To understand the concept of “Release Models” one must first understand the clear distinction between the Change Management process and the process of Release and Deployment Management.   At a high level you could say that the Change Management process activities assess, authorizes and control the change and that Release and Deployment Process will actually execute or implement the change. This helps to understand the difference between change and release but also to understand that there will be different skillsets and activities involved for each area.    Although Change and Release management processes in and of themselves do have clearly defined objectives, roles and responsibilities these processes do not stand alone and must consistently work together for seamless integration with all of the Service Transition processes including Service Asset and Configuration Management and Validate and Testing processes.   This is especially true when you set out to define “Release Models”

If a problem is the unknown cause of one or more incidents then how can I design a repeatable model for something that is unknown? The purpose of Problem Management is to manage the problems throughout their lifecycle. Problem Management seeks to not only to minimize the adverse effect of incidents by providing work arounds, but also seeks to eliminate outages, and prevent them from recurring again. In Incident Management ITIL defines an Incident Model as a predefined set of procedures based on type of incident.   So then what is a “Problem Model”?   Problem Models Not all problems are the same.   There are many different types of problems and each type will require unique roles and responsibilities, varied skill sets and different timelines and policies based on the complexity of the problem.   When considering how to design problem models consider the workflow required once the “problem” or is identified. Approach to Defining Problem Models One approach is to classify

An “incident” is defined as an unplanned interruption to an IT service, the reduction in the quality of an IT service or the failure of a CI that has not yet impacted an IT service.  The purpose of incident management is to restore a service to normal operations as quickly as possible by minimizing the impact of incidents on IT services.  Incident Management is the process responsible for managing the lifecycle of all incidents by ensuring, that standardized methods and procedures are utilized to record, respond and report on all incidents.  Additionally this process should increase the visibility and communication of incidents to the business and the IT support staff and thereby allowing greater alignment of incident management to the overall IT and business strategies.  In a normal IT environment the IT organization may be dealing with a large number of incidents and many of these are repeatable, something that has happened before and very well may happen again in the future.  I

In ITSM as in life change is inevitable.   In order for us to continually deliver services that are meaningful and bring value to our customers, we must frequently update and upgrade not only the services we deliver but also the underlying infrastructure, technology and applications that are utilized and managed to deliver these services.   The ITIL definition of a change is “the addition, modification or removal of anything that could have an effect on the delivery of an IT service. The purpose of the change management process is to control the lifecycle of all changes, allowing us to make beneficial changes with minimal disruption to our current IT services.   The objective is to be able to respond to these changing requirements while safeguarding value and reducing rework.    Additionally ITSM must ensure that services continue to align to overall business strategy and that we have the processes and mechanisms in place to guarantee that all changes and the configuration items (C

  An incident is an unplanned interruption to an IT service or reduction in the quality of an IT service and is strictly a reactive process. A problem on the other hand represents a different perspective of an incident by diagnosing its underlying root cause, which might also be the cause of multiple other incidents. Incidents however do not always grow up to become problems.  While Incident Management activities focus on restoring services to normal operations as quickly as possible, Problem Management activities determine the root cause, find the most effective and efficient permanent resolution and ultimately prevent the incident from happening again.    Problem Management can be both reactive and proactive. Proactive Problem Management identifies weaknesses in the environment before actual incidents occur.  These can then be exploited as improvement opportunities.   Reactive Problem Management addresses problems that were identified from one or more incidents.      The pol

“ Problem Management  seeks to minimize the adverse impact of incidents and problems on the business that are caused by underlying errors within the IT infrastructure and to proactively prevent the recurrence of incidents related to those errors.   In order to achieve this,  Problem Management  seeks to get to the root cause of incidents, document and communicate known errors and to initiate actions to improve or correct the situation”.    Given that statement is directly from the ITIL Best Management Practices text, it’s a wonder more organizations don’t have well integrated Problem, Incident and Change processes in their organizations. I never want to say that there is a single silver bullet solution for a given problem and I’m not suggesting that here.  However having a solid CMS (Configuration Management System) is a good step in the right direction.   Of course before we even think of tools we must have rules.  Thinking holistically we can create an integrated set of best p

Problem Management for Newbies (Part 2 of 2) In part one of “Problem Management for Newbies” we looked at reactive Problem management and how Problem Management can serve as a pillar of support to incident management.  Problem Management prevents, minimizes and eliminates future incidents and problems from occurring.  There will always be a need for reactive problem management.  IT support can never guarantee that there will not be outages and will always need clearly defined roles, skilled staff and governance for the resolution of incidents and problems when they occur.  Added value to the business is via proactive problem management!  Proactive Problem Management Proactive problem management will glean management information from the function of the service desk, and others across the organization.  By viewing and analyzing reports on frequency of incidents, types of incidents,  noting the times that incidents and problems occur and most importantly understanding the bu