theartofservice

Business process management is a clear-cut way to analyze an organizations’ business processes. The purpose of BPM is to make processes within the business more flexible, efficient and most importantly effective.

Basically, it is a way of looking at business through the eyes of clients and what their specific needs require. By viewing processes in this manner, it is easy to identify areas of improvement.

This book covers a practical BPM approach. It explains in simple language how teams actually build business processes with today’s software. Today’s IT strategies are very complicated and it’s hard to determine the correct approach for solving problems. The book clarifies how BPM and Business rules software works. Also, it explains how these solutions should fit together. If your company is considering BPM, this book will show you how to make it happen.

This book is truly unique and like no other. It provides step-by-step guidelines on how to actually do BPM projects. The framework gives you confidence that all aspects will be addressed during a project.

This book helps you understand the challenges of being successful in various organizations, it is very pragmatic and highly recommended for any BPM professional.

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Using Cloud computing in Storage Management is not just a new IT fad.  The concept is a highly viable solution for any company seeking to enhance their presence across geographic markets without too much overhead or capital expenditures; or for companies overwhelmed by their current capital expenditures.

Storage as a service is highly seductive from a business perspective because it removes the cost and responsibility of maintaining large infrastructures from the customer and places it on the provider.

Storage Management is one of the fastest growing segments of the information technology (IT) industry because it provides a more cost-effective alternative for enterprises to achieve their business objectives than traditional packaged applications.

This book covers just about every aspect of Storage Management, from high-level overviews of the different technologies that might be appropriate for upper management, to a very nice series of “hands on” chapters that walk you through experimenting with several of the Storage Management options.

Whether you need a quick primer on Storage Management so you can talk shop with those with more detailed knowledge, or want to get a sense of the benefits of the different technologies and how they fit into the big picture of the data center, this book is an invaluable resource. It gives you the vocabulary and understanding of how all the pieces fit together than websites and technical manuals often miss.

All of the major Storage Management technologies are discussed, along with the various drivers for implementing Storage Management, and how to manage migrating to a Storage Management environment.

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Feedback from Amazon…

“Background: I bought this book and online study guide to help me achieve Foundation level certification as I’d previously worked in ITIL-based environments and wanted to formalise my learning.

The book is of a large format so everything’s got plenty of space to be laid out well. One or two typo’s remain but they’re only a minor irritant. The content is well presented and has lots of diagrams to usefully put topics into visual structures. However the material is quite dense as is surprisingly slim so lots of re-reading was required (by me with my technical background) and it occurred to me that a spiral-bound, ‘workbook’ format might have served me a little better - that’s just a personal preference.

The online material is straight-forward to access and navigate at a fine granularity and expands on the book’s content with additional diagrams and all-important quizzes to test knowledge acquired. The flash-format presentations have a relaxed commentary that’s easy to understand, especially if the pause button is used to review the graphics of each section.

I’m still working through it but am quite confident that within a few more days’ part-time study I’ll be ready for my exam as well as to talk confidently about, and use knowledge of, ITIL in work contexts.

I’ll certainly revisit this company’s offerings when I want to learn more and perhaps to pass further exams. In fact I’m about to take a look at other products to see which will support my current aims.”

All in all, it does more than it’s title suggests; top marks.

Feedback over the Phone…

“I just recieved a phone call from a very happy and impressed client. She is extremely impressed with the level of professionalism of The Art of Service - and the trainer in particular. All staff are so friendly and professional on the phone and the trainer created a product specifically for her needs that she is completely excited about!”

And Feedback via Email…

“I took the onsite courses from HP here in the US. But, found your book a nice ‘gap filler’ when I studied for the retake. I am seeing many more customers adopting ITIL in the last 6 months, and talking V3 instead of V2 so we all need to update our foundations to V3.”

