Thursday, May 28, 2009
Which course should you or your staff attend? - Part 2
ITIL V3 Qualifications Highlights
Those familiar with ITIL v3 will know there are two streams or groupings of qualifications within the qualification scheme. They are the Service Lifecycle and the Service Capabilities streams. We at Pink Elephant prefer to refer to them as the Management and the Practitioner streams.
Qualifications with a Management focus
- Service Strategy
- Service Design
- Service Transition
- Service Operation
- Continual Service Improvement
Qualifications with a Practitioner focus
- Service Offerings and Agreements
- Planning, Protection and Optimization
- Release, Control and validation
- Operational support and analysis
In the Management stream, the qualifications focus on topics that include planning, designing, building, deploying, and improving both services and processes as part of each lifecycle phase. Each of the Management qualification covers a particular phase of the service lifecycle. The Management qualifications only cover the material found in the core book relevant to that phase. No other books are referenced in any of the management stream syllabi.
The Practitioner stream qualifications are focused on the management and execution of the day-to-day activities required to provide services. Each Practitioner qualification covers a particular cluster of processes. Each cluster focuses on one of four practical application of the framework.
The four areas are
o Business relationship
o Designing services, processes and architectures
o Building, testing, deploying service solutions
o Operational support of the services
The Practitioner qualifications cover material found mostly in the core book relevant to that cluster. However, by their very nature, the four areas above imply that other books are referenced in all of the practitioner stream syllabi.
For people interested in the practitioner qualifications, the following table provides a list of the chapters from each core book referenced by each practitioner syllabi.
Practitioner
OSA: SS 2 & 3 + SD 7 & 9 + ST 2 & 9 + SO 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, & 9 + CSI 3, 4, 7 & 9
RCV: SS 2, 3 + ST 7 + ST 2, 4, 6, 7 & 9 + SO 2, 4, 6, 7 & 8 + CSI 3 & 5
PPO: SS 2, 5 & 9 + SD 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 & 9 + ST 2 & 9 + SO 2, 7 & 9
SOA: SS 2, 3, 4 & 5 + SD 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 & 9 + ST 2 & 9 + SO 8 & 9 + CSI 3
SS = Service Strategy
SD = Service Design
ST = Service Transition
SO = Service Operation
CSI = Continual Service Improvement
As one can see, the OSA qualification primarily focuses on the Service Operation and Continual Service Improvement books while the RCV qualifications focuses on the Service Transition and Service Operation books.
The PPO and SOA qualifications primarily focus on the Service Strategy and Service Design books.
The following table provides the list of the processes covered in each of the five ITIL core books. The Management-focused qualifications will cover the processes identified in each of the five phases in addition to other relevant management concepts for each phase.
Note: A course acronym beside a book title indicates that only certain sections, from this book are used. They usually exclude the sections on the processes.
SERVICE STRATEGY some sections used in OSA, RCV and PPO
• Service Strategy: SS only
• Financial Management: SS, SOA
• Service Portfolio Management: SS, SOA
• Demand Management: PPO, SOA
SERVICE DESIGN some sections used in OSA, RCV, SOA
• Service Catalog Management: SD, SOA
• Service Level Management: SD SOA
• Capacity Management : SD, PPO
• Availability Management: SD, PPO
• IT Service Continuity Management: SD, PPO
• Information Security Management: SD, PPO
• Supplier Management: SD, SOA
SERVICE TRANSITION some sections used in OSA, PPO, SOA
• Transition Planning & Support: ST only
• Change Management: ST, RCV
• Service Asset & Configuration Management: ST, RCV
• Release & Deployment Management: ST, RCV
• Service Validation & Testing: ST, RCV
• Evaluation: ST, RCV
• Knowledge Management: ST, RCV
SERVICE OPERATION some sections used in RCV, PPO, SOA
• Event Management: SO, OSA
• Incident Management: SO, OSA
• Request Fulfillment: SO, OSA, RCV
• Problem Management: SO, OSA
• Access Management: SO, OSA
• Functions
• Service Desk: SO, OSA
• Technical Management: SO, OSA
• IT Operations Management: SO, OSA
• Application Management: SO, OSA
CONTINUAL SERVICE IMPROVEMENT some sections used in OSA, RCV, SOA
• Seven Step Improvement: CSI
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Which course should you or your staff attend? - Part 1
Here is my suggestion regarding which ITIL V3 track/stream or course to select for the IT personnel.
