Certification

Monday, May 13, 2013

News From “Newco”!

I just received the attached document - a newsletter from “Newco” - with some answers to perceived FAQs around the recent announcement about “Best Management Practice”.

The newsletter requested recipients pass on this news - so here you are!

Best_Management_Practice_eBulletin_Issue_01.pdf

Wednesday, May 01, 2013

How Certification Can Help Translate Knowledge Into Results

Here are the visual aids from this afternoon’s talk at the APMG Showcase event in Toronto.

You might wonder how certifications can help with results - well it’s not a direct cause & effect; the point of my talk is that you need to VERIFY that the training & certification you have in mind actually will generate the kind of behaviour changes and positive organizational results you need.

APMG_-_How_Certification_Helps_Translate_Knowledge_Into_Results.ppt_.pdf

EDUCATION - imparts knowledge.

TRAINING - delivers competence.

Friday, April 26, 2013

No Change? No, Change!

ITIL & PRINCE2 Sold By UK Government To Capita - is this the opportunity we’ve been waiting for?

This morning we learned that the long awaited decision about who the UK’s Cabinet Office has chosen to enter into a joint venture partnership with for exploitation of Best Management Practice IP has been announced. Capita is a successful UK IT services organization who have a long track record of delivering education services to the IT industry. You can read the details of the announcement here and here.

Just a few days ago Capita - who have a history of acquisition as part of their growth strategy - bought out G2G3, a respected training organization specializing in business simulations in the area of IT Service Management.

To me, these two moves mean that the ITSM industry now has the opportunity to fully embrace the mission Pink has promoted for many years - to “Translate Knowledge Into Results”. To date, the ITIL & PRINCE2 training and certification “ecosystems” have been focused on delivering “foundation” and “expert” theory to the ITSM masses. Pink has been part of this too - as one of the world’s largest suppliers of ITIL education services. But our efforts to make ITIL training, in particular, more relevant and valuable through experiential learning instead of the “just sit down, shut up and listen” style of education has been extremely challenging.

The effectiveness of “learning by doing” instead of “learning by listening” is self-evident once you participate in experiential training sessions, like those provided by G2G3 and GamingWorks. Pink has worked with both of these organizations over the years, but because the official ITIL & PRINCE2 certification schemes have not (as yet!) embraced this type of learning, it’s been something of an uphill struggle. Despite the constant criticisms and faux pas over the years, the official certification schemes have such a lot of clout.

Ironically, the closest we ever got to experiential learning in ITIL was the original ITIL certification course - “The Service Manager”. The whole 10 days of training revolved around a simulation of an ITSM organization where participants role-played their way through the development and operation of the 10 core service management processes. Later iterations of ITIL certification courses dropped this approach for the more “chalk & talk” format of learning. So we now have hundreds of thousands of ITSM professionals around the world who know a lot about WHAT ITIL is, and few who know HOW to use it.

The timing of Capita’s acquisition of G2G3 - just days ahead of the announcement of the partnership with the Cabinet Office - looks to me like Capita may have their act together with a strategy for how to promote and deliver more valuable training in the ITSM field. I just hope I’ve read this correctly and am not setting myself up for a huge disappointment! (Fingers, toes and everything else crossable all crossed!)

While the official statement today states that it will be business as usual (so a HUGE sigh of relief from the existing Examination Institutes and Accredited Training Organizations) I can only see this being the case as long as it takes to develop and introduce new and more relevant training and certification offerings. I’m not being cynical here, but optimistic!

Watch this space.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Interesting Feedback From Customers This Week

Still at the Winter Education Symposium in Orlando!

