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HVIT – An Atmospheric View of High Velocity IT

A Digital Transformation requires radical and profound change that orients an organization toward an entirely new direction and takes a service provider to an entirely different level! High Velocity IT (HVIT) is the application of digital technology that will likely play a major role in significant business enablement where speed is crucial! This is an Atmospheric View of High Velocity IT - Meditate on this for a few - POWERFUL! High Velocity IT is just a normal way of doing business for some organizations. For others it is an aspiration and many service providers are on a quest to get there fast. Best practice shows that there are three core elements required for HVIT and after taking a deeper dive into these aspects I became excited to see how these characteristics can change the world! Want to LEARN more? Get Certified in HVIT. The HVIT Certification Course takes a deeper dive into this model. This is more than a skillset it is an ability to shift the entire organization t

The EVOLUTION of the ENGINEER – Site Reliability Engineers

ALL CALL SREs REQUIRED!  Let’s take a walk down to the ocean and while you consider the opportunity, benefits, and $$$, think about dipping your toe in. Let’s explore Reliability, Site Reliability, and the Site Reliability Engineer .  No doubt the world is evolving. People are evolving and tech is evolving. Business and customer requirements are evolving. The evolution of systems requires the evolution of engineers. Nature and pandemics put undue stress on our resources! In comes the Certified Site Reliability Engineer .  "Urgent, Urgent, Urgent… All hands on deck!",  is a call that practitioners, managers, and organizations do not want to hear and recognize must stop! Reliability – At a minimum, we recognize that the delivery of service is not dependent solely on the quality of the product itself and the goal is not that the products or service merely be deployed. A service must be operated and sustained over a period. How long? For the life of the service.

How to Move and SHIFT the CULTURE!

There are three core frameworks that can help us to shift the way we think, do work, and ultimately shape the behaviors and values that are the heartbeat of our organizations - CULTURE! Each of these models can be used to identify, analyze, and move an organization to new heights, new ways of collaborating and increasing speed and value for service consumers. Models for learning how to "Shift the Culture!” Erickson Model – Identifies the stages of psychosocial development  The Erickson Model helps as a starting point for “Where are we now?”. Westrum Model – Focus here is on the organizational types :  - Pathological  - Bureaucratic  - Generative  The Westrum Model helps providers get detail on the behaviors within their organization and teams.  Laloux’s Culture Model – Frederic Laloux’s model provides a clear picture of how culture may evolve in an organization. Laloux expands the concepts of the two previous models. The model comes f

Culture Hack Required!

The risk is below the water and we are headed right towards it. Organizational Transformations, Business Transformations and IT Transformations are all at their very core really CULTURE Transformations!  Ok friends, I’ve loaded this one up. For a deeper dive into some of the topics addressed in this blog, be sure to click on the embedded­­ links provided. Culture must be considered to Drive Stakeholder Value - This is POWERFUL! Think about how a culture shift  enables the following: Mapping the customer journey with all touchpoints and interactions. You can potentially map the customer journey and map the stakeholder’s roles and responsibilities brilliantly, but what about the cultural shift to enable these stakeholders? Without it we will likely fall short of our goals. If we have any hope of converting demand into value via IT-enabled services – culture is key!  Properly designing XLAs , SLAs and meaningful measurement models.  Without culture, the risk is high

Virtual Classrooms WORK for YOU - the LEARNER!

Considering an Instructor-Led Virtual Classroom for your next class?  Online Instructor-Led Virtual Classrooms allow YOU the learner to immerse in material that is presented in a fun, practical manner. Try it! I promise you won’t be disappointed.  Virtual Classrooms are available for Certification and Non-Certification courses including: Agile Service Management   DevOps ITIL CX and XLA Training Value Stream Mapping (VSM) This is NOT a Webinar! This is NOT an e-learning self-paced computerized course.  You are not on your own!  Instructor-Led Virtual Classrooms Allow YOU to :  Learn online with a live experienced instructor. Interact in group discussions and activities with others in the class. Engage your instructor with ongoing Q and A throughout. Listen to or share real-world examples. Participate in analyzing sample exam questions with the instructor.  Collaborate with chat, open mic, polls, and other interactive tools – VOIP or phone!  Learn f