First, not everyone in an organization needs to achieve the ITIL Expert level, let alone the ITIL Master. Of course, as I work for an accredited training provider, it is important for me to help my organization sell as many courses as possible. Being a Senior Examiner for the ITIL v3 Qualification Scheme, it is important to support the scheme and convince people of the benefits of the of the ITIL v3 qualifications. However, it is my belief that everyone will require the Expert or Master levels.
Look, not everyone goes to college or university and for all those who do, not everyone go for the Doctorate (PHD) level. The same logic applies to the ITIL Expert and Master levels.
Although an individual will benefit from achieving a certification, the greater benefit is for the organization.
Educating and training a group of people at the same time on a specific topic will help ensure greater consistency and greater understanding of how to apply the material back in the organization.
The following primarily applies to IT personnel who are not ITIL consultants, ITIL trainers or work for an ITSM tool vendor/reseller.
there area few criteria to consider in selecting the right course for you or your personnel
Criteria No. 1
Look at the primary focus of the job. of the primary focus of IT groups. Is the focus on fixing and supporting something, involved with changes, release, and deployment or is it on analysis and planning (making recommendations)? This will influence which phase of the service lifecycle to select.
Criteria No. 2
Are the people at the supervisory/management or are they strictly non-management? This will influence which stream to go for.
Criteria No. 3
Identify the primary and secondary learning styles of the people. Are they visual (prefers read the material), auditory (prefers to listen to a presenter) or tactile (prefers the hands-on approach)? Everyone learns through a combination of these three styles. It is simply a matter of preference. This will influence the type of delivery method for the course.
The current delivery methods for courses include
- Classroom in a public setting (delegates from different organizations at a public venue)
- Classroom in-house (within your company)
- Computer or web-based - self-paced
- Instructor-led remote - similar to a webcast set-up but with many sessions.
About the IT groups
The Service Operation book provides an excellent sample of the various groups found in the IT department. First, there are four functions:
• The Service Desk
• Technical Management
• Application Management
• IT Operations
Service Desk:
The Service Desk is a function that is crucial to the whole concept of Service Management. It is the Single Point of Contact (SPOC) between the users and customers regarding the delivery and use of services. The Service Desk is customer-focused and is comprised of people with interpersonal skills, business awareness and a service oriented (value based) perspective.
Technical Management:
• Plays an important role in the design, testing, release and improvement of IT services.
• Provides guidance to IT Operations on how to best accomplish the ongoing operational management of technology:
• Ensures a balance between the skill level, utilization and the cost of these resources:
Application Management
Application Management is responsible for managing applications throughout their lifecycle and plays a role in all applications, whether purchased or developed in-house. One of the key decisions that they contribute to is the decision of whether to buy an application or build it.
Application Management also plays an important role in the design, testing and improvement of applications that form part of IT services. As such, it may be involved in development projects, but is not usually the same as the Applications Development teams.
IT Operations Management
IT Operations Management is responsible for executing the activities and performance standards defined during Service Design and tested during Service Transition. In this sense, IT Operations’ role is primarily to maintain the status quo.
IT Operations Management consists of two roles: IT Operations Control and Facilities Management.
IT Operations Control oversees the day-to-day execution and monitoring of operational activities and events in the IT infrastructure:
Facilities Management manages the physical environment of the data center or backup facilities.
The four functions can be summarized with the following diagram. Of course, grouping and names will vary from organization to organization but the following diagram provides a good representation of the primary focus of IT groups.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Process Enablers – Part 2 – Capabilities
As mentioned in my previous blog entry Process Enablers – Part 1 – Resources, the third section of the generic process model, aptly called “Process Enablers” involves a familiar topic, Resources and Capabilities.
Before we start, we need to look at the definition of capability.
The Merriam Webster online dictionary defines capability as
• the quality or state of being capable
• a feature or faculty capable of development
Looking at their definition of capable, we get
• having attributes required for performance or accomplishment
• having traits conducive to or features permitting
• having or showing general efficiency and ability
As I have already covered capabilities in previous blog entries, I will not repeat much here.
As we have previously seen, the service lifecycle proposes five capabilities. They are management, organization, processes, knowledge, and people. However, how can we look at the capabilities of a process if it is already included as a service capability?
Process Management
There are two levels of management activities for a process, generic and process specific activities. The high-level specific process activities are well documented in the core book. By the way, many vendors (including Pink Elephant) offer products providing expanded process flows, procedures, work instructions and plenty of additional information about the process specific activities.
