SDITS 12 - A New Beginning?

Some exhibitions and conferences just have a buzz about them.

Pink 11 for instance was a stand out event which is still sending ripples out through the ITSM community that are influencing people who weren't even there.

Last year's Service Desk and IT Support Show was getting there. This year's was definitely buzzing.

We've recorded tons of material for the podcasts, including an episode towards the end of the show that included an incredible mix of incredible people saying incredible things. I'll update the link as episodes become available but for now here is the review of day 1

I've said before on the podcast that I think this show is many things to many people, so my experience is only one take on it, but there seemed to be broad agreement that this year was very successful.

To be honest I found that for the second year running I failed to achieve a lot of my objectives. I didn't get to speak to half the vendors I wanted to, and the less said about the number of sessions I managed to attend the better. In fact I only just made my own session on Lean ITSM. Yes, my unsubtle hints last year must have paid off.  The reason I struggled to fit things in was the sheer volume of conversations I was having with other attendees and exhibitors. Incidentally it was great to meet so many people who read this blog and listen to the podcast, thanks to all of you who found the time to say Hi, and apologies to any one I didn't get round to meeting.

I was actually quite taken aback by the number of people who came to my session. Since I tend to take on the more esoteric subjects it isn't often I have people standing in the aisle to hear me.The message that IT is about delivering value to others and to do that you need a cultural shift is hardly new, but at this year's event there seemed to be a lot of people for whom that message was really hitting home and it was echoed in several sessions. Other hot topics included BYOD and the ever popular Service Catalogue

Sessions generally were really busy, the only disappointment for me was that the audiences in several of them seemed reticent to raise questions. I did feel the programme was a little more exciting than last year, but as ever at this event it was clear that many in the audience were looking for really useful ideas to take away, not just theory. Which is a nice link into the launch of the new Back2ITSM website. OK there isn't much there yet, but we got promises of help from some big names in the ITSM world, so watch this space.

It was interesting to observe tool vendor stands. I got the distinct impression that there were more in depth conversations taking place and that prospective customers had done their homework and had a really good idea of where they were intending to go with a new tool-set. Mobile and social seemed to be high on many wishlists.

Maff Rigby and James West have posted their views on the show which are well worth reading. James has some concerns about the overall impression it gave of how we are reacting to change - it is probably a good job Rob wasn't speaking. I understand where James is coming from, but it took his article to remind me why I gave this post the title I did.

I believe that we will look back on this show in the same way many in the industry look back on Pink11, as a landmark event where we, as an industry, realised, in a multitude of different ways, that we have to change how we work, how we support the business, how we support each other and how we educate and support our teams.

No, the show didn't provide all the answers, but the questions are now on the table in full view, the genies are out of the bottle, and the elephant has been asked to sit down and take tea with the vicar.

I'm going to end by returning to the subject of the podcasts, because as I said we finished the show with a humdinger of a recording. Clearly a lot of people were really energized by the show and hopefully that energy will keep us all going to the next big event on the UK calender, and no, I don't mean the Olympics or the Jubilee.

SS ITIL

Think of a number between one to four.

100 years ago the Titanic sank.

When the Cameron film first came out I was cycling around County Cork, Titanic's last port of call. Very popular apparel were t-shirts with the slogan:

"The ship sank. get over it."

I was reminded of this today when one of my colleagues posted it on Facebook. It also reminded me of a capacity management class exercise we used to do on the ITIL v1 courses.

Imagine, and I know this will take some imagination, that the unsinkable SS Itil is sailing towards America wth the class of 20 people on board.  Remember this was a long time ago when ITIL hadn't conquered America. Unfortunately en route it runs into an iceberg and starts to sink.

Don't worry though. Those clever people who developed ITIL didn't make the same mistakes as the White Star line, and  there are four life boats, each able to carry 5 people, so enough for all 20 people in the class. More worrying though is that the boat is sinking quicker than expected and you've only got time to get to the first lifeboat you chose. Remember that number I asked you to think of at the start of the article. Oh come on it wasn't that long ago. That's the number of the lifeboat you are racing for.

OK, now unless there happen to be 20 of you gathered around the computer screen this is where you have to trust me.

Out of any random group of 20 people there is a very high probability that more than 5 will have chosen the number 3 lifeboat, so some of you will be in the water, or will go down with the ship. That means that even though SS Itil had sufficient capacity on paper it didn't in reality. On every single occasion we ran this exercise, and that is a lot of times, lifeboat number 3 was overloaded

This illustrates a very important point about capacity management. design a system to cope with an evenly distributed  average capacity and it will fail. Not "it might fail" but "it WILL fail" . Maths can prove the point*.

Why do so many people go for number 3?  That has less to do with maths and more to do with psychology. First of all people will tend to ignore  lifeboats 1 and 4 because they are the "obvious" choices.That leaves a choice between 2 and 3, Remember how I asked the question? " Think of a number between one to four." Without realizing  it people hear  "a number between 1,2,-,4" and fill in the missing gap in the sequence.


