So the election is over and we move into the transitioning of power to the new administration. This doesn’t officially happen until January 20 th 2017. President elect Trump met with President Obama and so begins the transfer of Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom. So with such a short time the transfer between the transition teams and the operational teams has to happen quickly, efficiently and effectively.  This transfer of power has happened 43 times in our nation’s history with 11 happening so far in the postmodern era and the Obama to Trump administration being the twelfth. Can you say change model? The ability to have this smooth transition rests to a significant extent on the ability of those involved to be able to respond to existing circumstances, their ability to understand the situation as it currently exists along with any options that may be available, along with the known consequences and benefits.  The quality, relevance and accessibility of this ...

Note: This was originally published in 2016 and explains the ITIL V3 lifecycle phase "Release, Control, and Validation (RCV)." In 2024, in ITIL 4, the concepts of RCV are integrated into various practices.  Please read this updated post for current information  What is RCV? (Updated for ITIL 4 Practitioners) For a more detailed understanding, ITIL 4 Specialist modules like " Create, Deliver and Support " offer comprehensive coverage of these practices in a modern context. While CDS doesn't replace RCV, it's the course that covers these concepts. RCV stands for Release, Control, and Validate. These are critical activities that are required for every deployment. Proper Release, Control, and Validation (RCV) is achieved as a result of integrated process activities. In today's dynamic business climate, service outages cause real bottom-line impact to the business. Mature processes are critical in enabling IT organizations to smoothly transition new and c...

Change is not something that you do to people, change is something that you do with people. What thoughts occur when you or your staff are notified of a significant change to a process or service?  Is it one of dread, fear or perhaps frustration?  Managing organizational change should be a required element in any or all process and service changes where significant impact for users and staff are expected.   Service providers must ensure readiness for the change and ensure that a cultural shift does indeed take place.  Organizations change for a variety of reasons that could include the need to “get better” or perhaps to “be the best”.  Sometimes organizational change management is triggered by the need to deal with a changing economy or revenue loss.  At the outset, management must be honest with workers and still able to convince them that the best way to deal with current reality is via change.  Each individual’s ability to understand and t...

Every business has become a technology business.  Let that one sink in for a moment.  With the internet of things ever increasing it has become ever more imperative for us to make wise decisions about how to move forward on which IT services we should be delivering into the future (pipeline), how long we should continue to deliver our current (catalog) and when should we retire them (retire).  We literally could be an app away from becoming irrelevant. It is no longer enough to satisfy our customers, we must now delight and excite them.  They have to be able to enjoy the experience of how they receive these services along with the knowledge and comfort that the service provider of choice can continue without interruption to deliver this level of performance and functionality and even deliver new capabilities swiftly and often. By engaging in DevOps principles & practices (Scrum and Agile) at the strategic level we can begin to prioritize new and changi...

DevOps is a culture, movement or practice that emphasizes the collaboration and communication of both   software developers   and other   information-technology   (IT) professionals while automating the process of software delivery and infrastructure changes.   It aims at establishing a culture and environment where building,   testing , and releasing software can happen rapidly, frequently, and more reliably. It’s about improving, communicating and collaboration.  From a Service Operation perspective we are already part of the way there, so maybe it won’t take as long or require as much organizational change as we think. Application management is responsible for managing applications throughout their lifecycle.  Application management covers the entire ongoing lifecycle of an application, including requirements, design, build, deploy, operate and optimize.   The application management function is performed by any department, group or te...