received its deserved recognition in ITIL V3 and has branched out as a well defined support area within the “Service Operations” phase of the lifecycle. A few of the critical areas of Event Management that we dealt with were Event Notification, Event Detection, Event Filtering, Event Co-relation and Event Response.
Continue reading "Application of Lean Principles in IT Service Management" »
Continue reading "Get to the center of the Business- IT Universe!" »
Infrastructure management is a reasonably well established discipline, demonstrated by the fact that we now have version 3 of the pretty much unchallenged IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practice framework. Many companies have implemented the key support processes that enable them to manage the production environment in a structured and predictable way. In most cases there will be room for building on this foundation or intermediate IT Service Management (ITSM) platform. The thing that many IT managers and CIOs will have in their mind, however, is the diminishing return of further investment in this area.
So, what next? Increasingly I see organizations, especially those with mature production ITSM processes, showing an interest in their pre-production operations covering development, test and assurance functions.
Continue reading "The next big ITSM evolution - A pre-production environments service" »
What's common between ITIL and palmistry? For one, both have a substantial number of fanatical followers as well as equally fanatical skeptics. Let's start with ITIL - on one side are folks who believe ITIL to have brought in tremendous benefits, some of these quantifiable and visible directly to business. IT benefits have included efficiencies through standardization to more operational improvements such as reduction in restoration times and safer releases and changes in the environment. And then there is the other end of the spectrum - the set of folks for whom ITIL's all a big sham. Some proclaim it openly, others choose to stay in the closet. At one of the organizations I was consulting with, while we implemented best practices of Incident Management and monitoring, we were very careful not to mention the four letters - ITIL. "Just don't call it that if you wish to stick around." - was the mantra. No problem.
So, where do I stand in this debate? To me, the very point that we are debating about the good vs bad of ITIL shows that there is a much darker and deeper underbelly of IT operations that has got exposed because of ITIL. Call it what you want, if you understand what yor business problems are and are implementing "next practices" to sort these out, you are well on your way to getting there.
Continue reading "Of ITIL & Palmistry ... Introducing Ravindran Varier" »
In my last blog I talk about how and why organizations start on the ITSM journey and how ITIL acts as a stepping stone and a guide at a very high level during this transformation journey.
While it is true that ITIL has a comprehensive set of best practices which cover all aspects of service management, this is also true that adopting best practices and achieving best practices results is not a fast track approach, nor is a quick win option for any IT organization.
Continue reading "Highly Charged Business Environment & IT Service Management" »
Sometimes, sitting back and thinking afar, I think about what effect ITIL has on the common masses. Does the average person walking on the street care about how an IT organization implements its infrastructure? Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management - so what? I am afraid I don't find a direct answer. But then again I look at some amazing examples of how Information Technology is completely changing the life of people around us. There is a plethora of examples from e-governance initiatives to what the Indian Railways has quietly achieved through the centralization of ticket bookings. IT for the masses and ITIL for an effective IT is the mantra of this generation. There are a ton of opportunities waiting to be explored.
And intent straight from the heart speaks far louder than words. Here's one such example. Introducing Gautam - "I started my IT career selling Apple computers to pre-press & publishing outfits in India in the year 1993. That experience taught me that technology can be simple yet extremely powerful. I firmly believe that common people especially in our country can benefit significantly from the use of information technology but are being “crowded out” by the private sector. My dream is to start a company which would focus on developing simple, inexpensive & useful solutions for the common man of our country."
I don’t know about you, but I have worked in the IT industry for a while and I still see a lot of the jazz and hype in terms of what IT can do for companies. Here are some typical statements:
“IT can transform your business”
“IT working with you as a strategic business partner”
“Achieving competitive advantage in business with IT”
Innovation is another term that we all love to use. Innovation to me should be more than just good quality creative solutions based on industry practice to suit the client environment, it is transformative. Why not read more and join my POLL...
Continue reading "IT Hype Fatigue and the Economic Downturn" »
Posted by Yesudas Jayson Kurisinkal, Consultant, Infosys Technologies.
I have always found the term Software License Management to be quite ambiguous with regard to the features of the tools available in the market for this. Some vendors offer very exciting features like license harvesting, and consequently cost savings. However, in the last two asset management tool implementation projects I handled for clients, Software License Management was nothing more than maintaining the records of all the software licenses of the organization in a central Asset Management tool. In one case, we integrated this with the procurement tool so as to get the financial information directly into the Asset management system. Is that all?
