“Tomatoes don’t go in fruit salad”

In this extended article, Barclay Rae provides an independent guide to Knowledge Management and in particular Knowledge Management tool selection.

Knowledge Management can be many things – from simple useable checklists to complex context-sensitive and case-based toolsets.

Some of the most effective knowledge solutions can be very basic, like lists of contact details, account numbers or simple spreadsheets.

The key to success is in getting people to use these sources and continuing to use them (and find them useful).

Good practical design is key to building tools that provide information and knowledge quickly, intuitively and appropriately – and that are regularly and continuously used.

For IT Support in particular this means:

1. Getting the right level of information – accurate, up to date, relevant, useable
2. To the right person – being aware of the support model and the levels of knowledge held at different support levels
3. In a language and format that is appropriate for them – technical or not, plus summary or detailed, as required for the relevant support level and skillset
4. Quickly and when and where they need it – Without need for long searches or trawling through long lists of options, delivered at the point of service or action as required.
5. Context is everything – too technical or not technical enough, out of date, inappropriate, complex, slow – tools must be able to understand and deliver on these within a clearly context, otherwise the ‘knowledge is useless or even dangerous.

So, what is Knowledge Management?

This is the process or discipline that ensures that teams have relevant information to hand, to assist in having a clear understanding of a situation. Knowledge Management is the process that manages the capability to provide that information, based on accurate and relevant data. If the information is available at the right place and time, then those people accessing it can make more informed decisions and also speed up the support and resolution process – i.e. by reducing the need to escalate.

What Does Knowledge Management mean in ITSM?

Knowledge management is not just about getting information fast when trying to solve incidents, although this is a good practical starting point for many organisations. Data gathering, solution design, process design, knowledge transfer are all key elements – across all of IT and beyond. Knowledge should be able to be applied at all parts of the service ‘supply chain’ to ensure that this is built in a robust, complete and effective way. ‘Knowledge Management’ can be Data, Information, Knowledge or Wisdom (see list below) – all differing levels of content or applied and documented understanding that provides value in terms of improvements in service quality and efficiency.

• DATA – Ten tomatoes
• INFORMATION – He bought ten tomatoes
• KNOWLEDGE – A tomato is a fruit
• WISDOM – Tomatoes don’t go in fruit salad

Tools capture, store and make that information available, and relevant. Getting the right information to the right person – at the right level when they need it – is the goal. The easiest elements to identify and apply ‘knowledge articles’ to are Incidents, Problems and Service Requests. This should also be extended to Changes, Releases, CIs, Services, offerings, processes and workflows – all aspects of service delivery, where information and knowledge is needed. Key elements for tools should be in the ability to easily create, approve, review, update store and make available knowledge articles – i.e. secure curation. In addition the integration of these knowledge functions to other areas of ITSM should be seamless. Integration and alignment with other internal and external sources of knowledge is also useful, as is any formal approach or verification around approved techniques for KM – e.g. like KCS (Knowledge Centred Support). Like many aspects of ITSM technology and practice (and software in general) the value and success of this rests as much with the approach and focus around implementation, culture and governance, as it does with functionality. Vendors need therefore to possess understanding, skills and expertise in implementing these solutions and be geared up to pass on these skills to clients for successful implementation.

Knowledge Management Functionality

Knowledge Creation – systems should have the facility to easily create ‘knowledge articles’ (KAs). These can be original records (i.e. specific work instructions or content), and/or packages of content including documents. Linking – Content can be intelligently and seamlessly linked to external sources – tech manuals, wikis etc. Knowledge Curation – there should be definable process workflows to control the lifecycle of KAs as follows:

1. Creation of record – ad hoc or as part of a defied process (e.g. release, change)
2. Approval of record – functional escalation to pre-defined approver or approver group
3. Publishing/Release of record
4. Presentation of record – use of KA as designed and required
5. Review/update of record
6. Removal / archiving of record
7. Tracking and assessment of use of record

Knowledge Sharing – promotion of process and information across systems and channels as required. Presentation of KAs:

