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Many process improvements will probably be initiated at the ground floor, the front lines of the IT organization. Most proposals for improvements are based on intuitive knowledge that the process can be better. So measurements are put into place to identify the problem. Analysis of the situation is performed to figure out the extent and impact of the problem before a formal proposal is created. The personnel working the processes probably understand the nature of the problem before any discrete data is obtained to describe the problem.

Significant process improvements over a long period of time require sponsorship from management. The larger the improvement, the more departments that are involved means higher management support is necessary. The support cannot be partial either: it must be full commitment to the initiative. Without this, the effort fails before it starts.

At the same time, management has a handle on the strategic direction of the company. They may not have an idea how to move in that direction. In collaborating between ground floor proposals and top floor strategic views, the right improvements will present themselves with ease. As a technician in the IT environment, identify the business strategies that can be positively impacted by the improvements needed in the environment. As a manager, keeping in communication with what the technicians need.

Successful process improvement required leadership: leadership is required at all levels of the organisation.

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Change Management is often considered to be the process that most actively links all the ITIL processes together. This process aims to improve and maintain IT Service quality providing a structured approach to managing and implementing changes in the IT Infrastructure. The actions to achieve this include the requirement to conduct repetitive actions that include scheduling, reporting and monitoring of IT Changes.

The process must review achievements based on customer expectations and take steps to improve or modify Changes and the process accordingly. The Change Management Process Kit provides a wide variety of resources to boost your understanding and ability to implement Change Management in your organization.

Buy with confidence

All contents of this collection are 100% guaranteed. See below for details.

Here’s What You Will Receive in This Time-Saving Document Collection

The updated toolkit provides information on the Change Management process and provides guidance that is scalable for:

• Different kinds and sizes of organization
• Small and large changes required at each lifecycle stage
• Changes with major and minor impact
• Changes in a required timeframe
• Different levels of budget or funding available to deliver change.

“Changing IT is akin to herding cats because as a whole there is a legacy mindset at one end of the spectrum, and lack of discipline at the other. This Toolkit provides a workable approach to changing the culture and effecting real change.

As in their other Toolkits the authors take a project and process-oriented approach to the goals and objectives. Where other books and Toolkits that attempt to address this subject are focused on solely human factors and considerations, this one does that, but gives a structured approach as well. The set milestones and wealth of associated checklists are what set this Toolkit apart from others, and are the means of systematically changing IT in an effective manner.

To be sure, human factors are taken into consideration - the authors show a keen understanding of, and give advice for dealing with, organizational dynamics, politics and resistance to change. This is an essential set of knowledge and skill factors without which change cannot be accomplished.

The keys to the approach given in this Toolkit, though, are in the files dealing with defining your goals and developing an overall strategy, then selecting the approach that is most suitable for your organization. The project-oriented aspects are covered in chapters dealing with characterizing “as-is” tasks, planning, and working towards the long-term objectives. The approach also includes a viable measurement strategy with which to ascertain results, and advice on how to build enthusiasm and support - instead of resistance - as the change initiative is being implemented. A key chapter is “Prevent Reversion and Fallback”, which all too frequently happens in the real world. By recognizing this particular risk in change and addressing how to prevent it the authors provide sound advice to avoid a major pitfall.

Overall this is an excellent Toolkit by The Art of Service who I hold in high regard. I recommend getting it because it contains information that will help you select and develop an optimum overall strategy for an IT organization that is customer-focused and efficiently run.”

The new toolkit provides a concise introduction to Change Management from an ITIL version 3 perspective, beginning with ITIL’s definition of a Change and how to manage the process.

The PowerPoint presentations go into more detail covering aspects such as:

• Goal of the process
• Scope
• Terminology and process concepts, including all the changes from Version 2 e.g. removal of the term Forward Schedule of Change and Emergency Change Committee and descriptions of the additional Change Types that have evolved in Version 3.
• The PowerPoint presentation is much more detailed than the previous toolkit.  The focus is on Change Management, from implementation to management and maintenance.

There is up to date information on:

• Change process models and workflows
• Defining and using Standard Changes
• Remediation Planning
• Creating and Recording RFC’s

And there are competent and user friendly supporting documents to aid knowledge and understanding.

The activities of Change Management are discussed in more detail, including the:

• 7 R’s of Change Management - and new but essential concept in ITIL Version 3
• Risk Categorization
• Authorizing and coordinating Changes.

There is more information on the Value that Change Management provides to the organization and this is supported by an updated Business Justification document.

Other new Supporting documents include:

• Example Contents of Change Documentation
• Example Request for Change Workflow
• Types of Change Request
• Roles and Responsibilities

This toolkit also includes relevant Bonus Materials, to add to your organizations knowledge base.  This includes:

• An updated PowerPoint Presentation on the MOF Framework
• COBIT Factsheet
• Six Sigma Factsheet

Contents include Change Management Objectives and Goal templates, Change Key Performance Indicators, Critical Success Factors and a checklist to help understand just how well Change Management is performed in your environment.