Nicholas Carr recently came out with his latest book "The Big Switch". But I only just finished reading his take on "Does IT Matter". Don't worry - I won't reopen that debate here 
But an interesting conversation a few weeks back with a colleague on IT budget cuts and what ITSM should focus on in such a scenario, triggered some thoughts.
In the section "Managing the Money Pit", Carr talks about how the basic assumption of IT spends going down - and not up - is becoming a reality. Nothing earth-shattering there, but a simple reminder to all of us ITSM practitioners and consultants on the need to constantly sweat our ITSM investments. And where better to start than your existing ITSM tools.
In that context, I would like to introduce Yesudas Jayson Kurisinkal.
Continue reading "ITSM Tool Implementation ... Introducing Yesudas Jayson Kurisinkal" »
Posted by Shraddha Tilloo, Consultant, Infosys Technologies.
While on my way to the airport, I noticed the fast growth taking place in and around the city in terms of the infrastructure, facilities and technology as well. With the new Bangalore International Airport located 40 miles away from city, my journey was a big long 2.5 hrs, cutting across the city gave me an opportunity to closely watch this change.
Soon I realized that in this agile environment, there is no place for slow movers. It applies to the organizations as well where all the initiatives, products and services have to be just in time, quick and at an accelerated speed. It is more prominent and prudent for IT organizations which are coping up with unprecedented pressure of being a cost effective, innovative, agile and customer focused service provider. In the course of meeting these business demands, IT organizations take on the IT Service Transformation journey.
In my last entry I discussed some of the benefits of the offshore consulting model, of which there are many, and concluded that overall it was definitely advantageous to the customer. In this posting, I want to open the door a little into some of the challenges I came across when working offshore and what I did and suggest could be done to address them...
Continue reading "Delivering IT Service Management Consulting from Offshore – Part 2" »
By Bruno Calver
So, it has been some time since my last post, that’s because I have recently been working on an IT Service Management project from Offshore, not that that should be an excuse to suspend blogging! The project was to design an IT Service Management audit framework for a U.S. finance customer.
In this post I want to talk about the specific experience of working offshore, as well as some general observations regarding working in a company with an offshore/onsite consulting delivery model. I think the picture is slightly different when it comes to high value services such as consulting in comparison to operational support and delivery activities.
Continue reading "Delivering IT Service Management Consulting from Offshore – Part 1" »
Posted by Anurag Bahal, Senior Consultant, Infosys
Purpose – Accomplish more from corporate meetings
The Matrix is my favorite movie. It has an advanced technology depiction with an underlying philosophical message. Technology and Philosophy, what a cinematic combination! Morpheus, Neo's spiritual leader and guide tells us in The Matrix "Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony”. I have seen that organization meetings have a fate and the irony is in the participant behavior.- Anurag Bahal, Senior Consultant, Infosys
How do we create a common language of Communication and create Team Synergy using metrics?
America’s first billionaire J. Paul Getty said it “I would rather have one percent of efforts of a hundred people than a hundred percent of my own efforts”
Guest Author: Bruno Calver
So, now it is time to get to the juicy part, in my opinion, of my series of blogs. What is it like living and working in India? How is it to be over a 1000 miles (or 1609km in metric terms) from the customer? Are things done differently offshore? Is it a professional and cultural shock?
Continue reading "Offshore Consulting – a foreigners view of living and working in India" »
Guest Author: Bruno Calver
In my previous blog entry I spoke about some of the general aspects of what to consider when specifying an ITSM tools implementation project, as well as some of my experiences working offshore. I also highlighted that it was imperative to show you understood some of the client’s challenges. I want to explore this area in a little more detail and discuss some of the questions and challenges that our client was facing.
Continue reading "An intercontinental tools implementation proposal - part 2" »
"I want to implement my Service Management tool out of the box. Minimum customization absolutely."
Given the ballooning costs of maintaining highly customized products, associated vendor lock-in worries and the nightmare of product upgrades on customized product sets, more organizations prefer to go out of the box or with minimum customization with their ITSM product implementations.
Wonderful so far. But how do you decide how much customization is enough? What is that minimum customization threshold value? And more importantly, how do you know when you breach that threshold?