1. To multiple staff levels by login
2. Presentation from searches (queries/predictive) on key classifications – type, impact, product, service, symptom, error message etc.
3. Presentation of options based on case-based search criteria and probability
4. Presentation as integral components of ITSM processes:
   • i.     Incident Management – issue resolution, triage
   • ii.     Service Desk – work instructions, manuals, fault fixing
   • iii.     Problem Management – known error records
   • iv.     Change Management – procedures and guidance
   • v.     Configuration Management – procedure and guidance
   • vi.     Services and Service offerings – Procedure and guidance
   • vii.     Request Fulfilment – Procedure and guidance
   • viii.     Release and Deployment Management – Procedure and guidance
   • ix.     Transition – Testing & Verification – testing notes guidance
   • x.     Service Introduction – support notes and guidance
5. Vendors should show innovation through integration and interaction with new products and areas of technology – e.g. integration with Knowledge lockers like Evernote, Onenote, etc
6. Self-help access to users via self-service portals – providing user friendly versions of internal KAs
7. Crowdsourcing – links to Incident and Problem Management processes for access to outstanding issues and inputs to create known error records

Knowledge Development – ability to update and improve knowledge articles and also to assess the value of usage as input to predicting new records or record types Intelligence - Systems should show innovation by learning from existing records – types, content and usage – and prompting to create new KAs.

Vendor Approach

1. Vendors should demonstrate a clear understanding of how to approach Knowledge integration within their (and with other) products
2. Innovation in approach and delivery are a differentiator – e.g. beyond simple functional KA creation and management
3. Project management and tool implementation should include guidance, training, workshops etc. on strategic and technical aspects of Knowledge Management
4. KCS accreditation and proof of capability desirable

General Knowledge Management Requirements

1. User-configurable forms, tables, workflows
2. Should be able to create user-defined rules for creation (e.g. mandatory fields) and lifecycle management (e.g. who, how when revised and updated.
3. Lifecycle activity should trigger escalation processes – (e.g. automated emails/ texts to approvers, reminders etc.)
4. Role-based security access – to allow control of access and level of information by login
5. Ability to provide multiple levels and formats of information in KAs – i.e. bullet points for senior technical levels, scripted specific details for junior / non-technical staff.
6. Vendors should provide expertise and guidance in the implementation of the tool and relevant processes and project requirements around Knowledge Management – e.g. with workshops and training as well as implementation consultancy.
7. Open system for real-time integration with external ITSM.
8. Vendors should have established proven links with other ITSM tools and modules, Incident, Problem and Change Management, CMDB and Service Catalogue.

Barclay will soon begin a competitive review of Knowledge Management technology. If you offer technology in this area and would like to participate in our next review please contact us.

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Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to complete the census. It will remain open so please take a few minutes to share your opinion

• So far the average completion time is less than 90 seconds
• It only has 6 simple questions on one page
• As you can see we are acting on the data you provide us

Click here to complete the Reader Census.

I thought I would share some of the results so far.

General Outlook – Hungry for Knowledge

Readers like to read a balance of opinions from different people, from different geographies in different circumstances. You like the fact we’re not ITIL zealots and try to provide a balance of opinions. You like the fact we’re vendor neutral and not stuffing sales messages in your face.

Overall, I would say respondents in the census are hungry for knowledge – you want to know what others are doing, how they are doing it, the challenges they are facing and how they are addressing them. You want to keep an eye on the market and stay current with practices.

Keep it Real

In terms of future direction and content you would like to see – the message we have received is to keep it real. You want pragmatic examples and use cases.

“Show me examples and experiences of people that are doing it well in real life, rather than theorists who can tell us how it should be done but are yet to do it.”

There is also a desire to hear from organisations of different sizes:

“If possible it would be nice to have content which feel less america centric. I would been keen to get insights on how itsm is done in “second world” places, this may be a more accessable option for small shops.”

Content Types

In terms of content types or content vehicles, your preferences in order of priority are:

1. Industry news
2. Product Reviews
3. How to / Instructional guides
4. Opinion

All options are shown in the graphic below (‘Aggregate score’ is a weighted score based on strength of opinion).

“Q. Please rate each site feature according to importance:”

Thanks again to all those that participated – please keep sending us your feedback.

Click here to complete the Reader Census.

Write a review, chance to win a Kindle Fire

Regular ITSM Review columnist Rob England (a.k.a. ‘The IT Skeptic’) has just published his latest contribution to the ITSM industry:

“Plus! The Standard+Case Approach: See service response in a new light”

Book blurb:

“If your customers see your group as bureaucratic and inflexible…

If your staff feel process bound…

If your process doesn’t adapt to a changing world…

See service response in a new light.
Standard+Case is an exciting new approach to categorising and resolving any sort of response activity, such as service desk, tech support, public safety, social welfare, or health. If you have anything to do with responding to situations when providing a service, read this. It will change your view of how responses are handled.

