Benjamin Bloom (1913 – 1999) was an American educational psychologist who developed a taxonomy, or structure, through which educational objectives could be organized according to their cognitive complexity. The cognitive domain deals with a person's ability to process information and use it in a meaningful way. Bloom identified six levels within the cognitive domain, from the simple recall of facts, through increasingly more complex and abstract levels of thinking. Simply put, Bloom’s Taxonomy helps teachers categorize learning objectives and, from there, assess learning achievements. Why should you care? Many popular certification exams – such as the ITIL V3 exams – are based on Bloom’s Taxonomy. Understanding the Bloom level at which you will be tested and using appropriate study techniques greatly increases your ability to Engage effectively in class Prepare properly for the exam Achieve success on the exam It is also useful to understand your learning style, or approach to lear...

“Those Change Management people make my life so difficult sometimes!” I heard this from one of my students the other day. In this person’s organization they have made a common error. They have confused the process of Change Management with the Service Desk, Technical, Operations and Application Management functions. In other words the people who use the Change Management (and other processes) have become the same as the process itself. This is an often misconstrued and misinterpreted idea. We must remember that ITIL makes a distinction between Functions (groups of people who use processes to complete similar types of work) and Processes (sets of activities used to complete various types of work). I like to remind my learners that Functions use Processes (or people do activities). Functions are not Processes and Processes are not Functions. There may be groups of people or work teams who use a process as their main tool. As an example, the Release Implementation Team could use Re...

It’s National Customer Service Week (NCSW). Held every year during the first week in October, NCSW provides an excellent opportunity to explore ways to better serve your customers. A great starting point is ensuring your policies, processes and procedures are customer friendly. What does that mean? Be a customer for a moment. What are the things that drive you crazy? Here is my list of pet peeves, along with a few suggestions. Limited options – Every process begins with a trigger. For IT organizations, a common trigger is a call to the Service Desk to report an incident or submit a service request. Times have changed. Increasingly customers want the ability to use other channels such as email, self-help via the internet, chat, and in many cases, all of the above. There are currently four generations in the work place, all who have very different expectations and desires in terms of how they obtain support. Are your processes keeping up with the times? Surveys, focus groups and needs a...