On one hand, the event itself was put together rather well. There seemed to be plenty of do to keep one busy. I did find at times, it to be a bit overwhelming and an exercise in Calendar Management. There was definitely something for everyone. 8 Tracks to choose from in terms of sessions being conducted per track. I copped out and chose the first track. Seemed the easiest to follow.

In retrospect, I probably should have chosen some of the other tracks that were more in depth in terms of covering areas of ITSM and ITIL. What I found in most of the sessions I attended was more of Case Studies around implementing ITIL. The companies that were presenting were not on the same scale as our efforts, but it was good to hear that even at the small players they have some of the similar hurdles to clear on the road to implementation. What has been one of the focal points of the event has been ITIL v3. Attendees are struggling with not simply what v3 means to their v2 efforts, but also what to do about certification.

Whether or not to jump on the bandwagon being driven by some of the training companies pushing to be the first in the neighborhood to offer v3 courses. The tricky thing is that there are still questions around the certification process that still has to be worked out. The bridging from Foundation v2 to v3 seems to be the only one that has some solid focus. However, to hear some of these training companies speak, terms like "We were the first to... bla bla bla." I am not sure I want to be involved in the first round of this. Our organization has decided to hold off a bit. We'll do the budget for '08 with a focus on v3 but will not commit to any training until at lease the first quarter of '08. For now, v2 is serving us nicely given the maturity of our efforts in deploying Incident and Problem.

So in a matter of hours the event ends for me. I do not regret attending, it has been a great opportunity to network with others who are focused on IT Service Management. The feeling of being alone in the effort has lifted. It was a good three days. I will probably attend next year as well as it moves to the Left Coast at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. I do know one thing. Next year I will be booking early to get one of the good hotels. No more staying in the boonies for me. Signing off from Charlotte...

IT Service Management has many different views. Many of which revolve around the basic processes and tools required to manage IT more effectively. One Framework that is closely tied to Service Management is that of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). ITIL is just that, a Framework. It is not a set of cookbooks that lay out step by step everything you need to do to establish a well run, efficient IT organization.

There are many elements to the framework that are very much open to interpretation. I have used the analogy of a person who has a near-death experience. We all hear the stories of the glorious experience a person might have who has clinically died for a few minutes. The nirvana experienced. Generally this is the feedback received from these people. In reality, there is usually a horrific experience that caused them to enter this near death experience. You quickly begin to understand that there was much pain involved with getting to experience such peace and tranquility. At the same time, all you ever hear about it how great it was.

In some ways the tranquility of organizations who have reached a level of IT Service Management nirvana are always preaching about how great it is to be efficient and operating at a level that allows true streamlined IT Operations. This to the dismay of any organization attempting to achieve it. In reality, there is much in the way of pain that needs to be endured before you find that light and enter into it. Like the near death experience, there are numerous events and steps that put you on this path to enlightenment.

Whether it is a car accident, suicide attempt, murder or natural causes, you always end up in the same position. In many ways, within an IT organization there are many reasons which cause a business to begin to seek out that existential existence. The problem is, that with a Framework that outlines what one should focus on achieving at a high level, does not tell you what you need to do to achieve it. There is no silver bullet, no standardized roadmap. Just a view of what life could be like with the right processes and tools in place.

How you get this is as much a mystery as the person lying on the table hanging on a thread. Even though there is that place where everyone wants to be and is searching for. You should always think about the fact that there will be pain, there will be work, there will be a level of commitment that is required to make the inevitable leap of faith that is required as you begin to attempt to move in a direction of a better existence. Many organizations are now realizing the need to focus on achieving this goal. The question is, whether or not there is a clear understanding of the pain that is required to get you there.

To hear many speak it is about the tools, automation and processes. In many aspects they would be correct. But what it really missing in many of the discussions I have been in as of late is that of the individual. The person who will be asked to sacrifice time and effort to achieve this goal. My next blog will dive into this area which seems to be looked at only in terms of “Resource” or training. Never about the emotional side of driving down that path to IT enlightenment. The truth of the matter is, we all get the religion of IT Service Management, we have the frameworks to guide us, but how do you drive this change in the organization at the human level?