Standard+Case applies to anything that requires a human response: there’s either a standard response or there isn’t.”

What they said…

“By tying together the mature practices of ITSM and Case Management Rob has strengthened and filled in gaps of both frameworks. A must read for ITSM professionals!” Troy DuMoulin, Pink Elephant.

“Great reading and concept. Now I want to build it.” Matt Beran, ITSM Consultant.

More info on the book:

• Standard+Case on CreateSpace
• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.com
• Kindle
• Standard + Case Website (Videos, Slides, Podcasts, Webinars…)

Competition

To help Skep get the word out on his new book we’re running a competition!

In a nutshell: Write a review of Rob’s book, post it on this article, the best one wins a Kindle Fire.

Competition rules:

1. Deadline to receive reviews: Sunday 30^th June (ish)
2. How to enter: Post your review as a comment on this blog entry or by email
3. The ITSM Review will choose the winning review (i.e. Not Rob)
4. Rob doesn’t mince his words on book reviews, neither should you. We welcome all reviews, good or bad. We aspire to useful and perceptive content on The ITSM Review – this should be no different.
5. The ITSM Review’s decision is final, yada-yada
6. We reserve the right to change the rules retrospectively to cover our backsides with the guiding principles that we are a) Good eggs and b) not evil

GOOD LUCK!

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Integrating IT management plumbing to support ITSM processes

With my Incident and Problem Management focussed review completed, I am now turning my attention to my next review project: Integration tools that compliment ITSM.

Integration Tools complementing ITSM

One of the key elements of delivering quality service to an organisation is to ensure that teams have relevant information to hand, to assist in having a clear understanding of the situation.

But even the most inclusive IT Service Management Tools offer integration to complementary tools to make end-to-end management achievable.

Whether it be speeding up implementations by cleaning up the original data needed to set up the system in the first place, to incorporporating Systems Management data, we want to take a look at the supporting products that help us manage IT and business services end to end.

What are we looking for?

• Pre-Deployment Set-up – User data, location data, HR information (managers, budget centres)
• Integrations to Asset and Configuration information – A lot of the main ITSM vendors offer integration connectors to pull in the “meat” of the ITSM sandwich
• Event Management – Alerts are generated for anything and everything in a managed estate, but how is the wheat sorted from the chaff so that only the vital, service-affecting information gets through?
• Support Services – Remote Control, Communications Platforms during Major Incidents and Support Chats etc.
• Resource Management – Integration with Email/Schedules of support staff workload scheduling and management of projects within the ITSM tool
• Any other useful data that supports ITSM

Why do we care?

Whilst it would be lovely to think that there could be “one ring to rule them all”, the reality is that as comprehensive as ITSM suites are becoming, they are likely to be deployed into environments that will require an element however small of integration.

This may be something as simple as connecting to Active Directory to pull user data and related location and organisational information in, to taking an asset baseline, to start the journey into Change and Configuration Management.

All of these require some form of data integration – the easier the better.

But companies on the periphery of the suites are recognising that there is an area for innovation and providing enhancement to that service, for example reducing time to initially deploy, or being able to take over a machine as part of the problem determination actions in an incident record, and logging all that information in the record.

Think of it as the backing singers to the main act, or the instrumental solo – the supporting tools that help drive the overall efficiency of an IT Service Management solution for a business.

If you offer technology in this area and would like to participate in our next review please contact us.

Image Credit

Stuart Facey, VP of international at Bomgar Corporation

When things go wrong with technology, organisations rely on their IT support teams to fix problems and help out. The traditional method for dealing with problems sees calls (or email requests) coming in and tickets going into the queue to be dealt with.

If a first level support rep doesn’t have the skills to handle an issue, then it gets passed up the chain, essentially being put on hold for response and evaluation. The current ‘hot potato’ approach leads to responsibility being constantly shifted between teams or individuals, dragging out resolution times.

This method of problem solving is extremely inefficient from the end-user’s perspective.

Users get very little visibility over how long it will take to fix their problem, and they can’t find out who is ultimately responsible for resolving their issue. User frustration is high when they can’t get clarity on support requests or have to repeat the details of their problem to multiple technicians.  This process becomes even more complex as businesses outsource parts of their IT services to third parties, who often provide even less visibility to end-users.