Here’s some random facts and opinions I’ve been hearing these past couple of days:

• Four people this morning in the SOA class said they were very unhappy with the performance of their ITSM tool in how it supports/enable the Service Catalog.
• Instructor-Led-Online courses are generating a lot of interest. People are attracted to the idea of not having to leave home to get the training they need. Although everyone agrees coming to a physical classroom is the ideal solution.
• Six out of six people I talked with over lunch said they had come to Orlando with their families. They either spent a few days in advance of their ITIL Intermediate class visiting the Theme Parks, or they were doing so this coming weekend (after they get the exam out of the way tomorrow afternoon!)
• We’re all impressed with how Disney manages changes in their Theme Parks (“Pardon Our Dust”), but their IT systems seem to be having a bad week this week. There’s been many reports of room keys not working in the hotels, and the front desk not being able to re-program new keys.

And there was time for a little diversion this morning. Sitting in the SOA I was “tackled” at the mid-morning break by a couple of participants who wanted to know what I could do to help liven things up. Until now Rich Petti had set a very high standard over the first 2 days keeping everyone engaged and entertained, but for the first hour this morning the material was quite dry and there was a general feeling of “hump day” affecting the mood. I must admit I wasn’t quite on the same page but I thought I’d play along anyway. So a few minutes later, as Rich was introducing the subject of SLM, I challenged him and said “So, that slide you have there says the Service Catalog is a database or a structured document ........ so which is it? A database or a document?”

Rich paused for a second, a little startled that his fellow-Pinker was apparently about to get difficult. But in truth, he hardly broke his stride. “It can be a database OR a document”.

Then someone else chimed in “But the next bullet says you should publish the Service Catalog. How can you publish a database?” Rich paused for another second and then came right back and said “Well, you can electronically publish, so your service portal might contain Service Catalog information that it pulls from the database ....”

I looked at my two “trouble-maker” compatriots and I could see we were all thinking “He’s good, we can’t fluster him”. So I decided to try and keep the disruption going by picking on the instigator. I turned to Jeff (our playful customer) and feigning annoyance said “Are you trying to cause trouble or something?” Jeff continued playing along and started to argue back at me “He thinks he knows everything (gesturing to Rich) ....”

Well, at his point Rich suddenly paused for just a bit longer. Now we had him. He didn’t know what was going on. “What’s happening here? A minute ago you were arguing with me, now you’re arguing between yourselves”.

We all just laughed out loud. Service Level Management with a smile!

Monday, December 10, 2012

A Pink Treasure!

This week fellow Pinker Robin Hysick and I are sitting in on two of our ITIL Intermediate courses at the Winter Education Symposium here in Orlando, Florida. We have all 4 Capability courses - SOA, RCV, PPO, OSA - as well as the MAL course going in the convention centre of Disney’s Coronado Springs resort.

One of the objectives Robin and I have is to evaluate and assess the customer experience. This actually started a few days ago as we went through the registration process in the exact same way as our customers, receiving confirmation of attendance and advice for recommended pre-reading as well as instructions for how and when to register on arrival at the course.

Today was the start of the actual class experience and already we’ve gathered more feedback than I expected about what our customers like, and dislike about their learning experiences. Over the next few days I’m expecting a comprehensive set of data for what we can do to improve. After all - let’s be honest here. We’re not perfect, and if we don’t make an effort to find out what can be improved - then we don’t deserve your business!

As the days go by this week I’m particularly looking forward to hearing more about what people think of the way the courses are designed and presented. For now, I have a good feeling about this SOA course I’m auditing. Mainly because of the Trainer, Rich Petti. He’s definitely a “Pink Treasure”! Not only explaining everything very eloquently, and at just the right pace - but Rich has this charming style and throws in the most entertaining comments and observations that more than once have had me laugh out loud. He’s playful, but also clearly passionate about the subject. A good Trainer needs to know his/her stuff, but if you don’t keep people engaged it doesn’t matter how much you know. Right?

I’ll give you another update at the end of the week - stand by!

Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Frequently Asked Questions About PinkVERIFY

Stephen Mann at Forrester recently wrote a nice article about ITSM tool certifications. After reading a lot of mis-information (and mischief) over the years about tool certifications, I found Stephen’s article refreshingly well balanced and fair. He has followed up this original piece with another short article outlining some good advice to keep in mind when selecting tools (do not just pick something because it’s on the PinkVERIFY list!)