Charlotte, North Carolina is playing host to the 2007 IT Service Management Forum (itSMF) USA Annual Convention. With over 40 States represented combined with 20+ Countries this year I find myself right smack in the middle of it all.

To be honest, it has been 18 years since I last left North Carolina. I suppose my impressions of the State and Charlotte were based on some previous assumptions on my part. What I found was a very new looking city still in the throws of re-inventing itself. The ride into the city central was as expected, but shortly the scenery changed as modern skyscraper came into view as did the Carolina Panther's stadium.

It was Sunday and the game was in full swing. Driving through the city everything seemed brand new, awaiting people. The streets were pretty barren since the game was in full swing and downtown is probably not the center of residential life. It was all so strange. Almost as if it were a new fake city in place waiting for a movie crew to come in and shoot a blockbuster. We drove on.

Now, given the fact that I had to wait late in the game to register and confirm my attendance to the conference, all of the good and conveniently located hotels were snapped up. I ended up about 25 minutes walking distance from the Convention Center at the Crowne Plaza. Overall not a bad hotel, but obviously not one included in the rebuilding of Charlotte. In stark contrast, hotels such as the Hilton and Westin are located right across the street from the Conference hall and are very brand new feats of architecture. Oh well, all I need to do is sleep there anyhow and the staff are more than friendly. Can't say I had a good experience with the Shuttle however. Moving on.

After arriving at the Hotel and unpacking, I quickly shuffled out the door and caught a taxi to the Convention Center to register. Again it was Sunday so there was not a whole lot going on in the city of Charlotte. The Convention Center itself is a very nice modern building with plenty of space and all of the amenities you would expect from a Conference Center in this day and age. It is big. To find the space for this conference from where I was dropped off was a bit of a hike through the facility. However as I drew closer the Orange and Black signs began to appear reflecting the theme of not only the conference but the heart of Charlotte: NASCAR.

The complete title of this years even is the itSMF USA Fusion 300. Why 300, I'm not sure and I should really ask someone about that. Nonetheless, I continued on finding the Registration booths around the corner from where I was located. The plan today was simple, Register, then at 5 enter the Exhibition Hall for a meet and greet while exploring some of the booths that had been set up. Registration was straight forward. Name & Company presented, a nametag with a bar-code scanned and handed over to me. At the same time I was presented with an event Messenger Bag. The flap of which was colored orange. I tried to ask for the grey flapped one, but was quickly informed that orange represented my "team" and that it was the team I was assigned. Ugh.... Orange.

Upon initial investigation, it appears each color represents one of the teams involved in supporting a NASCAR Driver. Over the course of the next few days each person contributes to the team's overall points so that one of the colored teams will be identified as winning at the end of the conference, whatever that is, I have no idea. Oh well at this point I was just going with the flow.

At 5:00 PM on the dot, the doors were opened to the attendees of the convention to begin to rub elbows with the various companies who are her to hock their goods and services to the rest of us here who are attending. As expected all of the big players are here: IBM, HP, CA, Microsoft, Pepperweed, Managed Objects and anyone else who is involved in any step within the world of IT Service Management and ITIL.

It would have been a bit overwhelming had it not been for the various mini-bar's spread around the floor. Visit a few booths, glass of wine, a few more, another glass. Food was also layed out in buffet style so that also killed some time. 7pm came and the call to leave rang out across the hall. This was where I began to realize just how far out I was from everyone else who had managed to get a room in one of the recommended hotels. Sunday night, ghost town, no taxis anywhere. I ended up challenging myself by walking back to the hotel. Big mistake considering I now had two shoulder bags and all of the propaganda I managed to collect from the vendors.

I made it finally to the hotel and cast off both bags, turned on the TV and flopped on the bed to watch the NFL wrap up on TV. Pittsburgh won again! Yes! 2-0. Next think knew it was 12:30 and I was still sprawled across the bed. Mustering up enough energy to actually get up and prepare myself for bed, I crawled beneath the covers and called it a night. A full day comes full speed tomorrow.

Uniting the World of IT Service Management, the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF) USA is hosting its annual event in sunny Charlotte, North Carolina and I have a front row seat in the Pit. Why the pit? Well that is the theme for the event, NASCAR. Not sure why it is Fusion 300, I will have to ask someone about that.

