PinkPresident

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Jack Probst and the itSMF Board Election

In the next few days itSMF USA members will be receiving their invitations to vote in the election for new Board members.

We’re pleased to report that Jack Probst - one of our most respected IT Management Consultants - is volunteering his time as a Board member this year. Up to now, we’ve never had a Pinker sit on the Board of itSMF USA. If Jack happens to get elected, we know he’d do the industry proud. So I’m happy to support him by making sure he has the time he’ll need - away from Pink duties - to live up to his responsibilities as an itSMF Board member.

If you’re not too familiar with Jack, here’s a little background ....

Jack is in his 4th year at Pink, providing strategic advice and advanced ITIL education to a wide range of customer organizations in all sectors. Over the past couple of years he’s also been very active as a member of the itSMF Academic Sub-Committee (adult learning is one of Jack’s passions). Prior to joining Pink he spent over 10 years at Nationwide Insurance, first as CIO of their subsidiary - Scottsdale Insurance Company - and then leading the Office of Process and Governance at Nationwide’s HQ in Columbus, Ohio.

Jack’s one of the most organized, innovative, resourceful and responsible people I’ve ever worked with, and so I’m sure he’d be a great asset to the itSMF Board.

Good luck, Jack!

Thursday, September 18, 2008

2009 Conference Preview

George Spalding and I just recorded a 7 minute Conference preview podcast.

We’re going to do further updates over the next few months as we confirm more and more exciting details - so keep checking back!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

itSMF Fusion & Clint Eastwood

At the closing of the itSMF Fusion event in San Francisco this week I was quite tickled to see my buddy - Kirk Weisler - do such a great EMCEE job for the event. In one of the sessions, though, he came on-stage wearing a poncho that set me wondering - “where have I seen that before?”

Back in my room I browsed through my photo library and there it was!

A picture of me and Kirk with ponchos we’d bought at a Cantina in Mexico on the last evening of the Pink Conference the previous March! Here you can see we’re kept apart by a local law-woman - Monica Portillo (Pink Mexico).

Friday, September 05, 2008

ITIL V3 Pin Reminder

In an earlier post Julia Chapelle (Director at Loyalist Certification Services) confirmed that you can get a new ITIL V3 pin if you have upgraded your certification. Just thought I’d post a reminder if you were still wondering about this.

Julia said ... “Feel free to initiate your V3 Pin delivery by emailing v3pin@loyalistc.on.ca. In the email include your business address at the time you wrote the exam and your current mailing address so we may mail you the pin. You will receive an email confirming receipt of your request.”

Let me know how the pin looks - I haven’t seen one yet!

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Pink Conference - Las Vegas, February 2009

Planning for next year’s (13th Annual) Conference actually started BEFORE the 12th Annual Conference was finished. But over the summer months the pace has really picked up as we’ve been working furiously on firming up lots of details - particularly with regards to the program and content (which is what our customers have repeatedly told us is the most important part of justifying conference attendance).

Look out for a flurry of announcements over the next few weeks as we go public with our exciting plans!

Monday, August 25, 2008

Our PinkONLINE Strategy

I hope you’ve been noticing our PinkLINK announcements recently where we’ve been discussing our PinkONLINE strategy. The goal is to make our consulting experience available anytime, anywhere.

We started with PinkATLAS - our ITSM resource center of IT governance reference materials - at the turn of the year. So far we’ve had excellent feedback from a variety of organizations around the world who’ve already subscribed and are using the templates everyday.

More recently we switched on the PinkSCAN function and that has also gained quite a following. PinkSCAN provides you with the tools and approach for driving ITSM process improvement efforts through a series of assessment and reporting functions.

Next we’ll be launching PinkREADY - which provides an approach for you to highlight areas of weakness (risk) in your ITSM operation overall. Many organizations are rapidly trying to implement changes and improvements in ITSM - but in your haste, you may overlook the impact of specific critical success factors. PinkREADY will show where you are most vulnerable, promptings you to address and thereby minimizing those areas of risks.

Finally, by the end of the year we’ll complete the suite with PinkSELECT. Here you’ll receive very prescriptive guidance on how to identify your essential ITSM tool requirements - a vital first step prior to evaluating and selecting new Service Management tools.

Let me know what you think of these product offerings - and I’d be keen to hear what you’d like to see next in our PinkONLINE portfolio!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Pink Conference - Las Vegas, February, 2009

Quick Note:

We now have over almost 500 people signed-up for the 13th Annual IT Service Management Conference & Exhibition. That’s nearly DOUBLE the number of sign-ups for the same time last year!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

More Pink Perspectives!