Swarming issues towards resolution 

It is time for support organisations to break down the walls between tiers and embrace a more collaborative approach to support, pulling in the right people with the right skills when issues occur. This requires disparate teams to share responsibility for resolving issues and work together to swarm around issues in real time.

This is a significant challenge for IT service desks to consider. Alongside looking at new ways in which to give customers information and new tools to make support easier, there is a potential shift in IT support culture that will also have to take place.

NOTE: This will involve changing from traditional service desk management and becoming more collaborative in problem solving.

Obviously, collaboration is not a new concept. However, applying it in the IT service space does mean thinking things through, as there will be changes in both how problems and tickets will be managed when collaboration is implemented, as well as how metrics on performance are generated.

 The support concierge service

One approach to improving service through collaboration is to position frontline tech staff as support “concierges” who guide the end-user through the entire issue resolution process, versus handing users off to higher tier contacts. Higher level experts should be accessible and be pulled into support issues as needed, helping to resolve problems as soon as they occur and providing on-the-job training to lower level reps. Finally, support reps should be able to securely bring in external vendors and experts as needed to assist with end-user issues in real time as well.

Getting an expert to immediately jump in on an issue has two benefits: firstly, it can improve first contact resolution rates as more difficult challenges can be solved at the first interaction with the end-user. Secondly, it helps improve the knowledge and skills for first line support, as they can watch how the experts solve those more difficult issues first-hand. This makes it easier to improve service levels overall on both a qualitative and quantitative basis.

The third way

From a logistics point of view, bringing in a third contact with experience on the same issue can help fix a problem sooner than shifting a ticket to a “new” queue. However, it does mean re-organising workflows, which can be a big challenge, particularly for situations where support resources will be required from a different location or from outside the organisation. Instead of being points along a line between the user and problem resolution, the first line “concierge” remains responsible for a problem until it is resolved.

Under the traditional service desk approach, there are often no chances for first line staff to expand knowledge of wider problems except for specific training – something that is becoming harder to justify for investment under current economic conditions.

For them, collaboration becomes an opportunity to up their skills and increase their satisfaction levels too. This can also help with morale on the service desk as staff feel better educated and more valued.

Same-screen collaboration

This collaborative approach is obviously difficult to implement if your support organisation relies solely on the phone to handle issues. From a technology perspective, it requires you to look at remote support tools and how they’re enabled, as well as other methods for providing support like chat sessions. To support collaboration, everyone has to view the same screen, pass controls back and forth and invite additional techs (internal or external) to join the session. Bringing in third parties has to be done in a secure and controlled way, so that they can have access to resources that they require in order to provide support.

The main aim for collaboration around IT support is that it can deliver a significant increase in customer service levels. Users have a higher chance of their problem being solved first time, while satisfaction levels should also increase as they feel that every issue is graded as important, whether it is a minor problem or a major one that requires multiple support staff to deal with.

This change in approach has to be supported by similar evolutions in culture and technology on the service desk. Collaboration does involve some standardisation in approach and tools so that teams work in the same way and know what is expected of them.

Similarly, support and service desk management will have to think about capturing and measuring their performance in different ways. For example, metrics like time to resolution will become less important as initial support sessions may take longer, but that should be counteracted with an increase in first contact resolution. More importantly, user satisfaction should go up as people with problems feel their issues get solved in a more efficient way.

By modernising their technology and processes to resolve more issues upon first contact, support and service desks can prove that they are focused on users first and foremost, which will help them improve their reputation and justify the budgets spent on them. At a time when IT strategies in general are continuing to change, the service desk can use these opportunities to deliver more high-value services back to the organisation that they support.

The author is Stuart Facey, VP of international at Bomgar Corporation — a company that specialises in providing remote support solutions for easily and securely supporting remote computers and mobile devices.

Visitors from Saharan Africa, Madagascar and Cuba remain elusive (Google Analytics)

A BIG thank you to all ITSM Review readers, supporters and contributors. We’ve just passed the 16,000 17,000 visitors a month threshold in May.

I’m proud to say our growth has been 100% free range organic (Roughly 50% social media and 50% folks accidentally stumbling across us somewhere on the web). i.e. People have chosen to visit us, we have not paid them to do so or lured them with advertising.

Being an online only publication without a paywall or restrictions our content has spread via social networks and word of mouth to a mind boggling 172 countries since August 2011. According to Google Analytics data our largest audiences are USA (29%), UK (17%) and India (10%). The heat map in the diagram above shows visitor countries, darker colours receive more visitors, grey countries receive no visitors. Unfortunately, ITSM enthusiasts in Saharan Africa, Madagascar and Cuba remain elusive. I shall persevere.