* Unless the underlying capacity requirement is absolutely even so the average= the maximum and the minimum

How Time Flies

Unlike the prolific Stephen Mann I am dreadful at going considerable periods without blogging.  Some of you might have noticed that in fact my general socmed profile has been rather quiet of late, and indeed I would like to thank all of you who have messaged me to check that I was OK. Yes I am, but my attention has been elsewhere recently both professionally and personally. We introverts sometimes need our space to do our deep thinking in, and that is where I've been of late. I must ask my Finnish friends how their concept of hiljaisuus works on-line.

Of course I haven't been that quiet - I've still been churning out episodes of ITSMWPROW with the usual suspects, attending ISO committee meetings and doing BrightTalk webinars, and I'm in the middle of writing my presentation for SDITS in a couple of weeks time. The net result is the last month seems to have flown by.

Time is a curious concept. One of the challenges I find in ITSM is maintaining multiple perspectives on it. There are those things that are important from a day to day perspective and those things that can only be achieved over the long term. Often hard won progress can be lost imperceptibly as our attention wanders elsewhere. Many of us make the mistake of focusing too much on a single time frame. Often the choice of that time frame is very defensive "I'll do it tomorrow, or when I retire" or about trying to believe we are more in control than we really are "If I can just get to the end of my to-do list for today I'll be back on track". Very often our chosen time-frames don't correspond with those others around us are working to. Nowhere is this more true than in the world of metrics where we are often reporting on the least useful time periods for our customers. Two weeks into April do I really care what happened in March?

The mis-match can also be found in how we sell and (attempt to) deliver the benefits of ITSM initiatives, which is what led me to develop my road-map based approach to ensure alignment. It is more of an observation than a criticism that early versions of ITIL talked about operational service support and tactical service delivery, both of which were based around easily recognizable time-frames. Since ITIL v3 the focus on the service life-cycle is perhaps less tangible and more abstract to many readers.

A curious thing to examine is the careers of people in ITSM, especially those who at some point have made a name for themselves. Some seem to choose to endlessly repeat - in a good way - the same pattern but moving between organisations, others claim to "grow out" of ITSM and move on to the next great thing.

Sometimes it is good idea to sit down and examine where we are from multiple perspectives. Sometimes it is good to sit and think "What are going to leave behind us?" Sometimes we just need to ask "What next?"

Two Tribes

I blogged recently on the artificial and unfair distinction that people draw between vendors, consultants and practitioners.  As 2012 progresses I'm being sadly reminded time and time again that we appear to be inherently tribal. I believe this is deeply damaging to ourselves, to those we manage, and to the organisations that we serve. To my mind a key part of the Back2ITSM ethos is to dissolve some of these tribal barriers and to leverage the cross cultural insights, but we can only do that if we face up to the current reality.

The Biggest Division of All

I want to begin by talking about what I believe is the biggest split in the ITSM world. It is an elephant that moved into the neighbourhood a few years ago, but seems to be putting on weight.

I'm talking about the split between the ITIL world and the Service Desk world. Having opened up the debate about Service Desk 2.0 it has become abundantly clear to me that there are those out here who do not consider the Service Desk to be full members of the ITSM club. What is so striking is that so many who hold this view appear to have little in the way of real world experience of 85% of the content of ITIL.

Going into an unknown future I think this is a very short-sighted view and symptomatic of how many who claim to be driven by ITSM are actually just opportunists along for the ride. The question the business is asking is "Who is adding value?" Ultimately it is up to the business to answer that question, not me, but I know who my money is on.

A Question of Geography

I have a Hootsuite twitter stream that catches all mentions of  ITIL, ITSM, COBIT etc.  I'm increasingly aware that a lot of the content in that stream is not in English. Needless to say as an employee of an Indian company operating on a global company based out of India I'm very aware that different cultures have different approaches. The divisions that worry me most though are those between cultures and geographies that can appear superficially similar. Just like the Brits and the Yanks the ITIL world is one divided by a common language. We need to be aware that what is accepted as the ITSM norm in a sleepy little place like London might not hold good on the other side of the world

The Haves and Have Nots

As I write this Pink12 is in full fling in Vegas. Perhaps fling isn't the best choice of term, though then again perhaps it is. as we know what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, unless it is on Twitter. I have to admit I would rather be there this year than locked in an office writing this blog as displacement activity for producing a couple of sales pitches.

The truth is though I am incredibly lucky. I come across many dedicated ITSMers who cannot get funding to go to events in their own country, or to buy the ITIl books, or to get training beyond the foundation level. Those people need our help. We don't help them by brining out ever more complex education programmes and wholesale revisions of ITIL

The Connected and the Disconnected

In my first incarnation as an ITIL consultant I couldn't belief how many IT managers I met who had absolutely no experience of, or idea about, what other IT departments were doing. These were the dinosaur managers who had never worked outside of their own data centre, who brooked no argument and said they were willing to sack whoever was responsible for the poor perception of IT by the business, as they sat in front of a wall covered in six month old graphs plotting 100% availability despite the service failing more often than I've failed my driving test. Don't ask.