There were a few questions that Stephen posed that I thought it might be useful to try and answer.

But first, a little background information. PinkVERIFY highlights the essential functional requirements needed by any ITSM tool in order to support good ITSM practice according to the ITIL model. It’s broken up into a per process assessment. So a product can meet the PinkVERIFY “standard” for specific processes, but maybe not for others - just check the list, it’s pretty clear.

PinkVERIFY is not intended to provide recommendations for tools, but simply a list indicating what a tool DOES; not how well or how easily or how cheaply, etc. So more diligence needs to be done before making a commitment to any vendor.

PinkVERIFY is a free service provided to the ITSM practitioner community. It is also a paid service provided to the ITSM vendor community. The fees we charge are based on our best estimates of what it costs for us to provide this service. PinkVERIFY is not a major revenue earner for Pink and we do not have the same kind of approach to sales targets as we do for our Education, Events and Consulting services. Our primary financial goal is to recover our costs.

How it works is like this:

Step 1: Pink has listed on the PinkVERIFY web pages the mandatory functional requirements software tools should meet to support key ITSM processes according to the ITIL model. Anyone can view and download this information for free – practitioners and vendors alike. (I think it’s actually a goldmine of a free resource! Practitioners could use this to assess their current tools and maybe activate certain configuration options to improve functionality.)

Step 2: Vendors interested in having their product on the PinkVERIFY list are instructed to download the assessment (at no charge) and assess their tools against the criteria. They may find their tool already meets all the essential functional requirements, or that there are gaps.

Step 3: If the vendor does as we instruct and then wants to proceed to have their tool on the PinkVERIFY web page then they ask Pink to “verify” their self-assessment. We charge a daily consulting fee for this. Depending on how many processes are involved it should only take 1-3 days for the Consultant to complete the “verify”.

Step 4: If the tool passes the verification we include it on the list accordingly and we license the vendor to use the PinkVERIFY logo when promoting their product. There is another relatively small fee due here to cover our costs over the life of the product. (We learned the hard way over time that once the tool is on the list we still have quite a bit of work to do to, especially in ensuring the information there is up-to-date. You might be surprised how frequently vendor names and contact details change; even the name of their product and/or the version, etc. On more than one occasion a new version of a product has omitted functionality that will cause a failure if it were re-assessed. So we require that all new versions get a double-check. Rarely do vendors come forward with updated information, we have to be vigilant and regularly go out to ask - and this takes time and effort.

Step 5: Practitioners review the PinkVERIFY web pages when creating a shortlist of tools to evaluate. That’s it!

So here are the frequently asked questions, direct from the horse’s mouth:

1. Why PinkVERIFY?

When Pink publicly introduced ITIL to the North American ITSM community in the mid-1990s we quickly discovered the #1 FAQ - “This ITIL thing is a nice process model, but which tools work with it?” This question cropped up in EVERY ITIL Foundations class. As we all know, IT folks - especially in the US - love their tools! We thought it might be useful to provide these practitioners with a quick check-list of tools that met the minimal functional requirements of the ITIL model. The simple goal was to identify what a tool needed to do to support a process.

2. How Was PinkVERIFY Developed?

The initial version of ITIL was made up of over 40 books! Two were titled: “IT Service Support Tools” and “IT Service Delivery Tools”. We simply listed all the mandatory criteria included in those books and used them to create a simple assessment. It was all fairly black and white. The fact the list was compiled by an independent organization (Pink) with no ties to any tool vendor should have helped provide at least some degree of credibility. Nevertheless some years ago a few cheeky analysts at Gartner attempted to discredit the service by claiming we simply put products on the list if the software vendor pays us enough money. Utter nonsense! Any vendor who’s been through the process knows this is not true. The assessment criteria have always been free to download so anyone can do their own double-checking of a products applicability. Since the initial launch of ITIL, and PinkVERIFY, ITIL has been refreshed a couple of times and so we’ve endeavoured to keep the criteria up to date with new terminology and process evolutions.