It is tailor-fit for IT managers who need to move towards a services-oriented organization, but they don'’t have the time or resources at hand to develop the required templates and structure for implementation. Here is a list of the specific documents included:

• Change review and assessment worksheet
• Business justification document
• PowerPoint presentation explaining the process of Change management
• Project and implementation plan template
• Communication plan to describe Change management to your organization.
• Policies, objectives and scope overview template
• Specific objectives and goals template
• Change process manager role(s) definition
• Forward schedule of changes document
• Change catagory definitions document
• Request for change (RFC) template
• Key Performance Indicators and Other Metrics definition template
• Change requirements template

The documents listed above correspond directly with IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) processes. Clear instructions explaining the application of each template are provided within the corresponding documents.

The Change Management Process Kit is Yours Risk Free Today!

The instant you purchase the collection, the fact sheets, presentations and tools listed above will be available to you through a simple download. You may use the documents for up to 30 days. If anytime during that period you decide it does not meet the needs of your company, just let us know and we will refund the purchase.

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Dramatically increase your chances of passing the exam with this new book. The ITIL V2 managers program may be superseded in a few years in favor of the ITIL V3 intermediate exams. HOWEVER The reason why you should invest in this book NOW and pass your ITIL V2 Managers exam is that this is the path to save time and money and achieve your ITIL Expert status via the ITIL V2 Managers path.

There are various ways to achieve your ITIL Expert status, but the quickest path to get there is via the ITIL V2 Foundation - ITIL V2 Manager - ITIL V2-3 Manager Bridge programs.

Especially when you attend a Fast Track program for the ITIL V2 Manager Certificate. So for these savvy IT Professionals here is your ITIL V2 Manager exam Preparation book, loaded with hints and tips, exam questions and answers and the key points from the ITIL theory to help you in your preparation for the ITIL V2 Manager Service Support and Service Delivery exams.

Preparing for your ITIL Manager’s Exam is a process in itself.

You can try and memorize EVERYTHING from your Course, or you can prepare yourself with this book - specifically geared toward you passing your exam.

Now - based on years of experience in running ITIL Managers Courses, here is the ultimate ITIL v2 Manager’s Exam Preparation Study Guide - so you don’t have to create your own study aid.

In it you will find detailed factsheets for all processes, mindmaps/table of interprocess relationship for all processes, exam answering tips, as well as a complete practice ITIL Manager Exam for Service Delivery and Service Support, and answering guide.

So - you reap from our hard work and years of experience - how effective and efficient is that? This book has everything you will need to do and know to prepare yourself for your ITIL Managers exam.

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A natural tendency after a huge project to implement processes is to relax. Everything is finally aligned. The business is being supported. The process is under control. The time has come to breathe. Go ahead and breathe deeply, but don’t relax just yet. The real work is just beginning, improving the process. At every turn is an opportunity to fine tune that process: to make the workflow faster, deliver more quality, or do it cheaper than before. No, it’s not time to relax; however, proper planning will make the job much easier.

Process improvement program require momentum. Planning can kill this momentum or encourage it. A balance must be reached between getting through the planning stages quickly and making meaningful, effective improvements to the environment. So many elements exist that impact the process that some organizations stall trying to resolve all the possible issues surrounding improvements. Achieve some quick wins with improvements that have an immediate impact on the organization. However, don’t constrict the process such that it is not flexible enough to adjust to the changing needs of the organization.

Here are some suggestions for supporting the planning of process improvements:

• Map process components to specific business objectives that they support. As business objectives change, this mapping can identify the areas of the process that need to be changed to realign with the new objectives.
• Maintain the work in risk management from process implementation. Many of the risks still exist with the new process. Knowing that those risks were overcome provides encouragement at the next implementation.
• Lessons learned assists in ensuring that mistakes are not repeated.
• Maintain a schedule of process areas to focus on.

With these in place, improvements can move through the planning stages quickly and with fewer concerns.

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IT departments are the most dynamic environments within an organization. New technologies and demands on the infrastructure require changes to be made quickly and efficiently. Improvements designed to automate IT environments assist in managing the risks prevalent when changes to dynamic systems have to be made manually. Automation helps to reduce the errors that can occur, meet compliance requirements, and track costs that are difficult to maintain manually.

Many activities within the IT environment can be automated ranging from simple notifications or alerts to workload balancing. When looking to automate a process, don’t attempt the whole process. Sometimes, attempting to automate a single step in the process may provide too much effort, but certain aspects of each process step can be automated. Look at the inputs to each step and how those inputs are delivered. Can this delivery be automated? At the other end of the process step, ask the same question for the outputs. If multiple inputs and outputs are combined, can the combining be automated. Starting at either end of the process step, move inwardly to identify other opportunities for automation.

