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Why Am I Excited to Teach Site Reliabilty Engineering (SRE) Foundation?

I really like teaching Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Foundation course.  I find it really effective to link SRE Foundation to the learners’ needs of incorporating SRE core concepts to ITSM and DevOps (and any other framework!)  This course allows me to explain how SRE improves operational excellence and quality, a key performance measure for ITSM. It also allows me to explain how SRE improves Automation, not only with the DevOps pipeline, but also how Ops uses this data to improve the flow of work into operations, and then automate repetitive tasks by utilizing tools (e.g., ChatOps).  Most importantly, SRE improves collaboration with customers, defining Service Level Objectives (SLO’s) so that IT consistently achieves (and exceeds) customers’ expectations AND delivers VALUE for the organization.  Automated monitoring is NOT enough these days, we must include observability, using automation to manage security, and ultimately delivering improved IT service quality to the business.

How Can the ITIL® Maturity Model Benefit Our Organization?

Written by Greg Smith , originally posted in OwlPoint News , September 14, 2021 What is the ITIL ®  Maturity Model? The ITIL Maturity Model is a tool used to objectively and comprehensively assess an organization’s service management capabilities and the maturity of the organization’s   Service Value System (SVS) . AXELOS is about to release the new ITIL Maturity Model which OwlPoint – the most tenured AXELOS Consulting Partner in the US – will use to assess clients’ service management capabilities. Why would an organization need an ITIL assessment? There are three main reasons an organization would want to have an ITIL assessment performed: To achieve a desired level of certification and/or meet contractual obligations, they must meet a pre-defined level of maturity and capability. They have undertaken a Service Management implementation or improvement initiative and need to validate the project goals have been met. They are preparing to undertake a Service Management implementation

ITIL® 4: It’s time to focus on people, not just SLAs

Originally posted on DevClass , June 22,2021 written by Joseph Martins and sponsored by Axelos Experience is everything when it comes to delivering IT-enabled products and services. But it’s no longer about how many deadlines your team smashed, how often you’d exceeded service-level agreements (SLAs), or how many lines of code you’ve spat out. Rather it’s about how the services and products you deliver impact the rest of the organisation’s ability to do their jobs, increase productivity, deliver customer satisfaction and co-create value. “Experience” may be seen as subjective, even ephemeral, compared to the traditional IT metrics, deadlines and SLAs. But if you want proof of its importance, consider how ITIL® 4, the latest revision of the best practice framework for service management from AXELOS, focuses on improving user experience of digital services and how this enhances productivity right across the organisation. Ian Aitchison , VP Product Management at Nexthink, the leader in di

The ITIL® Maturity Model

Most organizations, especially service management organizations, strive to improve themselves. For those of us leveraging the ITIL® best practices, continual improvement is part of our DNA. We are constantly evaluating our organizations and looking for ways to improve. To aid in our improvement goals and underscore one of the major components of the ITIL Service Value System , Continual Improvement .   AXELOS has updated the ITIL Maturity Model and is offering new ITIL Assessment services. This will enable organizations to conduct evaluations and establish baselines to facilitate a continual improvement program. A while back I wrote an article on the importance of conducting an assessment . I explained the need to understand where you are before you can achieve your improvement goals. Understanding where you are deficient, how significant gaps are from your maturity objectives, and prioritizing which areas to focus on first are key to successfully improving. One method many organi

How to Hire Site Reliability Engineers (SREs): 5 Top Qualities

Guest Host Post by Jayne Groll previously posted on The Enterprisers Project , May 13, 2021 The Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) role continues to gain momentum in enterprise IT. Hiring managers, consider this advice on how to spot a strong candidate. Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) continues to gain momentum among IT organizations. According to the Upskilling 2021: Enterprise DevOps Skills Report, 47 percent of survey respondents (up from 28 percent in 2020) say SRE is a must-have process and framework skill. As the demand for strong SRE skills rises, so does SRE hiring . However, a challenge for business and hiring managers is determining which skills, traits, and competencies make a strong site reliability engineer. I asked several DevOps Institute Ambassadors and SRE subject matter experts to weigh in on what makes a great SRE. Here’s what they had to say: 1. "Great SREs have a passion for high-quality automation . They have a lot of ideas about automation of toilsome prod

Franny the Flamingo

Recently I asked Lisa Schwartz , "Why is the flamingo ITSM Academy's mascot?"   "Franny has a long history at the Academy . At our very first conference, we were just two ladies with a dream, traveling to Long Beach CA for an early it SMF show. The frame to our booth came - think silver scaffolding - but the beautiful art panels I designed and ordered, didn't arrive on time.   Time travel to 2023 to read about Franny's 19th birthday party in Vegas! Because we are in South Florida, our booth theme was Beach, and the giveaways were koozies, beach balls, etc. I also had ordered a somewhat sizeable inflatable flamingo, which I bought because it was 50% off.  Well, we just had the silver scaffolding, so what's a girl to do?  I blew up all of the inflatables, including the flamingo,  who we immediately named Franny.  I shoved the beach balls into the silver frame and hung Franny from the top, using a conference lanyard.* Thinking, Klassy with a K . Sadly - and

ITIL® 4 and the Evolving Role of Roles

By Donna Knapp In the context of work, a role is typically defined as a set of responsibilities, activities and authorities granted to a person or team. While a role can, at times, represent a full-time job, this is not always the case. In the course of our work, many of us play different roles (i.e., we wear different hats). For example, we may play different roles within our teams (e.g., team lead or team member), or within practices (or processes) (e.g., practice owner, process owner, or practice/process practitioner), or in the context of a framework or methodology (e.g., customer, user, or sponsor; or product owner, scrum master, or scrum team member). Roles are important because they provide greater flexibility than job descriptions, which are often bound to formalized performance plans and perhaps even to contracts. This flexibility is important because organizations are increasingly adopting operating models that are more evolutionary and less structured than most companies h

Happy Retirement ITIL© v3 Foundation! Passing the Torch to ITIL 4!

Retirement is a time that marks a new beginning. It’s a major transition that isn’t always easy. This is  true whether it relates to the retirement of people, or a technology, or as is the case with ITIL v3 Foundation, a certification. Like other major transitions, the retirement of ITIL v3 Foundation has sparked a variety of emotions and concerns. On a positive note, we can look back fondly on ITIL v3 and celebrate the progress that it has enabled us to make in terms of promoting the value of service management. It helped us to understand what processes are and the importance of continually improving those processes. It also paved the way for us to understand the importance of aligning service management with business requirements. Concerns, however, have started to creep in. Is ITIL v3 enough in the digital age? Or perhaps more importantly, is ITIL v3 too much when viewed through the lens of adjacent ways of work such as Agile, Lean, and DevOps? Have our processes become unnecessaril