Please give us your feedback – Good, Bad or indifferent.

Your Opinion Counts

Our content is driven primarily from reader requests, the curiosity of authors and interesting trends in the market.

We want to remain relevant and useful to the ITSM industry. Your opinion counts and is very valuable to the ongoing development of our community.

Please let us know what you like, what you don’t like, what you’d like to see.

I would be very grateful if you could help me by completing a very quick reader census.

7 REASONS TO COMPLETE THE CENSUS

1. It only has six simple questions
2. It only has one page
3. It is very easy to complete
4. No salesman will call
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7. We will be eternally grateful

Click here to complete the Reader Census

Thanks very much in advance for your time, Martin.

Social updates firehose – why updating everyone with everything might not be the answer.

This article has been contributed by Teon Rosandic, VP EMEA at xMatters .

Why was the IT service management and help desk function created?

Most likely, it stemmed from an idea to establish a task force of specialists capable of providing assistance in any complex technical issue.

Over the decades, the service desk function has evolved from elite efficiency artistry into first level issue resolution ranging from the basic resetting of a password, to the complex, cascading outages, which can involve all stakeholders and affect the most important services within the organisation.

However, all too often, the relevance of the function is underestimated. The perception is generally that the service management function is not as aligned or as strategic as it should be.

Proving the efficiency and value that the service desk provides to internal and external stakeholders can change that perception. But to do so, you have to begin by going back to the original objectives of the service desk.

It is easy to reconstruct how service management has become distracted with the issues of running an effective service desk. The goals of the help desk are a paradox. The range of tasks can be infinite and undefined, training is difficult, resources are scarce and customer’s expectations are growing at an increasing rate.  Too much information is being broadcast out to groups without taking into consideration how and why a person wants that information. The good news is that there are steps that can be taken to increase the relevance of service management.

Let’s examine some of the best practices to increase your business relevance:

1. Automating mundane tasks – The ultimate goal of automation is to perform a required process in a streamlined, efficient and repeatable fashion. In order to automate a time consuming first-line task, you will need to create synergy between incident and dispatch assignment by combining industry leading service desk applications with a communication platform.  The platform you choose needs to allow each team to declare who is responsible, available, skilled and interested in any issue. When incidents take place, personnel are automatically located, dispatched and working on resolving those incidents without the need for the service desk to perform the slow, manual task of looking up who’s on call, who’s responsible, and what their contact information is.
2. Optimising first call closure – Not all issues can be solved on the first call from the service desk. However, by automating the mundane tasks, we can reinvest time in our first-line resolution capability. The savings allow us to train first-line specialists and provide time for personnel to more accurately trouble shoot and resolve issues. In addition, it gives the service desk the ability to spend more time with customers during satisfaction-impacting issues.
3. Enabling effective escalation – One of the challenges of effective service management, is knowing when and how to escalate an issue.  Finding the right person can be complicated and the odds of effective, accurate escalation feel like one in a million.  Effective escalation starts with enabling the team responsible for meeting the service level with the ability to control the information they require. By allowing each team leader or director to architect the process, it ensures that when escalations are required, the correct person is notified. Through the automated delivery of information to the person responsible, the time to dispatch and resolve is reduced, resulting in fewer escalations and eliminating non value-added tasks such as wait time for assignment, call out, and person-to-person escalations.
4. Instant and frequent visibility – One of the largest challenges a service management organisation faces is to provide visibility to the consumers of the service. Business personnel require proactive notifications of service interruption; however, the process of manually calling 500 executives in 50 countries is not realistic without the help of a communication platform.  Additionally, using internal social media channels such as Facebook, Chatter and Jive requires information to be pushed out, rather than pulled in.  What’s required to provide meaningful, instant and frequent visibility and increase the perception of the quality of service? First, the organisation must have matured through the previous steps.  Before providing proactive alerts, the service management function must be operating effectively and efficiently. The second step is the integration of a communication system capable of supporting global operations, business personnel, business service oriented alerts and the ability to target content to each person based on their needs, role and requirements – it’s called personalised information.
5. Champion transparency and accountability – Service management can provide an organisation with the tools necessary to increase efficiency and transparency. However, to reach this stage, organisations must become comfortable with publishing the results of their efforts.  In today’s world, IT services are all too visible, lags are noticed and incidents become known by your customer’s customer. Transparency and accountability are the key drivers in trust and assurance.