3. Does Any Product Ever Fail?

Yes! Three of the large tool vendors at the launch of PinkVERIFY wanted to be first through the process. (I think two of them still claim they were first, but who cares now anyway!) Interestingly, the 3rd one failed. So right from the outset we’ve done an honest job. That failed product went through about 6 weeks of re-development by the vendor before eventually passing the “verification”. The vendor just didn’t understand the new concept of Problem Management prior to going through the PinkVERIFY process (remember this was in the very early days of ITIL in North America) but we quickly enlightened them and their product soon met the requirements. We’ve never publicized which ones fail, that’s not what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to help practitioners see which ones have actually passed the verification and also help the software vendor to understand why their product might have failed; encouraging them to do what’s necessary to make good. We’re pleased and proud to know that more than a small handful of products over the years have had re-work done in order to meet the PinkVERIFY requirements and thereby support good practice.

4. Can We Buy A PinkVERIFY Listed Product With Confidence?

You can be assured it meets the minimal functional requirements of the specific ITSM process, but the PinkVERIFY list should not be interpreted as any kind of recommendation list. There are so many other considerations that should be taken into account, such as cost, scalability, integration with other systems, ease of use, level of support, etc. etc. Think about when you might be in the market for a new TV. You may have a simple requirements list: screen size; physical size (does it fit the space I have available?); 720p, 1080i or 1080p resolution rate; LED, LCD or plasma; budget; etc. Using these requirements you may go online and make a shortlist of TVs that look like they will work for you. To me, this is a bit like the PinkVERIFY process - checking to see what’s out there and fits my functional requirements. But you then need to do more work before making a final decision. Going to the dealer to see what’s in-stock; what promotions might be available; assessing how each model actually looks; find out warranty details, etc., etc. So the initial requirements list helped you narrow the choices, but - unless it’s incredibly detailed - wouldn’t be the only consideration. For an ITSM tool you need to do more than just look at the functional requirements. So do not commit to a product JUST because it’s on the PinkVERIFY list!

5. What’s The Point If Almost Every Tool Is On The List Anyway?”

Really? When I hear this question I have to chuckle! Don’t you – as a buyer – feel confident when you buy an electrical appliance that the government has insisted it’s met mandatory safety requirements? Or that the doctor you’re about to entrust with your life is actually qualified to practice? Or that the food you’re about to eat is safe? Try finding non-approved electrical appliances in your local department store; or a doctor in your local hospital who isn’t qualified; or food on the supermarket shelf that hasn’t been approved for public consumption. So every product, doctor, whatever - is “on the list” but that doesn’t make the list redundant. There’s tons of such “certifications” across almost every industry and they serve a valuable service. I appreciate that an ITSM tool is not a matter of life and death, like selecting a safe product or choosing a suitably qualified doctor, still, using PinkVERIFY as a reference can be helpful and expedite your selection process. I’d be delighted if ALL products in the market were on the list. It means we’ve all bought in to a set of common standards which we think are useful. And it’s not just Pink creating those standards. The ITSM community at large has worked on improving ITIL over the years, and that work is reflected in PinkVERIFY.

These are just some of the more frequently asked questions about PinkVERIFY. If you have anything else you’d like to know, please leave me a comment here and I’ll do my best to provide additional information.

Good luck with your ITSM tool selection! And remember, I’m always interested to hear your experiences with either PinkVERIFY, or the tools.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Did You Take A Training Course Before Doing Your ITIL Foundation Exam?

Earlier today I was looking at the latest exam stats which are published (monthly) by AMPG. The report shows an average global pass rate for the ITIL Foundation exam of just a shade under 90%.