Looks like we’ll be confirming more Pink Perspective events for the September/October timeframe. Right now George Spalding is working with our colleagues in the UK, UAE, South Africa, Australia, Brazil & Mexico to work out the precise dates. I’ll keep you posted once we’re all ready to go.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Additional Thought From The Pink Perspective 2008 Events

During our travels, we heard more than once the opinion that the revised ITIL V3 certification scheme is just some kind of giant “money grab” scheme concocted by the various bodies and vendors who have an interest in education and certification.

I can understand why some people may feel this way.  All I can tell you is Pink is not part of any conspiracy. Not only that, this whole revision of the certification scheme is costing us a lot of money! Not only do we have to develop new courses, we also have to retrain ALL of our staff (every Pink employee is put through ITIL Foundation training - even back-office staff working in Finance, HR and Administration). Anyway, I’m not looking for any sympathy - just wanted to clarify that Pink certainly doesn’t look upon this revised certification scheme as a “money grab” opportunity!

Friday, June 27, 2008

BMC Receives First PinkVERIFY ITIL V3 Certification - Not One, but TWO!

A big pat on the back for BMC! Not only do they have the first TWO products in the PinkVERIFY for ITIL V3 list - but the scope with regard to number of compatible processes is particularly impressive.

In the “old” V2 scheme the most processes that any product supported was 7. Now we have BMCs “Service Desk Express 9.6” supporting 7 of the processes; and their “Remedy ITSM Suite 7.0” supporting 11 processes. Well done!

You can learn more by going to the PinkVERIFY page on our main web site. Click on the “PinkVERIFY Toolsets” link on the left side to see the chart of products and their respective support for each process.

More software vendors are in the pipeline for ITIL V3 PinkVERIFY status - so watch this space for more updates!

Friday, June 13, 2008

Deja Vu All Over Again!

Mulling over the survey results, as well as thinking back to some of the comments I heard and conversations I participated in at the recent Pink Perspective events, I’m beginning to formulate some conclusions in my mind about a number of issues. Over the next few days I’ll document these conclusions in further blog posts.

For now, here’s my first observation:

People are generally ambivalent towards the ITIL Expert level in the V3 certification scheme. Many people stated it would not be their goal because it would take 3-4 years to attain (at a rate of 2-3 courses per year). I think that level of certification will quickly be positioned in the marketplace as a certification for consultants, and practitioner’s will set their sights lower - on no more than 1 or 2 Capability certifications.

In fact, this positioning is very reminiscent of the original V1 scheme! In 1992, the first certification was the Management Level (Service Manager) and this was initially intended for consultants.  In 1996 the Foundation Level was added as a pre-requisite. The following year an alternate to the Management Level, the Practitioner Certificates were introduced. Deja vu all over again!

If you’re a consultant you’ll really need the ITIL Expert Certificate to prove your credibility.

If you’re a practitioner you’ll really need the respective Capability certificate(s) to help you understand how to function well in your role.

The Results Are In!

The following link will provide you with the consolidated Pink Perspective survey results from all the cities we visited in the past three weeks:

Pink_Perspective_2008_Consolidated_Worldwide_Survey_Results.pdf

Some initial observations:

It’s clear that over 90% of the participants are currently involved in an ITSM improvement project. This statistic is not a surprise.

The top two areas of focus, possibly not surprisingly, are Service Operation & Service Transition.  Less than 10% of organizations are focusing on Service Strategy.  In addition, many people elaborated in conversation that they are starting their Service Design processes with the Service Catalog.

“People issues” are still the most prevalent challenge as confirmed by the responses to questions 2, 5 and 6. Perhaps surprisingly, “Executive buy-in” was the least challenging - that’s got to be a good thing, right!

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Pink Perspective 2008 - Worldwide Survey Results

Thanks to the hundreds of you who came out and participated in our Pink Perspectives held in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Chicago, Seattle, Calgary, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Dallas and Toronto over the past three weeks! We’ll now compile all the survey results and prepare a consolidated view.  Watch out for another posting in the next day or so.

We’ll also summarize all the questions and issues that cropped up.  We’ll provide some initial responses and opinions from Pink, as well as the official responses from the likes of OGC, APM Group, etc. as soon as they’re available.

Can I have my pin please?

This question was also asked at the final Pink Perspective in Toronto today:

“Certificates from V3 classes currently say you have passed the exam and that is it. Will there be new certificates issued with the new certification name? And will we receive pins?”

(Pink’s view: We believe that new certificates will be issued. We’ve also heard that pins are on the way! We’ll give you more details as soon as we hear.)

Pink Perspective 2008 - Toronto

The final North American Pink Perspective event was presented today in Toronto.

Here’s the presentation and survey results:

Toronto_Perspective_2008.pdf