ITSM Professor

Originally Published on the DevOps Institute Site

One of the most interesting trends in DevOps adoption is the evolution of the IT silo into the cross-skilled squad. This is not just a semantical name change. Most IT teams today are comprised of like-skilled individuals such as a Scrum team of developers. The modern squad takes a slightly different approach, is more static than dynamic and is more product-focused than project based. Squads are built around T-shaped professionals –where each member has a specialty competency, but all members have a broad scope of skills across multiple disciplines. A high performing squad essentially has all of the skills needed for the product or feature to which it is assigned and is not generally constrained by the availability of an individual resource. There is enough breadth of knowledge inside and outside the squad to shift more activities to the left so as to allow them to move more quickly and with more agility. While the squad model originate…

Stronger alignment between IT and the business:
Historically IT has not been a participant in helping to create business strategies, it was normally in the role of supporting them. Recently, with the speed of innovation impacting businesses position in the marketplace, IT has been playing a greater role in helping to develop that business strategy. The ITIL framework enables IT to act as a service provider and become a core and more strategic part of the business. Pre-defined processes and best practices from the ITIL framework enable businesses to react quickly to today's rapidly changing technology landscape, focus on innovation and ultimately keep customers satisfied.
Improved service delivery and customer satisfaction:
Event, incident and problem management processes included within the ITIL framework enable businesses to review performance, perform root cause analysis, resolve issues and through problem management, prevent future incidents from occurring and allows us an end t…

IT professionals attending the DevOps FND Certification class offered by the DevOps Campus at ITSM Academy are sometimes surprised to discover that DevOps in not just about Dev and Ops.

The DevOps pipeline and value stream for the continuous delivery of products and services mandates that an integration of requirements and controls be orchestrated in such a way that speed and value are achieved. DevOps extends far beyond software developers and IT operations.

One way to consider the stakeholders for DevOps:

Dev Includes all people involved in developing software products and services including but not exclusive to:
Architects, business representatives, customers, product owners, project managers, quality assurance (QA), testers and analysts, suppliers …Ops Includes all people involved in delivering and managing software products and services including but not exclusive to:
·Information security professionals, systems engineers, system administrators, IT operations engineers, release eng…

Taking action is one of the most necessary steps in effectuating life changes. However, as most of us know, sometimes it is very difficult to take that first step and commit to a desired achievement. When delivering DevOps/Agile/ITSM certification classes, I like to stress that as leaders we must inspire. And this is true because Inspiration leads to motivation and motivation triggers ACTION!

Although this is true, a recent Forbes article opened my mind to another way of looking at this. In this article Svetlana Whitener states that: “You don’t need to wait to feel inspired before you implement a new behavior. You can immediately begin by gathering your willpower (a strong self-control determination that allows you to do something difficult) and stop procrastinating.”

So whether you dig deep into your inner self and use will power or you are inspired by others, take action! Both motivation and will power are necessary. The bottom line is this: Digital Transformation is real and IT ser…

Education, learning and certifications are necessary. Taking ACTION shapes our world.

Getting certified is certainly valuable for career driven DevOps practitioners and leaders but what is most rewarding is listening to attendees of the course talk about the results and key take aways. Below are examples of key take aways from learners who attended a recent DevOps Leader course from the ITSM Academy’s DevOps Campus. Read through them. Get some tips for your DevOps leadership! Be inspired and take action!

I liked the shared practices and discussion in class for the idea of figuring out who the "friends" of DevOps are. What I learned in this class will stay with me forever.Our value stream maps (VSM) are very detailed and complex. Therefore, I plan to go back and simplify our VSM’s so that we are seeing the highest-level view of the value stream. I learned from the VSM activity in this class how powerful that can be. This will allow us to "sell" the improvement oppor…

Originally posted on The AXELOS Blog - by @itsm_Donna


In IT service management (ITSM) education is critical: it helps organizations get a shared understanding of terms and concepts and a proven body of knowledge such as ITIL®.

The IT industry is rife with buzzwords carrying varied interpretations, so education helps get everyone on the same page. But while ITSM professionals may well understand the “what?” and “why? – for example why to minimize risk or restore services ASAP – today it’s the how that needs to evolve and change.

And while there is always value in education, achieving certification creates a different level of engagement: people get involved and – critically – seek to understand. Getting certified allows you to represent your competence and understanding of the concepts you’ve learned. After that, you need to get out there and apply them to benefit your organization and add to your credibility and your baseline of experience. Today’s hiring managers are looking for that co…