At Pink, and for many of our competitors, we tend to boast that attending one of our courses will give you a 95% chance of passing the exam (our records show that 95% of our customers pass the exam first time). So there’s a gap here. How can the global average be 90% when the Accredited Training Organizations (ATOs) boast about 95%?

I don’t think the answer is that the ATOs are being dishonest! I believe the discrepancy is due to the increasing number of exam candidates who do NOT participate in an accredited training course (or any training course) before sitting the exam.

So I’d be interested to see what the split is. My guess is that if someone choses to sit the exam without undertaking any formal training, then they probably have an 85-87% chance of passing the exam. I can’t be sure of this because - of the 131,660 Foundation exam candidates between February & July, 2012 - I have no idea how many people are doing a course before their exam, and how many aren’t. Anyone know? Does APMG capture this information?

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

My Presentation - “4 Rules For Transferring Knowledge Into Results”

4_Rules_For_Transferring_Knowledge_Into_Results.pdf

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

11 New ITIL Experts in Malaysia!

It was great to get a message today from some very happy Pink customers in Kuala Lumpur. They recently completed their “Managing Across The Lifecycle” course and you can see in the picture - they’re all smiles! Thanks to Kerry Gilmore, Garry Rogers, Jen Wels & Anil Dissanayake (that’s him in the middle of the photo) for not only helping these folks, but also for making Pink look good!

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Experiential Learning: Translating Knowledge Into Results

When a concept is simple to grasp then I believe there’s a greater likelihood it will be embraced.

One such example is the Kirkpatrick Model for evaluating training programs. How can you argue with this:

A “Level 1” learning experience is where the student REACTS positively to training.

A “Level 2” learning experience is where the student actually ACQUIRES new knowledge or skills.

A “Level 3” learning experience is where the student actually goes back to work and CHANGES their behaviour.

A “Level 4” learning experience is where the student’s new behaviour IMPACTS the business in a positive and measurable way.

Here at Pink we’re undertaking a review of all of our education products to ensure we go beyond levels 1 & 2. So, if I can paraphrase Don Kirkpatrick and translate his levels into ITSM-speak, here’s how it could read:

Level 1
Students might rate a classroom training course or a conference presentation as “very good” simply because they were engaged and had an enjoyable experience. I think this sort of thing happens a LOT, especially where a speaker is knowledgeable about a subject and engages with an audience that is not under any great pressure or motivation to change anything once the session is over.

Level 2
At the end of a training session the student takes an exam to prove they absorbed and learned something. I believe the ITIL Foundation experience for many students achieves no more than this outcome.

Level 3
At the end of a training session the student may, or may not, take an exam - but they are more capable of changing things for the better once they return to work. This is certainly what should come out of an ITIL Intermediate course, and I believe there’s no reason a good ITIL Foundation course shouldn’t be able to reach this level too. Unfortunately, the objective for many students entering an ITIL Foundation class is just to pass the exam, and it’s easy for the Trainer to settle for that too.

Level 4
At the end of a training session the student returns to work with new behaviours and action items AND is able to put them into practice to deliver positive outcomes enabling FUNCTIONAL - or ideally BUSINESS - objectives.

It’s not that we don’t want to see Level & Level 2 outcomes - we do. But we want to see Level 3 and Level 4 outcomes in addition to the enjoyment of the experience and certification. I believe this is best achieved by incorporating some type of “experiential learning” (or business simulation) in training sessions. Check out Pink’s newly enhanced classroom ITIL Foundation course to see what I mean.

 

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Cost v Value? Look At The Big Picture When Planning Your Training

Chatting to our staff here in the Kuala Lumpur office I’m hearing stories about customers who decide to go with competitors to save a few dollars (And it really is a small saving, some of our competitors just go slightly below Pink prices just to be able to say “we’re cheaper!”) But then we often get a call a few weeks later when the customer needs to re-sit an exam and their chosen supplier is not interested - maybe because there’s no money in coordinating exam re-sits???

