ITSM Professor

Applying DevOps principles and practices will be needed to ensure the DevOps values for Culture, Automation, Measurement and Sharing (CAMS). As major industries consider how to optimize for 2016, busting out of silos should be at the top of their list. This is true in all areas of service management and includes mainframe systems and applications. 
Mainframe application and system development, like all areas of development, face many obstacles that include broken processes, obsolete tools and the common us vs. them mentality. Mainframe systems remain crucial for critical business knowledge and back-end support for customer engagement. What are service providers going to do when the mainframe developers retire or move to other positions? We have seen decades of progress on many platforms but in many cases mainframe code is still managed by siloed teams. Even so, things are moving in the right direction to increase and optimize the value stream for the development, deployment and ongoi…

While implementing individual ITIL processes will net some immediate gain, it is the integration of those processes across the service lifecycle that delivers true value. Based on the five core ITIL publications, ITSM Academy's Managing Across the Lifecycle (MALC) prepares learners to show the world they are ITIL Experts. It pulls together all of the aspects of the service lifecycle; "its stages, processes and best practices", and translates that knowledge into practical workplace skills.
This information and certification is great for CIOs, senior IT managers, IT managers, supervisors, IT professionals and IT operations and development professionals who require a business and management level understanding of the ITIL service lifecycle and how it may be implemented to enhance the quality of IT service provision within an organization
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Learner preparation for this course is critical. The class includes access to ITSM Academy's “Learner Portal”. This prov…

It is important to understand the difference between orchestration and automation for any DevOps continuous delivery pipeline initiative. We orchestrate processes and we automate the activities within the process. In a recent DevOps Test Engineer (DTE) certification class I learned how to deconstruct the DevOps pipeline. Understanding the constructs of the pipeline and what your test strategies are will prove helpful for both the orchestration and automation of your delivery pipeline. Benefits of that knowledge generate better alignment and cadence with the business demand and greater deployment velocity. Orchestration and automation take advantage of standardization throughout the DevOps pipeline for integrated tools, integrated code, integrated build and integrated test all the way through. The results? Not only can we deliver product faster but that product or service is now delivered into an anti-fragile, secure and stable environment. 
Confirmation that the process is repeatable…

Organizations adopting DevOps cultures and practices are able to deliver high-quality software faster. This means the business can deliver value to customers faster. You sometimes hear that DevOps and ITSM aren’t compatible. In a recent ITSM for DevOps workshop an attendee asked whether process is still relevant for digital transformation initiatives in today’s environment.  The answer is emphatically Yes.   Now more than ever before the attention to process is critical.  Whether your company is striving to achieve traction for a cultural shift, for a digital transformation, to create a DevOps pipeline or any other improvement initiative, Process will always be a critical success factor.   Remember we are talking about just enough process. We cannot have over engineered bureaucratic processes. For our purpose here, we will focus high level on some of the process design considerations and mistakes to avoid.  To learn more about what is just enough and how to design or redesign your exi…

I was recently asked to clarify the roles of the Process Owner, Process Manager and Process Practitioner and wanted to share with you information from our Certified Process Design Engineer (CPDE) class.

Roles and Responsibilities:
Process Owner – This individual is “Accountable” for the process. They are the go-to person and represent this process across the entire organization. They will ensure that the process is clearly defined, designed and documented (check out our free process design templates!). They also ensure that the process has a set of Policies for governance.Example: The process owner for Incident management will ensure that all of the activities to Identify, Record, Categorize, Investigate, … all the way to closing the incident are defined and documented with clearly defined roles, responsibilities, handoffs and deliverables. An example of a policy in could be… “All Incidents must be logged”. Policies are rules that govern the process. The Process Owner ensures that all P…

LEAN Principles

LEAN principles originated in Japan with the “Toyota Production System” and have evolved from manufacturing. Tools and techniques for LEAN are rocking the world of Information Technology (LEAN IT). LEAN does not stand alone! There is a DevOps Foundation certification class available that explains how LEAN, AGILE and ITSM dove tail together to optimize a DevOps integrated delivery pipeline. The core idea is to deliver customer value while eliminating waste (Muda). The goal is to provide value to the customer through a perfect value creation process that has zero waste.

What About KANBAN?

KANBAN is one of many techniques utilized for LEAN practices and results in an increase in productivity and value for individuals and teams. In Japanese the word KAN means visual and the word BAN means board. KANBAN is a visual board that helps teams to visualize work and get more done. If you’re reading this because you are interested in using KANBAN for yourself or your team, here is…