The key to increasing the relevance of the IT service management function is to streamline inefficient processes, and improve communication throughout the organisation.  Automating redundant, mundane tasks to improve efficiencies is critical.  Once you have an airtight process that ensures the service desk is running smoothly, you must then deliver proactive notifications to the people who care about specific situations.  While some may argue that social media channels are the perfect way to do this, it takes away the notion of personalised information.  Everyone is seeing the information posted there, and they have to actively seek it out.  IT service management should have a communication platform that delivers only the information internal and external customers care about, and need to know, directly to them.

This article has been contributed by Teon Rosandic, VP EMEA at xMatters.

Image credit

Chris Barrett, Capita

Ever since the announcement of the Cabinet Office and Capita Group Joint Venture, the great, the good, and some of the rest have speculated here and there about the future of the Best Practices Portfolio.

Chris Barrett (currently a Transformation Director at Capita Consulting) is one of the first of the newly appointed management team for the new joint venture company, and spoke to us at the Knowledge 13 event, Las Vegas.

The Issue of Communications

The first question had to look at the communications, lack of and standard of (which is ironic given our collective jet-lagged state, at the time).

The first e-bulletin had just come out, and it is clear that the press office still needs some time to settle in to converting dry releases into something that gives the waiting ITSM public some further insight, without jargon.

At several times, he was keen to emphasis that Capita is actually more of a red herring/misnomer (which explains why a number of questions were pointed directly at Capita Group).

He said: “If there was one thing Capita was good at, it was fulfilling a remit – for example stripping out costs from a business.”

“But if people are thinking this is a land grab, they would be completely wrong.”

“We are not a corporation, we are a small joint venture.”

“The idea is to grow and invest in the community – this is about a duty of care, and custodianship.”

Whilst communications have been light and/or dry as toast, there has been a lot of work going on behind the scenes.

There will be a twitter feed and a continuation of the e-bulletins, but resources to manage the media side of operations are yet to be appointed.

The Team To Be

In terms of the physical set up, the Chief Executive has been chosen, and the management team are being finalised.

TUPE discussions are continuing regarding members of the Cabinet Office and TSO, due to come across at the end of this year (UPDATED: See comment from Chris Barrett of the Capita JV below)

For many who have actively contributed to the best practices publications, the emphasis on being a non-corporate joint venture still allows them have that airtime – if they so choose.

“Can it be altruistic?” I asked Chris

“It can be, if it serves the community and if we cut them out, how stupid would that be.”

Here is where I think the balance of power shifts.

Let’s be honest – people who have actively contributed in the past do not really need the kudos of adding that involvement to a CV or resume any more.

But there are also many people coming up now, through the ranks, with strong practitioner knowledge, and with the support and encouragement of those previously involved.

There is also an opportunity for those who have, in the past, rebelled at the gates of the fortress – surely now is their time to help shape the best practices to what they believe it should be?

Or will they choose to ignore this emerging spirit of collaboration with the community, and continue to throw stones into the moat?

Linda King and Ros Satar

Pragmatism Over Theory

A number of questions came in through various social media feeds, for us to ask and interestingly a lot seemed to focus on how Capita does things now.

Capita favours the pragmatic approach – referring to principles where appropriate but not purely for the purpose of using them for use’s sake.

It therefore stands to reason that going forward, the emphasis continues to be on the pragmatic application of these established best practices, to demonstrate real-world benefit.

As with everything that took place before, a lot of consideration will need to be given to the release programs for new versions.

This, in turn, led to an interesting revelation that the Cabinet Office themselves do not see the Swirl brand as having traction outside the UK’s shores, despite the information email ID being swirlenquiries.

Spending Spree Or Visionaries?

Interestingly, the most recent acquisitions (Knowledge Pool and Blue Sky) were never part of the original plan, but the inclusion of G2G3 was part of the original bid.

Even if they had not been acquired, the plan would have been to involve them anyway, and they look to be all set now in terms of training and simulation approaches.

Community

Chris was asked whether the joint venture were looking to create their own, newer community, for example in the mould of  Back to ITSM?

The plan is to have to have a portal approach and a formal home for people to land on.

Ideas being considered are a subscription-plan for more detailed material – this was seen as no different to paying money for training courses.

