Cadence IT Service Management Blog

ITIL Process Worksheets

Ryan — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 00:48:16 +0000

I’ve uploaded another study aid targeted at students attending intermediate level ITIL courses. This isn’t a ‘cheat sheet’, but rather a structured note taking worksheet that can help students key in on the major concepts in an orderly fashion (as well as hit the major topics for each process in whatever course they’re taking). You’ll have to put some effort into this one, but that work should help make sure you can remember the key concepts that you’ll need to apply on an intermediate level exam.

CobiT® Foundations Mindmaps

Ryan — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 00:19:02 +0000

I’ve been seeing a lot of interest lately in CobiT® training and I’ve got a number of courses coming up in the next few weeks. I’ve just started using some new courseware and I’ve been meaning to create some study aids around CobiT® for longer than I’d care to admit. To that end, I’ve summoned my anti-procrastination forces, battled some rather cumbersome mind-mapping software, and … well, at least we’ve got something now.

Cheers.

Benchmarking

Ryan — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 00:06:33 +0000

Many years ago, I stumbled across the book Visible Ops while attending a presentation at a ITSMF event in Minnesota. It was a powerful presentation and the first time I’d ever actually seen some data to support and focus IT Service Management efforts. It was a powerful antidote to the ‘process for process’ sake’ crowd – a sort of Mythbusters for ITSM (increasingly important in the ‘Zero to Expert’ training package days – but that’s a post for another day).

Since then, the folks at the IT Process Institute (ITPI) have been busy fighting the good fight, funding studies and gathering data. I’ve watched as they completed many studies, benchmarks and research reports on topics ranging from IT Controls, to Governance, to Strategic Alignment, to Virtualization Maturity. They’d decided to trade unchecked premises for empirical data, correlating their findings to better understand the prime movers – the key controls that have proven to drive performance.

I’ve been a proponent of ITIL for a long time, using the guidance to improve my own team’s performance and as a consultant to help mature the capabilities of my clients. The ITIL guidance is tremendously useful as a model for Service Management, but as an industry it’s time to mature past the theory qua theory and incorporate some data – big, juicy, meaningful, real-world data.

In March of 2011, I joined the IT Process Institute’s Consulting Co-Op, gaining access to ITPI’s benchmarking tools and studies as another way to help my clients sift through the hyperbole and see the correlation of key controls and activities to real-world performance.

Because that’s what matters.

Results.