Agile Service Management ensures that ITSM processes reflect Agile values and are designed with “just enough “control and structure in order to effectively and efficiently deliver services that facilitate customer outcomes when and how they are needed.  We accomplish this by adapting Agile practices to ITSM process design.  Implement service management in small, integrated increments and ensure that ITSM processes reflect Agile values from initial design through CSI. By being able to incorporate a variety of tools from many practices, the Certified Agile Service Manager (CASM) can engage both the operations and development sides of the organization when defining and documenting processes, engaging in a major project or just move through these steps as part of an improvement project.   By incorporating these DevOps principles along with the CASM role, we can begin to incorporate the idea of process and functional integration much earlier in the development lifecycle.  It allows

To survive in today’s competitive business climate organization’s must respond quickly  to their customers’ evolving needs and desires.   How many times have you heard that? We know from experience that an agile culture where agility is gained through people, process and tools can enable organizations to gain market share and competitive advantage.   And still, more organizations than not silo agile principles to software and product development. Ever wonder why, as an industry, we are not getting the types of returns that are expected from our efforts? Agile software development alone will not get us there!  Other factors include: Ability to quickly respond to customer feedback and needs – Customer engagement. An understanding that the customer and business requirements are dynamic and that we must have agile processes in place to respond to them. (Not only agile development) Sustained innovation and speed from idea to end of life for the service and processes. Incre

DevOps is here and it seems to be what everyone in ITSM is buzzing about. So what are the goals and how do we know it’s not just the next hot kitchen color for this year?  DevOps is a cultural and professional movement that stresses communication, collaboration and integration between software developers and IT operations professionals while leveraging agile, lean and traditional ITSM practices. Stakeholders on the development side will include, but not be limited to, all of the people involved in developing software products and services.  On the operations side it will include, but not be limited to, all of the people involved in delivering and managing those software products and services and the underlying IT infrastructure on which it is being delivered.  The goals are to better align IT responsiveness to business needs, smaller more frequent releases, reduce risk, increase flow, improve quality and reduce time to market. These can only be accomplished by underst

In a previous blog I wrote about the need for a high performance Service Desk.   So what do we get in terms of business benefit? The value statement in IT terms is reduced re-work, less down time, better utilization of higher cost resources (knowledge management), increased stability, reliability, availability  and predictable levels of IT services. So the question is how do we effectively communicate the business benefit of our support efforts? The goal of course is to align our IT metrics to the business benefit and define that benefit with language the business can relate to and understand.     IT Metric Average speed of answer.  First Call Resolution.  Average Escalation Duration. Total # of incidents recorded by: Service, CI, Assignment team. IT Goal Less down time, lower abandon rate, quicker speed of answer. Less down time, lower abandon rate, greater use of knowledge bases.   Less down time, predefined escalation paths, greater cooper

It’s that time of year where the kids are heading back to school, the seasons are about to change and YESSS it’s time for FOOTBALL!!!! The other night I was watching the HBO series NFL Hard Knocks about the Los Angeles Rams training camp and it dawned on me how much a football organization is like an ITSM organization and how they can incorporate the 12 Agile principles into their game plans.  I know your saying, what?? But hear me out and let me explain: Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer. Ultimately this means to win the Super Bowl, but we have to win each week against a different opponent, with different circumstances at each game. Weather, crowds, injuries all have to be adapted to. We have to welcome changes, even late in the game.   Some changes might not be so welcome but we have to be agile and adapt to whatever circumstances arise during game day. This may mean dealing with something bad or some opportunity presented to you during the game.   (Respond to

The “Best of the Professor” blogs focus on one unique individual topic and will be followed by links to papers with more in depth information. DevOps initiatives are supported by three basic principles. In his book “ The Phoenix Project “, Gene Kim  leverages the Theory of Constraints and the knowledge learned in production environments to describe the underlying principles of the DevOps movement in three ways. These principals are referred to as The First Way, The Second Way and the Third Way.    In earlier papers from the “Best of the Professor” we discussed  the “First Way” and how this DevOps principle was all about the flow of work from Left to Right.  We then discussed the “Second Way which was all about the flow of work from right to left and how critical that is for measuring DevOps value.  In this iteration from “The Best of the Professor“, the focus will be on the last of these three DevOps Principles known as “The Third Way”. The Third Way – Continual Experimentati

I was recently asked if I had any insights into what roles (titles) are commonly used in companies and organizations to fulfill the BRM function.  This individual commented that the BRM function is one that they wholeheartedly support, but were finding that investing in a resource that is exclusively focused on that is something that companies either can’t afford (legitimately) or that they struggle to justify the cost for the position. Finding the suitable individual with the proper skill set to fulfill the Business Relationship Management (BRM) role can certainly be a challenge.  One thing to recognize is that the BRM job role function is dual fold.  This person represents first and foremost the customer.  They must be familiar with intimate details regarding customer needs, expectations and preferences.  On the other side the BRM also will liaise with the business to ensure that the service provider can fulfill those customer needs.  This is sometimes more of an art than a