What is the Joint Venture NOT going to be

Chris confidently lined up his views:

• “Not going to stagnate
• Not going to be purely theoretical
• Involving real practitioners and serving community members
• Not going to be “Castle ITIL”

I wanted to be honest with Chris – those statements are pretty bold, but as someone still active both in consultancy and analysis on the ITSM side, this is good fighting talk.

Meet Them At The Gates

Whilst I can see a sense of continued cautiousness from those who have been discussing the future, the new joint venture are very much seeking and wanting continued dialogue.

The sense of community was a recurring theme, and as a member of this community, I think we owe it to the joint venture to try and meet them at the gates of our beloved “Castle ITIL”.

(With thanks to Adam Holtby, Linda King, and a special nod to Rob England’s suitably Skeptic “Castle ITIL ™” tag which the new company liked but equally are willing to meet, head on).

Updated: Capita folks interviewed live at Knowledge13

ITSM Weekly Podcast Episode 112 – The Capita Interview

via ServiceSphere

Demos well, will customers go for the second date?

I sat in on a presentation of MyIT from BMC at SITS13 recently.

In a nutshell, it aims to provide IT self service via a consumer oriented app. Being an App, it can take advantage of identity and location to provide a very relevant IT service experience.

‘Log an incident’, filling in ITSM oriented forms and generic intranet messages about service levels are replaced with consumer oriented navigation of services relevant to the user in terms they will understand. It’s all about me and my world on my device.

I’ve not hidden the fact that I don’t particularly like creaking old software conglomerates run by hedge funds, so I find this offering surprisingly refreshing and innovative. Kudos to BMC for capturing the zeitgeist of ITSM, putting services in the hands of users and offering a friendly presentation layer over IT service mechanics.

First date syndrome?

The first date went really well, we chatted, we had a great time…. But they didn’t call back….

MyIT demos well. I can see senior IT managers really liking this, whilst clutching their IPad loaded with apps. Download an App from the AppStore onto your own personal device and engage with enterprise support is a compelling proposition.

However I would be very interested to see how BMC succeed getting past first demos, selling it and most importantly implementing successfully. I wish them well but fear the spaghetti behind the scenes to actually deliver the experience outstrips the maturity of most organisations.

For example, one great feature of MyIT is for the App to know your current location and for users to be able to orient themselves to the nearest IT department on a map.

They can also navigate internal buildings and locate the cubicle of the relevant support team member to help with their enquiry, dock to the nearest printer and so on. Great stuff, very cool, but in reality who actually has all of that intelligence mapped ready to be plumbed in to be able to facilitate the App? (Current topography of all buildings, mapped to all IT assets, mapped to all IT services and then mapped to the permissions of all users). A bit of a leap in maturity from the average service desk?

The result is that the instant gratification of “quickly download app” turns into the frustration of another 18 month ITSM overhaul. It is arguably a vision of the future to aspire to rather than the next pressing project. It will be interesting to see if organisations will skip that second date or take the red pill and follow the long term ambition.

Perhaps BMC have captured the zeitgeist of the demands of users whilst overlooking the current challenges of the average service desk? What do you think?

MyIT is available in the Apple App Store here.

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The Cabinet Office has entered into a joint venture with the outsourcing firm Capita to develop the ‘Best Management Practice’ portfolio, which includes ITIL and Prince2.

For readers outside the UK the early announcements may benefit from some context.

The UK treasury is between a rock and a hard place financially so joint ventures that generate cash from government owned intellectual property, whilst allowing the government to hold (49%) of the coat tails of growth in the future is good publicity.

This explains why most announcements in the popular press or general IT press in the UK have focussed on the ‘cash generated for taxpayers’ angle rather than the implications for ITSM.

“The government expects to earn £500 million over ten years from the deal” Computerworld, 26^th April.

Unsubstantiated rumours from SITS13 suggest that APM Group/TSO, Pearson and EXIN/Van Haren were the other companies bidding for the portfolio.

Forgetting where it all started?

I have been interested to see industry veterans and ITSM spokespeople alike bellyaching about the irrelevance of ITIL after the announcement. I find this short-sighted nonsense similar to those irate individuals who get frustrated behind learner drivers.

Is ITIL the ITSM gospel? No. But it is the starting point and development path for a huge amount of individuals in the industry who work in ITSM yet don’t necessarily associate themselves with the ITSM industry.

Is ITIL perfect? No. But everyone has to start somewhere and as a framework for unifying an industry and generally raising standards I would say, in the context of other IT disciplines over the last two decades, it is true success story.

So what does the future hold for ITIL under the stewardship of Capita?