I must say first of all that I am quite impressed by the City of Charlotte. It is very clean, modern and inviting. The Conference hall itself is also on par with most modern conference facilities out there. Day 1 registration occurred yesterday with several pre-conference events being held. I personally did not arrive until later in the day, therefore had only enough time to register and attend the door opening on the exhibition hall floor.

As expected all of the big players are here. Microsoft, HP, IBM, EMC, PepperWeed, CA, and ton more companies all here to promote their products and services designed to support the world of IT Service Management. Along side these companies with products are others promoting some of the more soft-skilled contributions such as consultancy or training. These last two are big dollar makers for companies this year given the move from ITILv2 to ITILv3. This was acutally surprising to me given the still foggy playing field for how the various exams and programs in ITILv3 will differ from ITILv2.

The only training element that everyone is fairly comfortable with right now is the bridging course to move anyone with an ITILv2 Foundation certificate to ITILv3 Foundation. More on that topic later, back to the first impressions of the conference. It has been only a day and a half, but so far I am very impressed with the coordination and set up of all of the events and sessions. Almost too many to think about really.

In keeping with the theme of the event, there are 8 different "Tracks" to run on. I decided to follow the Track 1: Start your Engines - Design and Develop an ITSM Program. It is not that one track is more complex than another but the focus for each is different. With each track comes several break-out sessions throughout the week where guest speakers will discuss various topics around ITIL and ITSM. Others will present Case Studies from their own organizations on how they implemented ITIL or ITSM processes. At this point I can say after attending a full day of sessions that some are good and others, well I struggled to make it through.

All in all everyone is still confirming that ITSM and ITIL are the way to go. It is almost like those people who have near-death experiences. Something horrible happens to them, they die, are revived and talk of the nirvana on the other side. You don't want to go through pain to get to that nirvana but you know the only way to that light is to experience the pain. Of course there are varying degrees of pain and discussions abound on how to reduce the pain (Management Sponsorship, Enforcement, Training, Evangelism etc...)

This week will continue to be interesting as I weave my way in and out of the various sessions and Keynote events. One of which is Cal Ripkin, Jr. and his titled "The Keys to Perseverance." That comes tomorrow. Sports figures are interesting at evens like this. I attended the Borgata event in Atlantic City last spring and Phil Simms of New York Giants Fame was the Keynote Speaker. His talk about Leadership was quite entertaining, but I still found it difficult to tie into the world of IT Service Management or ITIL. Today's Keynote Speaker, however was a different story.

Completely applicable to the event and still upheld the concepts of attention to detail, leadership and other key traits of the soft-skill side of the business. His name is John Foley. John's presentation was titled "High Performance Climb: Lessons from a Blue Angel." Now that might not make sense to many, but to me I was excited to hear him speak. The Blue Angels are the U.S. Navy's (hence the Marine Corps') Premier flight demonstration team. John is the Former Lead Solo Pilot for these guys which means he is not only a bit twisted, but a consummate professional. He is one of the elite who are accepted to become Blue Angels. His speech was passionate and peppered with video clips from what I believe was one of those Discovery Channel specials on the Blue Angels from back in the day.

John was featured in many of the clips speaking on what means to operate as a Blue Angel. It takes much more than most people think. The one point he made was that on average the amount of focus, drive and commitment combined with trust is needed in an organization like the Blue Angels to allow them to fly 36" apart. "Hold out your arm..." "That is the distance between the planes..... UPSIDE DOWN!" He somehow began to tie it all into what is needed in not only a high performance organization, but the high performance individual to begin to shatter beliefs and move further than you every imagined, or believed you could.

I will say that if you ever have the opportunity to hear John speak you definitely should. Well I will sign off for now. There are a few events that I need to get ready for this evening that will revolve more around networking with others in my field. It is good. You never know what you will learn from others. The upside is you always run across someone who is in a worse state than you think you are in your own organization which makes you walk away feeling a bit better about the work you are doing.

I got the BIG envelope, not the small envelope in the mail yesterday, which is to say that after racking my brain on a serious 3 day ITIL Foundation Training course and taking the intense exam at the end, I have received my official certificate proclaiming me to be certified in foundation of the ITIL Framework.