To enable V3 transformation, service management (SM) organization needs to develop a broader outlook. Can SM enable this transformation on its own? Whom do they need to partner with?
Continue reading "Positioning IT Service management in the V3 context" »
Posted by Bruno Calver
Recently I was asked to assist an effort in putting together a proposal for an IT Service Management (ITSM) tools project for one of our UK based clients. I am currently working offshore for a while to get a feel for organisational life in India, having recently been transferred from London.
So, what does a process consultant have to do with a technical implementation of an ITSM tool? Maybe a better question is, ‘Is an ITSM tools implementation just a technical deployment?’ The answer is a positive ‘NO’ (if that’s not a contradiction in terms).
Continue reading "An intercontinental tools implementation proposal" »
Posted by - Atul Porwal
Not all organizations are same and neither is the effort required to implement ITSM. In my last blog I talked about the ITSM implementation stages and activities, which provided pointers towards areas “where” the effort is required. “How much” of that effort is required is driven by some of the Organization-specific factors. So what really are those factors ?
Continue reading "Factors affecting magnitude of effort required to implement ITSM" »
Posted by - Atul Porwal
With more and more organizations moving towards adopting ITIL as the best practices framework for IT Service Management, there is growing curiosity from organizations as to what it will take from effort and cost perspective to reach that coveted ITILized state. Is the ITSM implementation like any other initiative or are there special considerations? What are the different phases during ITSM journey and what are the key effort heads? How to plan meticulously to ensure that there is no “surprise” effort during the implementation? Is there a structured way of estimating effort and is the magnitude of effort required proportionate to the scope and size of the Organization?
Continue reading "How much effort is required to implement ITSM ?" »
As the popularity and adoption rate of ITIL moves up, it brings along with it the challenging task of estimating ITIL implementation costs and timelines across the organization’s internal units, geographies, service providers and diverse technologies. Like any other project, an ITIL implementation project also needs to be planned meticulously both in terms of tasks as well as implementation duration.
While planning for ITIL implementation, have you wondered - how long does it take to implement ITIL? Are there a defined set of parameters to be considered to calculate efforts? What are the factors influencing effort estimation? What parameters should you tweak if you have some pre-defined time/budget constraints? When should you involve an external consultant? What type of role-profiles should you consider for a particular activity to calculate effort? Does selection and sequencing of processes and tool(s) affect the implementation duration?
If you have asked yourself these questions, here's introducing Atul Porwal. Atul is an IT Service Management and Information Security Consultant. He has been involved in various engagements ranging from consulting and implementation to management of infrastructure and security projects. Atul's experience includes providing process and technology solutions for fortune 500 companies across the globe. He is also a certified ITIL Practitioner. He was recently involved in framing a reference model for calculating effort requirements for ITIL consulting and implementation engagements for Infosys. I am inviting Atul to share his thoughts and experiences through these blogs.
Here are 3 questions to kick off 2008 and your organizations' IT Service Management strategy
How old is your enterprise / IT governance model?
Is it relevant to Services and scalable to a wider audience?
What is its measure of performance?
With ITIL V3 being all the buzz and Service Strategy being a core element of this framework, a scalable, stable and performing Governance model to govern services cannot be too far.
With V3.0 shifting the focus of ITIL from its traditional process centric approach towards a service lifecycle approach, there is an increased need for defining service centric roles within IT organizations. This paradigm shift of focus from IT systems & processes view to IT services view, which drive creation of values and influence positive outcomes to the customers, have made services the most dynamic “asset” with in an IT organization. As organizations progress towards the “Service-centric” model, the question of "who owns a Service" is being asked within an organization perpetually at various levels and at various times.
Continue reading "Defining the Service Owner role - Part 1" »
Does web 2.0 hold any meaning from an IT Service Management (ITSM) perspective? RSS feeds, wikis, blogs - do they hold any promise of transforming ITSM as we know it?
Over the last couple of years, there has been an explosive increase in the adoption of web 2.0 concepts fuelled by the internet community. But how much of this has trickled to the ITSM space? Web 2.0 aspects including this blog have largely focused on commenting about ITSM and not really in the actual service delivery.
So are these two huge phenomena going to give each other a skip? Or are their paths destined to cross somewhere? And if so, what does that really mean?
Continue reading "Web 2.0 and ITSM: Long & Winding Roads?" »
Continue reading "Have you built the right foundation for your ITSM tool? - Part 1" »