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

Capita – The Good

Capital Plc. is a FTSE 100 publicly listed company with 53,000 staff, which has shown good growth over the last five years despite a grim economic climate.

So it has exactly the right resources required to give the frameworks the attention they deserve. Equally, you could argue that Capita could easily write off the entire mess if it isn’t happy with it without batting an eyelid, but overall a well financed company on the up has to be better than a cash strapped government running the show.

A view echoed by Barclay Rae:

“We should view the investment opportunity as a possible means to further professionalise the approach and delivery of ITIL – moving away from the cottage industry to a proper business model. So hopefully this will mean a more professional and co-ordinated writing and editing approach for consistency, plus I hope e.g. we can see more clear business metrics and data that support the value derived from ITIL”

The UK government spun off the former defence research department (DERA) in 2001 in a similar fashion to form Qinetiq, which is now a FTSE 250 company, pocketing over £250m for the UK taxpayer on exit in 2008. So at first glance the model works if executed correctly.

Just before the announcement of the joint venture, Capita also acquired G2G3. This is a good sign according to Pink Elephant President David Ratcliffe:

“The timing of Capita’s acquisition of G2G3 – just days ahead of the announcement of the partnership with the Cabinet Office – looks to me like Capita may have their act together with a strategy for how to promote and deliver more valuable training in the ITSM field. I just hope I’ve read this correctly and am not setting myself up for a huge disappointment! (Fingers, toes and everything else crossable all crossed!)”

Mark R Sutherland of G2G3 is clearly pleased at the platform this provides his company:

“Capita’s strength, scale and global reach. As part of the Capita family, G2G3 now has access to resources that will help us strengthen and build upon our products and services and bring our latest innovations to life. We are clearly at a ‘tipping point’ with respect to our capabilities; the application of gaming dynamics and experiential learning across enterprise organizations is about to go mainstream – and we’ll be ready to make it happen.”

Mark also makes an interesting point regarding the ITSM industry as a whole:

“a chance to build a future for our industry which is based on community, collaboration and engagement.”

Stuart Rance with ‘Two speed ITIL’ and Stephen Mann with #Back2ITSM may perhaps now get some formal recognition. Is Capita listening? Let’s hope so.

Capita – The Bad.

So far so rosy?

Those outside the UK might not be familiar with the public image of Capita.

Capita does not have the strongest reputation. The satirical magazine Private Eye regular refers to ‘Crapita’ as an example of ‘failures and setbacks in the public sector’ and cynics will argue that Capita is an expert at winning tenders rather than delivering them (to be fair I hear this of all outsource companies).

Lost convicts, the CD with everyone’s inside leg measurements or accidently dropping the cat down the well – all archetypal Capita public bungles. Although you could argue that this goes with the territory of managing high profile public services (National census, criminal records, TV licensing, Major city call centre, health and safety executive etc.).  As the saying goes: Where there’s muck there’s brass.

For an industry crying out for more collaboration and industry participation the last thing we need is a big faceless corporate. Especially, as Chris Evans points out, if they take an industry best practice framework and try to apply their own badge to it:

“When any large organisation is involved in something, they will exert a proportionate influence.  Be it an alliance of countries/airlines/software companies, it is inevitable that they will want something out of the deal.  My concern is that ITIL (specifically as it is my day job) which has always been ‘industry’ best practice, might slowly evolve into ‘CapITIL’ where the organisational thinking of the parent company controls the direction of the product.  It is true that Capita as a services provider and outsourcer has a strong perspective on their market and that input will of course be welcome in future development but there is a risk that the model will lean towards their world and not the more holistic picture.”

Capita – The Ugly

Finally, it is worth considering the nature of Capita’s core business.

Capita is a Business Process Outsourcer. So Capita’s competitors might argue that a Burglar Alarm company just bought the Police Station (I’m sure there are more appropriate metaphors). The new joint venture will have a job on its hands to persuade the Accredited Training Organizations and others in the ITIL supply chain of the true vision and motives of the, yet to be named, joint venture company.

As Forrester Analyst Stephen Mann points out:

“Will other IT service providers still want to use something that “advertises” their competitors?”

As an eternal optimist I believe it’s a great move forward for the ITIL cult and ITSM industry as a whole. Exciting times.

For those with ITIL at the core of their day-to-day work – it might be worth considering the following over the next couple of months:

“All great changes are preceded by chaos.” -Deepak Chopra.

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