Even while we were talking, the phone rang and someone asked if they could come along to our V2-V3 Manager’s Bridge exam session on December 18. Apparently they did a similar course with someone else, failed the exam, and were told “you need to contact the exam body yourself to arrange a re-sit”.

If only they’d come to us in the first place. Not only would they get a great course - possibly even a better chance of passing the exam first time - but because we value their business, we’re ready to help with any exam re-sits, no problem.

If you don’t take a long-term view of customer relationships, how can you expect customers to come back? Unfortunately, there’s still a lot of people - both customers as well as suppliers - who simply can’t differentiate between the cost of something, and its value.

Monday, September 21, 2009

ITIL Software Scheme Goes Into Pilot Stage

You may have already heard about APM Group’s plans to launch an official ITIL software assessment scheme. Today an announcement was made explaining that this scheme is about to enter the “pilot stage”, and potential “Licensed Software Assessors” are invited to contact APM Group.

At Pink we have had the industry’s only ITIL software assessment scheme for over 10 years - PinkVERIFY. There are plenty of previous posts from me here explaining how PinkVERIFY works and why we do it. (For even more information you’re welcome to view the PinkVERIFY pages on our main website.) So what does APM Group’s announcement mean for Pink, and PinkVERIFY in particular?

There has certainly been some buzz from industry observers in recent weeks as people tried to understand what APM Group was doing, and why. Why launch a software assessment scheme competitive to PinkVERIFY? The short answer is - it’s not. It’s actually an accreditation scheme where firms like Pink who have an ITIL software assessment service can have their service accredited by APM Group.

If you’re still not sure how this will work - here’s a very appropriate analogy. What will happen is the same as what happened years ago with training courses. Pink Elephant developed the very first ITIL course in 1992. But soon afterwards other organizations developed their own ITIL courses and the exam bodies made sure that a minimum standard was met for these courses by introducing an accreditation scheme - hence we now have ATOs (Accredited Training Organizations). So if you’re looking for training then chose an ATO and you have some confidence that you’ll be buying a decent product. It’s the exact same thing we have here with the ITIL software assessment scheme. APM Group are providing an accreditation service for anyone who wants to assess software as being ITIL compatible. Meet APM Group’s requirements and you can become an LSA (Licensed Software Assessor). Up until this year, PinkVERIFY has been the only such scheme in existence. But APM Group’s initiative allows for other organizations to develop their own PinkVERIFY-type of service and APM Group will accredit them, ensuring that all such schemes meet at least a minimum acceptable standard.

So PinkVERIFY is not going away. We have recently been in discussions with APM Group to have Pink, and PinkVERIFY, accredited within this new scheme. There were only a small number of changes we have made to the PinkVERIFY criteria and method - and so we’re ready to go! Going forward, any software product that satisfies the requirements for PinkVERIFY will also qualify for the APM Group’s “ITIL swirl”.

This is good news for everyone. And we’re very proud and pleased that APM Group has recognized the work that we’d done over the past 10 years with PinkVERIFY - there are currently dozens of products on the PinkVERIFY list. We’re looking forward to working with existing PinkVERIFY vendors to validate that their products qualify to have the “ITIL swirl” added as an additional “badge of approval”. Watch this space for more updates very soon.

(This post was updated on September 24 to clarify one statement in the penultimate paragraph).

Friday, September 18, 2009

Room For Another “Path” to ITIL Expert?

Currently, anyone who has done the ITIL V2 Service Manager can gain their ITIL Expert certification simply by doing the Manager’s Bridge. That means that (apart from any Foundation they might have) they will have to do:

- Week 1 of the V2 Service Manager program, plus an exam
- Week 2 of the V2 Service Manager program, plus an exam
- Week 3 of a V2-V3 Manager’s Bridge, plus an exam

This is being described by many, including me, as the “quickest, easiest and cheapest way to become an ITIL Expert”.