The reasons for automation are varied. The most common reason is cost savings, because the effort to make dynamic changes to the environment manually requires a large staff. Cost savings also comes from the elimination of rework due to mistakes in manually making changes. Automation also provides an opportunity to measure parts of the process that would be virtually impossible to measure without it. Future process improvements are aided by automated systems.

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The information found within the Toolkit is based on the ITIL Version 3 framework, specifically the Service Level Management and Service Catalog Management processes.

The Toolkit is designed to answer a lot of the questions about Service Catalog Management and provide you with useful guides, templates and essential, but simple assessments.

The supporting documents and assessments will help you identify the areas within your organization that require the most activity in terms of change and improvement.

Presentations can be used to educate or be used as the basis for management presentations or when making business cases for Service Catalog Management implementation.

The additional information will enable you to improve your organizations methodology knowledge base.

The toolkit serves to act as a starting point. It will give you a clear path to travel. It is designed to be a valuable source of information and activities. The Service Catalog Management Toolkit:

• Flows logically,
• Is scalable,
• Provides presentations, templates and documents,
• Saves you time.

Step 1

Start by reviewing the PowerPoint presentations in the following order:

1.    Service Catalog Management Intro Presentation.-This presentation gives an introduction to the toolkit.

2.    Service Catalog Management ITIL V3 - Presentation 2 provides a detailed and comprehensive overview of Service Catalog Management in the specialist areas of ITIL Version3 and in particular, within the Service Level Management and Service Catalog Management processes as part of the Service Design phase.

3.    Service Catalog - Reasons, Hint & Tips - Presentation 3 provides arguments for the implementations of an efficient service catalog, with ideas, suggestions, hints and tips for how to ensure its success, with regards to its functionality and customer response.

These presentations will give you a good knowledge and understanding of all the terms, activities and concepts required within Service Catalog Management. They can also be used as the basis for management presentations or when making a formal business case for Service Catalog Management implementation.   Make sure you pay close attention to the notes pages, as well as the slides, as references to further documents and resources are highlighted here.

Step 2

Below is an itemized list of the supporting documents and resources for easy reference.  You can use these documents and resources within your own organization or as a template to help you in prepare your own bespoke documentation.

Service Catalog Management ITIL V3: 1.    Policies, Objectives & Scope 2.    Objectives and Goals 3.    Business and IT Service Mapping 4.    Service Catalog 5.    Service Catalog 1 6.    Service Catalog 2 7.    Price List 8.    Example Service Catalog 9.    Service Options 10.    Roles and Responsibilities 11.    Service Design The Big Picture 12.    Key Inputs and Outputs of Service Design 13.    Business Justification document 14.    Communication Plan 15.    Business IT Flyers 16.    Example Email Text

Service Catalog - Reasons, Hint & Tips 1.    8 Steps to Developing a Service Catalog Bonus Documents; 2.    COBIT presentation & Fact sheet 3.    ISO 20000, ISO 9000, ISO 27000 Presentations & Factsheets 4.    ITIL Fact sheet

Step 2 continued…

Alternatively, continue by working through the Implementation Plan and the SLM Review Doc with the focus on your organization.  This will help you ascertain the Service Catalog Management maturity for your organization.

You will able to identify gaps and areas of attention and/or improvement.

The supporting documents and resources found within the toolkit will help you fill these gaps by giving you a focused, practical and user-friendly approach to Service Catalog Management.

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Encouraging process improvements requires driving consensus. Whether, the initiatives comes from the top or has its roots on the ground floor, its success requires agreement to its concept from all levels of the organization. To obtain this agreement necessitates a personal approach to breaking through the resistance. Typically, a person can find resistance in three forms: rational, personal, and emotional.

Rational concerns over a process improvement are sourced by misunderstanding or disbelief in the particular details of the effort. In many cases, simply going through more detail will alleviate any concerns, however sometimes the resistance will persist. Since at the core of this resistance is a commitment for what’s best for the company, opening up a partnership through the execution of the improvement provides an opportunity to both parties to move forward with the effort. Because the resiting party is now involved, they have some responsibility to the success of the effort, while the executing team has a valued ally to identify possible hurdles that may arise. Proper planning and communication can mitigate most of this form of resistance to process improvements

Some resistance comes from a personal issues such as resentment, loss of job, or anxiety. Most of these concerns have nothing to do with the improvement, but more about the environment where the improvement are made. This happens often in organizations where process improvements are not properly explained or where past “improvements” have had a negative impact on the workforce. This type of resistance is the hardest to overcome because it requires building tremendous amounts of confidence in the improvement before it is ever implemented. A positive work environment has a huge impact on the success of process improvements to overcome personal resistance.