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I can’t help myself – it’s getting close to Christmas… so

‘Twas the night before a release, when all through the floors,

not a techy was sleeping, they were crawling around on all fours

An RFC was submitted, approved , built and tested

Thousands of dollars on this new service was invested

The business were nestled all snug in their beds

While visions of dollars danced in their heads

The CIO in her office attire, and I in my suit

Had just settled down for a strategic moot

When out on the floor there rose such a clatter

We sprang from our office to see what was the matter

Away to the server room I flew like a flash

Swiped my card on the door to see the great crash.

The server went down and I don’t mean dead

The rack was on the floor  - I saw red…

Is this a disaster, or do we roll back?

If only there was santa, with a spare rack in his sack.

Now Stevo, Brownie, Johnno and Smitty

On Frankie, on Thommo, on Wazza and Smithy

To the server room, to the DHS

Grab the rack, the spare and do your best…

Now dash away, dash away, dash away all

Fix this mess before the business call

Then in the twinkling I heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of somebody’s hoof

As I drew in my hand, and was turning back,

Down the lift came St Nicholas with a shiny new rack

A bundle of servers he had flung on his back

And he looked like a techo just opening his pack..

We all know the truth to cut a long story short

Techys came to the rescue – not santa or his chort..

Till next time HO HO HO from the ITIL Australia Team at The Art of Service Michael

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Hats off……

I have spent the past week educating a private corporation on ITIL v3.  This mid sized company has been working toward an ITIL based Service Management Framework for the past 6 months.  They started with the usual Service Desk, Incident Mgt and also introduced Change Mgt.  They are currently working on implementing Service Level Mgt, along with Release and Deployment.

What makes this gratifying is the energy and enthusiasm they are displaying toward this journey.  Management has committed to this and demonstrating this by investing in training and certification for their staff.

As per usual, I engage in chats  with participants about “where they fit” in the ITIL framework.  One person saw his pathway…. He has passion for support, thrives on the challenge of finding root cause – and as he describes it… works best with computers, not people… PROBLEM MGT is his calling, he proclaimed….

A new champion is born… and hopefully a new process for this service oriented company….

Hats off to the company for valuing their staff enough to train them, and hats off to the staff for taking advantage of it!

Till next time

Cheers from The Art of Service

Michael

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News last month of struggling Blu-ray disc sales is no surprise to many, but it could be a good lesson for many IT organisations in underscoring the importance of value perception relating to their products and services offered.

Now I’ll preface the rest of this post by saying upfront that I’m looking forward to the next de facto standard for video entertainment, replacing DVDs which have been the dominant force in our lounge and media rooms for the last ten years. Just what that standard will be however is still to be seen, and I’m certainly not willing to bet on Blu-ray just yet. Value is still the sticking point, even for those who are willing to splurge disposable cash in the current economic climate.

As an easy comparison, the classic action flick Die Hard can be found on DVD for $14.95 (Australian). The comparable Blu-ray version is $39.95. Now while there’s no denying the improvement in picture and audio, I’m guessing that the improvement isn’t worth $25 to the vast majority of the public (including myself). Things get even worse when you start looking at new release titles, with Blu-ray commanding prices of $50 or more.

So why isn’t this an attractive value proposition? Perhaps a few reasons:

• The wide availability of cheap upscaling DVD players on the market, which, coupled with decent video and audio cables can produce a pretty good picture. In comparison, Blu-ray players have come down in price, but you won’t get much change from $400 on the cheapest options on the market.
• Competition from the digital download scene, in your ad-supported (e.g. Hulu) or paid (Netflix, iTunes HD movies) varieties
• The large percentage of standard definition televisions still found in homes that would not benefit from the change

Consumers have no issues paying more for a higher quality product, but with the current price difference between the two and the ability to queue up a HD movie easily on the Apple TV, no doubt the desire to make the switch is greatly diminished. When prices eventually come down I’m sure things will start to happen, but by then what other alternatives will be available on the market? In the same time, how much money will the movie studios lose to piracy?