Unfortunately, the core books do not really cover the generic process activities except in the Service Transition book for Change Management. I strongly believe that these generic process activities apply to all processes. I also strongly believe that they greatly affect both process and service capabilities. The generic process activities are:
• Planning and controlling deliverables
• Scheduling deliverables
• Communication
• Authorization
• Ensuring there are remediation plans
• Measurement and control
• Management reporting
• Understanding deliverable impact
Management influences and is influenced by the hierarchical structure of the organization, its culture, history, and by the managers themselves. These influences can be both positive and negative. Please make sure you do not dwell only on the negative aspects but on the positive ones as well. Some questions to ask include:
• How long does it typically take process manager to make a decision?
• What does the process manager mostly base their decisions on?
• Is the process manager a victim of analysis paralysis?
• Does the process manager have access to and the proper understanding of the information?
Obviously many other questions might be asked. However, process management’s behavior needs to be understood in order to identify how resources are managed and how decisions affect the other capabilities as well.
Process Organization
Already we have touched on some aspect of the organization when we explored the management capability. I define the process organization as the functions and groups involved in any aspects of a process. This is often represented by a RACI matrix. The process organization capability, like the process management capability, influences and is influenced by the hierarchical structure of the process organization, its culture, history, and by management. Again, these influences can be both positive and negative. Some of the issues raised by the organization capability might include:
• The culture of the people making up the process organization
• The make up of the process organization; centralized, localized, decentralized, etc.
• The customer’s perception of the process organization
• The tools used
• The knowledge available
• The people involved
• etc
Process Knowledge
Here, we are not only looking at the CMS or the SKMS but at the people’s knowledge as well. People require knowing about the process including policies, procedures, instructions, etc, the IT organization, the business, and the internal and external factors affecting the business.
Process People
It is important to understand about people’s attitude, aptitudes, hard skills (technical), soft skills (people, communication, writing, listening, and others). We need to know in which processes and projects they are involved. Are they providing training, coaching, mentoring? We need to know their level of knowledge and their experience. We need to know their career aspirations. Are they new to the company or are they about to retire? We need to know their performance levels, what they are good at and what they need to work on.
Capabilities of the process
The capabilities of a process are made up of the other four capabilities of course. However, it is important to determine how well is it constructed but how well it is received and perceived. Many people believe that the more mature a process is, the better it is. I prefer to look at the completeness of the process in terms of documentation, flexibility, level of acceptance and compliance by the personnel. I also look to a) the quality of its outputs; b) the amount of throughout and c) the quantity of outputs.
A capable process is not the end-all and be-all. It is neither a silver bullet nor a magical cure. It is a starting point towards changing the culture of the people toward a better business focus.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Process Enablers– Part 1 - Resources
The third section of the generic process model, aptly called “Process Enablers” involves a familiar topic, Resources and Capabilities.
I have already covered this topic in a previous blog entry (see archive section below, February 2008, the blog entry is dated Monday, February 11, 2008 and is called About Resources and Capabilities.
I will not repeat much here. However, here is what needs to be done for every process.
1. Identify the financial capital available. In these economic times, this won’t be easy but is you track time and material used, you can get a good estimate of the cost involved to implement the process
2. The infrastructure is already identified, if not in place already. This has been identified as one of the five parts of the service design discussed in an earlier blog entry (see March 11, 2009 - Service Management Systems & Tools). That aspect is called Technology architectures and management architectures and tools required to provide the services
3. The applications are already identified, if not in place already. This has been identified as one of the five parts of the service design discussed in an earlier blog entry (see April 21, 2009 - About technology architectures). That aspect is called Service Management systems and tools, especially the Service Portfolio for the management and control of services through their lifecycle
4. Processes, see previous blog entries on
• November 06, 2008 - Process: Generic vs. Specific Activities
• November 27, 2008 - A Generic Process Model - Part 1
• March 11, 2009 - Service Management Systems & Tools
• April 29, 2009 - About Processes – Part Two
5. The last resource is of course people. Of course, we often talk about roles, responsibilities, job description, and authority matrices but we often forget about hard and soft skills. We need to consider attitude, interest, career aspiration, length of service, track record, past performance, team spirit, leadership, and communication to name but a few. We also need to consider how busy these people are, and how many are available.
Of course, we cannot discuss people as resources without looking at their capabilities. However, this is a topic for an upcoming entry.