Apathy, shock, or mistrust towards a process improvement is the source of emotional resistance. The majority of this form of resistance is validated in environments where innovation and improvements are just another idea after another going through the resolving door of support. With constant ideas being implemented “just to see if they work,” any serious improvement to the process becomes just another effort not to be committed to because it will be replaced within the next six months. Mapping initiatives to business strategy goes further to ensure long-term acceptance of improvements.

Consensus requires a commitment from all parties to look towards the good of the company and not personal agenda.

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The ITIL ® (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) V3 Foundation Complete Certification Kit is the most complete guide for anyone involved in IT Service Management and who are aiming to take the ITIL V3 Foundation exam, whether they be first-time ITIL learners or seasoned IT professionals. Still a number one best-seller for IT Management from Amazon.com to Barnes and Noble and many more, this 2009 edition has refreshed the study guide and online learning program, with its updated, inspiring, and detailed plan for passing your ITIL V3 Foundation exam on the first attempt. With new examples, instructions, and cautionary advice, the ITIL V3 Foundation Complete Certification Kit is, to quote numerous of ITIL certified clients, “the gold standard of ITIL Certification.”

As the industry standard in terms of Process, Service and Lifecycle Management for IT, the ITIL Foundation exam is the most popular entry-level certification, particularly for individuals switching from another career to IT. This kit prepares you for the certification exam by offering valuable information on the ITIL framework, ITIL certification and IT Service Management as a practice. This certification kit contains both the study guide and access to our online program that together provides everything you need to prepare for the ITIL V3 Foundation certification exam, including:

• Real-world scenarios that describe what you’ve learned in the context of service solutions. These include thought provoking questions to challenge your thinking and understanding.
• Section reviews for each chapter to help you zero in on what you need to know and includes practice exam questions.
• A Real World Guide to ITIL V3 Skills. Key information and real world examples organized around the actual day-to-day tasks and challenges you’ll face in the field of IT Service Management.
• Ability to assess what you’ve learned with challenging ITIL Foundation exam style questions.
• Adobe Flash presentations that you can view and replay as many times as required, facilitated by certified ITIL trainers who explain each of the topics and concepts of ITIL.
• Materials developed on the specific syllabus and exam criteria - so that you can be confident in achieving exam success on your first attempt.

Editorial Reviews

• Read the book, took the online course and test, PASSED.
• This ITIL exam prep book and course are an invaluable study aid for passing the ITIL Foundation exam. Highly recommended.
• I’ve been an IS project manager for over 10 years. I’ve studied ITIL materials in preparation, but took no courses or workshops. I studied this book and its accompanying course for 10 days immediately preceding my exam. Read the book about 3 times.
• I took the ITIL Foundation exam and got 98% of the questions correct. I think that the study tips in the book and course helped me get about 15-20 questions right that I might have otherwise missed. (your mileage may vary).
• The book and course made me confident in sitting the exam, and is the best such book that I’ve come across.
• Worth it especially since you have access to the online learning component as well.
• Good focus on ITIL’s processes (things important to ITIL Foundation and passing the test that your experience in IT may not help you)
• Highly recommended, I passed in one go!

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The most detrimental factor in process improvements is the lack of balance between process, people, and technologies. When improvements are made to the environment, often the focus is on one area while not providing sufficient notice on the other two. Focus on one area too much and the other areas fall out of alignment causing the business to fall out of balance. The result drives a numerous negative situations that often requires spending more money than would have been required.

Improvements to technology require that the people are trained to utilize it and updating the process to reflect the changes caused by better or different tools. Any ignorance to training the people in the technology and how to use it will result in having tools that are not being used effectively, essentially being a waste of the money spent on it. In improvements to automation, training the people maintaining the technology is just as crucial, as well as documenting the installed configurations. Within the process, indicating that steps that once required human effort is now automated and communicating that change will keep confusion down. If the changes require different actions from the staff, documenting the new procedures will serve to communicate and formalize the changes.

Processes changes need to ensure that the technology and staff are able to handle the improvement. New ways of doing things typically result is a change or shift in resource usage, whether it is a decline, increase, or different resource being used. If the technology cannot keep up with the change, the intended goal of the process improvement may not be fulfilled. The same thing happens if the staff does not completely understand the change, nor have been properly prepared before the change takes effect. Improper preparation typically results in complete failure in the improvements, since the first few moments usually provide most of the acceptance of an improvement. Failure in those moments will raise the resistance to the improvement.

People are a crucial aspect of implementing any improvement to the business. Mainly done through providing opportunities to increase skills and knowledge, the organization also has an opportunity to utilize the newly required skills to their benefit while giving the employee an opportunity to practice. Keeping these personal improvements isolated and unused will eventually drive apathy and dissatisfaction with the job: the ultimate result is the possible loss of a valued employee.

The moral of the story, make sure that equal attention is provided to improving technology, processes, and people in your organization.

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