Doesn't mean a lot to me other than the fact that now my Job is actually valid and I can continue to set up and run this global program. A lot is actually going on now around the project. Global in nature, our mission is expanding and picking up pace. The CMDB is well underway of being developed, we have a group working on the Configuration (Application) Discovery Tools and key identification of KPIs are being discussed. I have even joined the itSMF as part of our company's voting membership in the Forum. Lots to learn, read up on, and validate in terms of me leveraging my 8 years in IT Service and beginning to change the way we run IT as a business aligned entity.

Technology is evolving. By its very nature, technology is an industry that is full of processes that are dependent on other processes. Whether you are writing code where sub-routines are dependent on other sub-routines or setting up a network where IP Addresses are depending on Routing Tables there is always a need for order and process. This is no different in the world of IT Service.

The shift towards viewing IT as a business service has introduced the concept of IT Service Management. It is a time when Technologists at all levels are exploring various methods of operating as a process driven organization. Frameworks or methodologies such as Service Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) are becoming all the rage. What is occurring in the current environment is that individuals, who for years have performed the fire-fighting roles of IT Service are now being recruited to fill structured roles within the organization in this new process driven environment.

For the most part all of this is a great career opportunity for the IT Support individual who thrives on providing quality service to their business users, however not all members of the Service community are in it for the sake of providing quality Service nor do they possess the skills needed to function in this environment. The individuals who were not necessarily suited for service to begin with will more than likely not be suited for operating in a more structured environment designed to align technology with the business mission.

As of March 1st I moved into my role within the Global Program Management Office for our ITIL implementation. To be honest, I am very excited about it all. The group is in a division of our Technology department that I spent my first 7 years in, I left for a year to work in another division and it was, well not enjoyable to say the least.

But now I am back among family, a global family mind you but a family that I grew up with over my career in the company. It is so good to be among people I am familiar with again. So I guess to start with my first week was kind of hellish since I had enrolled in the ITIL Foundation Course. Most of it was not foreign to me with my background in the Service space. Sure there were subtle differences, things like multiple incidents that allow you to create a Problem Record, but other than that the general Framework was very familiar to me. I suppose that means that we are not entirely off track when it comes to implementing elements of the framework.

I see our biggest challenge being around changing the Culture to accept such a concept as ITIL. You see, our organization is big, I mean REALLY BIG. And it is a very complex environment driven by the markets. That means there is little tolerance for anything that gives the appearance of slowing down the art and process of making money in the global market place.

I have always been a firm believer that we have become a victim of our own success. With growth comes complexity, in our case it was complexity that was managed in silos. Sure there were horizontal aspects to the operation but nothing really formalized. So you can see how many of the technology silo's have been off working in their own business aligned vacuums. Changing that is going to be the challenge. In reality the business is demanding it. Our systems do serious work and for the most part are quite effective. However, when we experience an outage, it cuts deep and the business isn't really to accept such risk in a heavily regulated environment. So for the most part our ITIL effort is an easy sell.

What is difficult is picking and choosing our battles within the technology space. We have decided for the immediate term to identify "Quick Wins" to focus on and attack in areas that can be measured to reflect the benefits of the ITIL Framework. To date globally we have pushed through (with certification) over 250 technologists in the ITIL Foundation course. That is an awesome feat. The problem is, the PMO has just been established and it puts us a bit behind the power curve when it comes to building the program when everyone is emerging from the courses with great motivation and ideas for their silos.

We are in the phase now of putting together global Forums to act as focal points for the Governance Team here. The greatest thing is that within the culture people realize that change has to occur. The PMO is now tasked with formulating a program that manages that enthusiasm. We will be brining in an outside vendor to assist with various elements in our deployment processes which will be good. The next year is going to be quite exciting and I am fully prepared to ride this bull.

March 1st issued in a new chapter in my Technology career, I moved over into the newly formed ITIL Program Management team. My role is as the Project Manager for the global effort. Partly because I am a Project Management freak as well as the fact that I KNOW this service organization since I crawled upwards through it. Also, I am finished with 2 days of the 3 day ITIL Foundation course. And to be honest, I can't say that there have been any real OMG moments in the course. Well, other than the concept of the generation of a Problem Record only occurs with more than one incident unless it is a Major incident. That is new to me and a very interesting spin on things.