So what’s the connection to IT Service Management? Well perhaps we are guilty of the same mistakes made by the Blu-ray Disc Association (including Sony, Disney, Warner Bros and more)  investing time, money and effort into offering services to customers without a compelling business case, reasoning that they’ll eventually realize all the extra bells and whistles, increased performance and slick interfaces are worth the additional money being charged for them. This isn’t just the fault of IT mind you, with many customers themselves insisting on the development of these offerings, but this still doesn’t excuse us entirely from blame. As discussed in my previous post, in the current economic climate these sins are particularly grave.

So are we to continue to repeat the mistakes of the past? Now that’s a bet I’ll make. Long live the Betamax!

Tim

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Covers every detail, including some missed in other books. This thorough book provides a clear roadmap to designing, implementing and operating a help desk.

The author leaves no key process out and completely covers everything from initial concept to measuring support effectiveness and process improvement.

The book starts with an initial strategy that is focused on planning help desk services that are completely aligned to requirements and are based on a mission statement. This business-oriented approach is refreshing and will keep IT grounded in the real reasons for a help desk. More importantly is the process for careful selection of services to provide. An overly ambitious set of service goals will kill a help desk implementation early in its life by offering too much before there is a stable help desk process in place. This book is realistic and lays the foundation for a success implementation.

The section on the actual design of the help desk structure provides insights and information that can be applied to a large number of solutions. Since help desks will be organized in accordance with requirements and unique mission statements, this section of the book is like a catalog of patterns. It has excellent tips on how to best structure the help desk to meet requirements and mission. The information on accurately estimating staffing requirements is consistent with industry best practices and something that, believe it or not, is often overlooked when help desks are established.

This book gets into the meat by thoroughly covering the processes that are essential to running a help desk. There are many topics that stand out as both unique [to books of this genre] and reflect best practices by the best-run help desks. Examples are change control, disaster recovery and vendor management. These topics show that the author not only considers business alignment, but also cross-functional alignment within IT.

Professional resources and underlying technology are provided in detail.

This book contains an in-depth coverage of operational requirements for the help desk once it has been implemented. It hits all of the critical success factors, such as performance metrics, service level agreements, communications and internal evaluations. It even has a chapter on marketing, which is something that is important but not often done be most help desks. This proactive approach to keeping users (your customers) informed of new services, accomplishments and tips is excellent and will go a long way towards attaining high customer satisfaction scores - not to mention proving the value of the help desk to IT and business management.

You will find this book to be one of the best for managing, planning and implementing a world-class help desk.

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Who Knew ITIL Certification E-Learning This Quick and Easy Could Make You Look This Good.

“The Art of Service has dramatically changed the way we deliver employee training. We can now deliver more training at less cost to a wider audience in a shorter period of time.”

On-demand eLearning: Don’t pay over $ 3,000.00 for a 5 day class room based course - you’re out of touch with your work for 5 days and including the course fee: the costs are insurmountable - take the online learning option instead and study at your own pace.

Course Description:

This intensive interactive course immerses learners in the practical aspects of the ITIL® v3 Service Lifecycle and processes associated with the Operational Support and Analysis of services and service delivery.

The main focus of this course is on the operational-level process activities and supporting methods and approaches to executing these processes in a practical, hands-on learning environment.

This training is intended to enable the holders of the certificate to apply the practices in resolution and support of the Service Management Lifecycle.

This course is designed using an engaging, interactive and flexible online approach to learning the core disciplines of the ITIL best practice and positions the student to successfully complete the associated exam: the APMG/EXIN Intermediate Level Certificate Operational Support and Analysis.

Learning Objectives: At the end of this course, the learner will gain competencies in:

• Understanding Service Management as a Practice, Service Operation principles, purpose and objective
• Knowing the important role of Operational Support and Analysis in service provision and understanding of how the in-scope processes interact with other Service Lifecycle processes
• The activities, methods and functions used in each of the Operational Support and Analysis processes
• The application of Operational Support and Analysis processes, activities and functions to achieve operational excellence
• How to measure Operational Support and Analysis performance
• The importance of IT Security and how it supports Operational Support and Analysis
• Understanding technology and implementation requirements in support of Operational Support and Analysis
• The challenges, critical success factors and risks related with Operational Support and Analysis

As well as preparing participants for the exam.

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