Experience Level Agreements & Surveillance Capitalism

Written for LinkedIn.com by  John Worthington ,  Director of Customer Success at eG Innovations Experience Level Agreements & Surveillance Capitalism Does the Customer Really Come First? On Sundays, I try to relax and not think too much about business, but I almost always fail to do so--- Monday’s right around the corner and it’s impossible not to begin thinking about the week ahead... As it happens today I read an article in the NY Times and was immediately drawn to work. Being focused on the digital user experience and recently completing ITSM Academy’s The Essence of eXperience (XLA) Certification   (see my review here ), I found this article unsettling to say the least. Don’t get me wrong, managing the customer experience is definitely key to survival in the digital age, but it’s not a big jump from managing the experience to managing the customer . “These data flows empty into surveillance capitalists’ computational factories, called ‘artificial intelligence’, where

Why We Must Transcend Silos

Survival - For a service provider to survive in today’s fast-paced delivery environment they will likely need to move away from old ways of doing things. We hear things like; "Terms matter", "Shift your thinking!" or "Shift the focus!" and "CHANGE the CULTURE!".  It is becoming more evident than ever that our organizational structure including silos could be an impediment. Structure – An organization’s structure impacts how work gets done. Structure influences the actual product and service architecture. Some organizational structures even have siloed within silos.  Structure matters. Silos can fracture the velocity of delivery and the quality of what is delivered. We can transcend silos!  ITIL 4 Foundation or the new DevOps Leader  certification classes are a good place to start learning new and better ways for the conversion of demand to value for service providers. Considerations for Transcending Silos Measurement – High performin

SRE Is the Most Innovative Approach to ITSM Since ITIL®

Originally published on DevOps.com , written by Jayne Groll , CEO of DevOps Institute For over a decade, ITIL has been the leading ITSM framework adopted by enterprises across the globe. So, what is driving a rapidly increasing interest in Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) as a service management alternative? In its own words, Google refers to SRE as its approach to service management: “The SRE team is responsible for the availability, latency, performance, efficiency, change management, monitoring, emergency response and capacity planning.” In traditional ITSM terms, the role of the SRE is responsible for service level, change, availability, event, incident, problem, capacity, performance, infrastructure and platform management. While the operational practice areas may be similar, there are significant differences in how the practices are approached. ITIL4 Framework Compared to SRE Released in 2019, the newest update to ITIL4 remains a complex governance model with four dimensi

Up YOUR Game – Become a Certified Process Design Engineer!

I find that there are many people that do not understand WHAT a Certified Process Design Engineer (CPDE) really is (be sure to scroll down on the page and then download the free whitepaper for surprising details). The CPDE role is likely much broader and deeper than you might think! Time and Money?! Yes, but not at the expense of quality and stability!  The role of a Certified Process Design Engineer is a critical skill set for all IT service  providers. There are many frameworks and standards that  define practices and methods for achieving success; ITIL 4 , Agile , Lean , DevOps , COBIT, ISO, and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) are only a few. My point is that while each describes processes and controls (what to do), they don’t provide clear, step-by-step methods and techniques for designing, reengineering and improving processes (how to do it).  A Certified Process Design Engineer equips managers and staff at all levels to lead the organization to do t

ITIL® 4 – Decoupling Deployment from Release Management Practice

ITIL 4 is an evolution of ITIL V3. Before we start talking about specific processes or practices, it is important to stress that the focus has shifted. ITIL 4 gives us a fresh perspective to service management and emphasizes the customer user experience, the approach to the overall service value system, the service value chain and value streams , and much more.  Download the What is ITIL 4 document from the ITSM Academy Resource Center and be sure to read past the first few pages for more information on the new perspective that drives modern service management. The emphasis is on value from the customer user experience and integrated holistic approach. That does not mean that the processes are going away. Today we refer to a process as a "practice". Practices are broader in scope than processes and include all 4 dimensions/resources including the process. Two processes or “practices” that have been decoupled in ITIL 4 are the Deployment Management practice an

ITIL®4 – Mapping the Customer Journey

All service providers are in the business of customer and user experience . It is not enough to compete on products and services, how services are delivered is as important as what is delivered. The  customer journey is the complete end-to-end experience customers have with one or more service providers and/or their products through the touchpoints and service interactions with those providers. In order to focus on the outcomes and on the customer/user experience, service providers are seeking to master the art of mapping their customer journey. Doing so allows them to maximize stakeholder value through co-creation of value throughout the entire value chain . The customer journey begins by understanding the overall macro-level of steps or groups of activities that generate the need for interaction between the customer and the service provider. These activities begin at “Explore” and end with “Realize” where the value is actually being consumed by the end-users.   Copyright ©

Shifting Sands - Minimum Viable – What is it Really?

