CA on Service Management

Economic Crisis and Service Management - Part II

Robert Stroud — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:12:00 GMT

Part I can be viewed here. As I mentioned previously, I spoke last week at a joint Korean itSMF and ISACA conference. This post continues with additional answers I prepared, answering excellent questions raised by the facilitator of the closing panel session. The second question asked at the panel was an interesting one about inhibitors and accelerators for service...

Service Definition: What do "My Cousin Vinny" and Song Airlines have in common?

Eric Feldman — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:10:00 GMT

Many companies adopting a Service Catalog are faced with a dilemma. How do they define their services? Actually, there are two components to service definition. One is the processes employed to deliver or enable the service. These can be documented in a process modeling application, or made actionable using a tool, such as CA Workflow or CA IT Process Automation Manager. This is the "behind...

What Makes You Think You Are An ITIL V3 Shop?

Peter Doherty — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:23:00 GMT

At CA Expo here in Oz I asked the 200 people in my session who thought they were an ITIL V3 shop and probably 20 or so hands went up sheepishly. Maybe the reason for this is that they have seen what happens to people who put their hands up in response to my questions or maybe they were unsure. Word out of the latest Gartner conference is that lots of IT organisations are adopting V3. Now...

IT Uncommon: The Ties that Bind

Jeff Foucher — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:18:00 GMT

I'm pretty amazed at the seemingly endless discussion and un-evolved thinking around "aligning IT with the business." Various machinations have surfaced ("it's about IT being part of the business" or "it's about aligning IT and business") and at least a dozen vendor-driven acronyms have emerged all purporting to put IT & business on the same...

World Economic Crisis and Service Management

Robert Stroud — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:30:00 GMT

This week I was in Korea for the joint Korean itSMF and ISACA conference. Understanding the issues surrounding the business climate and the demands on their members' time and finances, these two organizations worked together for a single event instead of their usual independent events. The event was a huge success based on the attendance, attendee comments, press comments and the smiles...

The Challenges of CMDB Federation without a Standard

Marvin Waschke — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:50:00 GMT

There are many difficulties involved in CMDB federation that the CMDBf specification helps address. When you set out to integrate a CMDB product with another data source, such as another CMDB or a specialized device monitor, there are several steps that you must take and with each step there are choices to make. Perhaps the most important architectural choice is the level on which to...

IT is not on the Menu

Eric Feldman — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:38:00 GMT

I know of a company that has a very large user community. Most of the entry pathway to IT was via telephone. While there also were a significant number of email requests for services, their process required a help desk analyst to call the requestor back. The company knew that a Service Catalog would enable a massive reduction in the number of phone calls to or from IT. This alone would help them...

Another Organization Using Service Catalog as a Key Component of Lean IT Service Management

Robert Stroud — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:43:00 GMT

The last few weeks meeting with organizations in New Zealand, Australia, India, France, Denmark, UK and the U.S. reinforced that the current economic climate is forcing IT organizations to get lean. Lean for IT does not mean slim and trim; lean in IT is about maximizing IT value while minimizing cost. For lean IT service management it requires focusing on the components that matter to the...

The CMDBf Specification Part 1 – The Semantics of CMDB Federation

Marvin Waschke — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:59:00 GMT

After a short hiatus from blogging, I'd like to ease back into it with a short series on CMDB federation. I will start with the problem itself. The CMDB federation problem is highlighted in ITIL v3 where the Service Asset Configuration Management (SACM) and the Configuration Management System (CMS) both describe a number of databases working together in a federation to provide configuration...

Where Have All My Chickens Gone?

Jeff Foucher — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:30:00 GMT

A recent study found nearly 40 percent of large enterprises in North America do not have automated asset discovery and inventory management in place today. When you consider the impact of IT assets as a percentage of an organization's capital expense, it begs the question: Just Who Is Minding The Farm? IT wants to be viewed as an equal partner to the Business it...

Oz CA Expo 2009 - what an incredible couple of days

Peter Doherty — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:20:00 GMT

What a week, nearly 2000 people evenly split across Melbourne and Sydney attended CA Expo here in Oz. It just gets bigger and better every year. Though you know one of my key performance indicators for an event like this is not how many people turn for the Keynote (sorry John and Ajei), it is how many stay around for the final sessions. I had nearly 200 people in my session in both cities on the...

Allocate Your Cost to Get Lean in IT

Eric Feldman — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:25:00 GMT

As companies strive to maximize value and optimize service supply and demand, they are employing Lean IT principles. One way to understand and maximize value is to have a thorough understanding of IT finance, from cost structure to consumption. Armed with this knowledge, an IT executive could potentially answer some important questions about his company's business model: What is my cost of...

Leveraging the Service Catalog to drive Lean IT

Robert Stroud — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:01:00 GMT

I was speaking with the CIO of a large IT organization while at the ISO working group meetings in India recently and he told me about the recent directive he had received to cut the IT expenditure in 2010\2011 by 10 Percent - or in CA-terms, get a bit more "lean" when it comes to IT and minimize cost and reduce waste, while still providing maximum value. I am sure you will agree...

Teaming COBIT and ITIL for improved value and service

Robert Stroud — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:47:00 GMT

Not long ago I blogged on the recently announced ISACA Strategy. And lately there has been some commentary on the future of ISACA and the itSMF. As a Board member on both organizations I thought I would take a few moments to discuss one of the intersections between the two organizations. ISACA, a global organization of IT professionals, is dedicated to delivering value to its membership with the...

Fulfilling your learning objectives as part of a Service Management Program

Peter Doherty — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:49:00 GMT

I deal with a great many Service Management Programs from many different perspectives and one thing I often see is that we do not know how to enable the participants’ ability to learn. You will notice I did not say train as these are two totally separate things. Learning is about enabling an environment where the people involved actually want to learn and one which caters to the learning needs of...