However, it’s generally accepted that this “path” will not be available forever, because either:

- At some point the demand will decrease and the ATOs simply drop it.
- APMG will “euthanize” it by withdrawing the Manager’s Bridge exams at some point.

So here’s an idea!

If it has been acceptable for candidates to achieve ITIL Expert through a series of 3 weeks worth of training and 3 exams – then why not “upgrade” the program and make it all V3? 3 weeks of pure ITIL V3 has to be better than 2 weeks of V2 plus 1 week of V3!

So once someone has done their V3 Foundation they would then have the option of signing-up for a “V3 Service Manager Program”:

- Week 1 of training, plus an exam
- Week 2 of training, plus an exam
- Week 3 of training, plus an exam

I haven’t put any thought into the syllabus for each week yet, but it MUST be doable if the 2-week V2 Service Manager plus 1-week V2-V3 Bridge works!

So, if you really NEED the ITIL Expert certification (for your resume, or whatever) then would this be appealing to you? Please let me know and I’ll pass the idea on to APMG.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

More on “ITIL Certification of S/W Products”

Just been directed - via the Twittersphere - to an article stating that “ITIL certified products are no magic bullet”. I couldn’t agree more.

The writer - Michael Lohr of Tripwire - gives an excellent analogy of how snow tires can be a big help in winter driving conditions, but if the driver is irresponsible or not qualified the snow tires alone are not going to save you. (I’m paraphrasing). I couldn’t agree more.

Getting back to ITIL, he then goes on to say “My fear is that companies will buy these so called certified products thinking they have bought the magic bullet to solve their ITIL project but instead they’ll skip the hard part which is designing the processes for their organization. So instead of a magic bullet they’ll just shoot themselves in the foot with a real bullet”. I couldn’t agree more.

But then he makes the statement “How does buying a certified ITIL product help with the implementation of ITIL? I’ll give the simple answer – IT DOESN’T!” I couldn’t DISAGREE more.

That’s like saying snow tires DO NOT help when driving in snow. Of course they do - as long as they’re used by someone who also knows how to operate a vehicle in winter driving conditions.

I’m really in violent agreement with Michael when it comes to putting the emphasis on smart people working with good processes and reliable tools. The tool isn’t the magic bullet - it’s the smart people using good processes.

So how does an “ITIL certified” tool help?

Well, going back to the snow tire analogy .... would you be happy if your tire manufacturer simply stuck a “snow tire” label on an ordinary tire? Probably not. You’d expect there would be some kind of industry recognized definition for what makes a good snow tire. And it would help if you could trust someone who was independent of the snow tire manufacturer to document the criteria and do spot checks.

“Yes - this tire meets the standard needed to be called a “snow tire” - we know because we’ve assessed tires made by this manufacturer!”

That’s what we’ve tried to do with PinkVERIFY for the ITSM tool world. We’ve never said that if you buy a tool on the PinkVERIFY list you’re assured of operating a best practice ITSM environment. That’s like saying “Drive with these snow tires and you’ll never run off the road.” You wouldn’t trust anyone who made that false promise, would you? All we say with PinkVERIFY is “Look at the list and you can be assured these tools meet our standard for “ITIL compatible” - the rest is up to you!”

So just in case you haven’t got the message here, I think both Michael and I agree, you need three things:

1) Smart people working with
2) Good processes enabled by
3) Appropriate tools - probably from the PinkVERIFY list.

And I put them in that order very deliberately!

Monday, June 29, 2009

So Much Choice For ITIL Education

You bet!

I heard today that this small world has over 350 Accredited Training Organizations. And then there’s a myriad of un-accredited folks trying to make a living for themselves advising all those ITIL newbies.

One thing’s for sure, you’re going to learn more effectively with a decent coach than you will on your own. I don’t have the latest official figures, but I know from past research that 80-90% of those who sit the Foundation exam after attending a recognized course will pass (at Pink our current Foundation pass rates are above 90%). Whereas only about half of those who go it alone - without attending a course - will pass. That’s a big difference, don’t you think?