For high performing IT providers, the sands are shifting. If you are getting certified in ITIL 4 , DevOps , or Agile Service Management you hear that we have to “Think BIG and ACT small!”. Minimum Viable Products and Minimum Viable Processes (MVP) are on the move. Historically, IT organizations delivered products and processes into production with huge batch runs or the big bang approach. This method is fraught with issues, escalations, and constant firefighting. These large releases are tightly managed, governed from the highest levels, and require participation from all parts of the organization. The days of large batch runs that take months to create and war rooms staffed 24×7 for weeks before and after the release, have given way to small incremental deployments. In comes Minimum Viable Products/Processes:  High performing organizations know that deployments that deliver value to the consumer fast are required. The idea is not to stage, stage, stage until you have a huge batch

ITIL® 4 Service Value System and DevOps

The Service Value System (SVS) and Service Value Chain as indicated in ITIL 4 Best Practices give you the big picture macro view that should be the start of every DevOps Pipeline . Without it, you could get swept into the undercurrent and potentially focus too much effort or misdirect resources towards the technical and automation aspects of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD).  Components of the SVS include:  The ITIL4 Guiding Principles, Governance, The Service Value Chain, Practices, and Continual Improvement. A Service Value Chain and Value Stream Mapping (VSM) exercise provides all stakeholders with a high-level view of the end-to-end steps required for your DevOps Pipeline. Applying the concept of “Systems Thinking” to the overall CI/CD Pipeline is critical but without including the information/data and flow of work we truly miss the mark. This is where Lean  principles and VSM are helpful.  Notice in the above image from our Value Stream

Experience Level Agreements (XLAs) – Tick Tock!

It is a new day! The world of IT has changed from solely provisioning technology and services to actually being integral in the fulfillment of all business operations. It is time for staff and leaders to learn, get certified, evolve and most importantly to move forward with XLAs . As the climate of business operation changes it makes sense (or should make sense) that the way we measure and fulfill the provisioning of services must evolve to meet new challenges. This does not mean that SLAs are gone and XLAs are taking over. They can co-exist! Traditional Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are sometimes rigid and can be restrictive in a world where the ability to shift and change with dynamic business needs are prevalent. Many of you can relate to those organizations that are meeting and exceeding SLAs only to find Customer Satisfaction (C-Sat) Scores are tanking. Internally the staff celebrate while the organization loses market share! There is still a place for SLAs in the world

ITIL® 4 vs. 'The Source'​

Part of ITIL 4 ’s value proposition is that it embraces newer ways of working, such as Agile, Lean and DevOps. I was recently asked whether there was a compelling argument for individuals to go to ITIL for information about these approaches, vs. going to ‘the source’. Here’s my answer and I’d love to hear yours. 3) What source? Yes. There is a massive amount of information available about these topics. There are many ‘definitive’ sources of knowledge. For lifelong learners such as myself, these sources are a joy. They can also be overwhelming and at times a challenge to apply. A search for information about Lean, for example, may take you down a manufacturing route which then requires translation. Looking to learn more about Agile? Which method? Scrum, SAFe, extreme programming … you get the point. 2) The source is evolving. As an example, DevOps practitioners often pride themselves in the fact that there is no definitive body of knowledge; rather, there is an evolving col

ITIL® 4 – High Velocity IT (HVIT)

There are high performing organizations in the world that are exceeding speed to value, safety, and reliability expectations and they are provisioning co-created services fast .  Not there?! That is ok, you are not alone. I think that we all agree that we must at least be on that journey. Service providers should be capable of generating and sustaining relentless improvement with high velocity for the conversion of demand to consumer value. The ITIL 4 High Velocity IT (HVIT) certification  course explores the ways in which digital organizations function in high-velocity environments. We must move fast, and we have to do the right things fast. Velocity not only refers to speed but also to direction! Understanding these operating models helps practitioners, leaders, and organizations to improve and succeed. The ITIL 4  High Velocity IT   module and certification course  incorporate known and working practices  that focus on the rapid delivery of products and services  such as Ag

ITIL® 4 - Drive Stakeholder Value (DSV)

Think slow and hard about that statement; Drive Stakeholder Value ! Sometimes we see and use terminology so much that the power of the statement gets lost. This is one we must hear and ignite if we have any hope of meeting the evolving door of consumer requirements.  The Drive Stakeholder Value (DSV) certification course is available within the ITIL 4 Managing Professional stream of certification.  Therefore, DSV is also a module and one of the focus areas in the Managing Professional Transition (MPT) class.  Confused? Take a look at this graphic : ITIL 4 Managing Professional Transition  is a course that provides ITIL Experts or those that have at least 17 ITIL v3 credits a fast-track way to obtain the ITIL Managing Professional certification. This course excerpts key concepts from ITIL 4 Foundation and from each of the four Managing Professional modules. The Managing Professional stream of certification courses targets IT practitioners working within technolo