Our organization operates in a more flat ticketing structure where you can create either a Problem or Request ticket. From the Request ticket you can create task tickets, but they must belong to a parent Request. I must say that I do appreciate the ITIL way of doing much more. For other reasons today is a day off from the course and we will head back in tomorrow to wrap up some key chapters as well as a review with the Exam in the afternoon.

I should do better than average, hell I would expect to do alot better than average considering that my background started in Frontline Support on a Trading Floor and progressed up through management of purchasing, data center and Service Desk operations, finalizing with Technology Account Management (basically the Service Manager) for a Trading division and last year as a Business Analyst for an Audit group. As I said, I have always been a proponent for running my Technology teams in a way that seemed to align nicely with the ITIL framework. The fact that we are deploying this through out the global organization finally adds some validation to what I have always believed. The days of Cowboy Technology have to end when an organization reaches a certain size or volume of business. Time to pen up the stallions and build some fences around them.

In retrospect, I probably should have chosen some of the other tracks that were more in depth in terms of covering areas of ITSM and ITIL. What I found in most of the sessions I attended was more of Case Studies around implementing ITIL. The companies that were presenting were not on the same scale as our efforts, but it was good to hear that even at the small players they have some of the similar hurdles to clear on the road to implementation.

What has been one of the focal points of the event has been ITIL v3. Attendees are struggling with not simply what v3 means to their v2 efforts, but also what to do about certification. Whether or not to jump on the bandwagon being driven by some of the training companies pushing to be the first in the neighborhood to offer v3 courses. The tricky thing is that there are still questions around the certification process that still has to be worked out. The bridging from Foundation v2 to v3 seems to be the only one that has some solid focus.

However, to hear some of these training companies speak, terms like “We were the first to… bla bla bla.” I am not sure I want to be involved in the first round of this. Our organization has decided to hold off a bit. We’ll do the budget for ‘08 with a focus on v3 but will not commit to any training until at lease the first quarter of ‘08. For now, v2 is serving us nicely given the maturity of our efforts in deploying Incident and Problem.

So in a matter of hours the event ends for me. I do not regret attending, it has been a great opportunity to network with others who are focused on IT Service Management. The feeling of being alone in the effort has lifted. It was a good three days. I will probably attend next year as well as it moves to the Left Coast at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. I do know one thing. Next year I will be booking early to get one of the good hotels. No more staying in the boonies for me.

Signing off from Charlotte…

Well travel has been booked for the first trip in the next 30 days.  I will be off to Charlotte, NC to attend the itSMF Fusion event.  I will be blogging various sessions from the conference so stay tuned to that.  I think actual registration may be tight and hotels darn near impossible to get now, however if you are interested in seeing what this even is and what the IT Service Management Forum (USA) has planned head on over to the event site.

IT Service by it’s very nature is a “people” business. It is here that the gap between business and technology is filled with individuals who not only understand and support technology when it fails, but also understand the impact to the business when it does. They have the ability to empathize with the users who are unable to perform their normal business duties due to a failure, which they are not required to, nor want to understand.  In the heat of the moment, from their view, IT has once again prevented them from doing their job.

It is the IT Service professional who understands how IT appears in the eyes of their users.  Who feels the frustration of that person and not only works to resolve the issue at hand, but accepts the responsibility to manage the situation back to normal operation. It is during this period where the successful support analyst demonstrates the ability to manage the emotions and expectations of their clients in ways that prevent the situation from escalating into a completely unproductive encounter.

Patience, commitment, enthusiasm, trustworthiness, vision, passion, drive and commitment are only a few of the traits stored in the IT Support professional tool-kit.  However, with the growing focus on providing a process driven technology environment, it becomes imperative for the support analyst to develop skills such as Project Management, Data Analysis and Process Engineering which will allow them to start to contribute strategically to both the technology mission as well as the business strategy.

Although in this era of renewed IT Management focus on leveraging metrics and processes to align IT with the business, they must also come to the realization that leveraging the support teams more strategically, can only nurture an environment of partnership by viewing the business users as stake-holders in their own technology solutions. An additional benefit is the sense of ownership and purpose though understanding the business mission, which can become viral, across all of IT.  In both cases, it is an example of vested interest through ownership.

Del.isci.ous Tags: ITIL, itSMF, SOA, Six Sigma