Today I come across managers who see no reason to use the internet or twitter to reach out to their peers, their stakeholders and their customers. I'm going to repeat something I used to say many years ago

"You can't hope to be world class whilst you only look inwards - you need to see what world class really means and learn from it "

The Givers and the Takers

We are exceptionally lucky in the ITSM world, despite the odd moan, in having a community that is willing to support others with advice that is hard earned but freely given. The list of names I could mention here would be a lengthy one. There are also many out there who want to sit back and listen to what the active community is saying. I have no problem with that at all. What I despise is those who see ITSM as purely and simply a way to build their own reputations and line their own pockets. I have a little list of the prime suspects, I suspect others have longer lists since I tend to give people and companies the benefit of the doubt.

The Winners and the Losers

We live in interesting times. The economic fallout is sill in progress, combined with changes in the way businesses operate and  how technology facilitates business. Many in the ITSM world are still living off the fat of the land. I am still idealistic enough to believe that the future belongs to those who can put the good of the community ahead of naked self interest.  I've talked about several divisions between tribes, but when you analyse them you begin to realise that really there is only one division that matters:  There are those who care, who strive and who deliver, and then there are.......the others.

Service Desk 2.0

OK, this is important, now listen very carefully chaps  I'll say this only once....no hold on, no, I'm going to spend most of 2012 yelling this from the rooftops.

2012 is the Year of Service Desk 2.0

You first heard me talk about it in my predictions for 2012 , and like #Back2ITSM it is already gaining momentum despite being a Work In Progress. Aale and I have already presented a very sketchy outline of the concept in a recent Bright Talk seminar, and work is well underway on a joint white paper in conjunction with Aale's continuing exploration of why we need to Unlearn ITIL*,

Let me sum up SD 2.0 for you as it stands.

First of all we aren't talking about a product or a methodology, although I can see how both those elements could be developed. SD 2.0 is about an approach, and it is an approach based on the realization that a lot  of conventional thinking around the Service Desk** is in danger of becoming obsolete before the year is out. You know as I wrote that I could picture Rob England reaching for his bottle of green ink to say that we are just scare-mongering to earn consultancy dollars.

Whether we like it or not both customers and users (and as I wrote that I could imagine Aale reaching for the green ink as well, because he thinks that is part of ITIL speak we should unlearn) are having their personal experience of IT transformed. The use of mobile devices has exploded and people are bringing them into the workplace. They are also beginning to experience, accept and except*** new support models, of which the Apple Genius Bar stands out.


SD 2.0

• Users will be accessing and using services on non standard BYOD devices in the workplace on the road and at home, and some of those services will themselves not be provided by the IT dept.

• Users will combine different services in real-time to support business processes, in the way they built email into critical business activities without telling IT they were doing it.

• Users will use self-service /Google/SocMed facilitated peer support before coming to the SD - filtering out all the simple,typical first time fix interactions. Aale and I like the term interaction which we've borrowed from the SDI

• When they speak to the SD the users will by default know more about their issue than the agent who is desperately Googling to catch up with them

• Since the interactions are non-standard the simple ITIL process models will be hard to apply and harder still to measure meaningful - we need to de-construct them and reassemble them in more useful ways. Charlie Betz has been contributing to that discussion with some "must read" papers.

• When users interact with the SD they will expect that Apple Genius Bar experience, not a dumb (in the nicest sense) agent.

Implications

In the beginning there was the Help Desk. Then ITIL got hold of it and we saw the wholesale renaming of Help Desks as Service Desks. This was done with the best of intentions, but I don't believe the expected value was delivered to the business. It was bad timing that in the UK this shift in thinking coincided with the move to the wholesale out sourcing of service desks off shore.


A well thought out SD 2.0 strategy**** would include:

• Accepting the reality that this is happening

• Blending on shore and offshore support so self service interactions are fielded by an industrialized service desk back office

• Making the service desk genuinely accessible to users - no more "Service Desk - No Visitors" signs on doors

• Integrating innovative channels for both support and knowledge management

• Revising the entire metrics framework to build a newly balanced scorecard

• Enabling and empowering service desk teams and removing micro-management***** 

A Beautiful Dream

Perhaps Rob is right, perhaps this is all wishful thinking. But why not think it - and if you think it, why not make it happen?

Please, please let me know your thoughts.

"Transform or you will be transformed!"

Robert Stroud

Footnotes

Judging by some of the comments and the blog Rob posted in response to this one I need to make some points much clearer to avoid either confusion or willful misrepresentation. I don't want to edit the original text because I stand by the integrity of what I said. So I'm afraid you are stuck with a shed load of footnotes. I've put them in small type though, so they will be easier to ignore for those who want to. Also so that hopefully the footnotes will appear shorter than the article. 


* "Unlearn ITIL" is the tag Aale is using. My own view is that we need to unlearn certain elements of ITIL, but  perhaps more importantly we need to unlearn bad habits that we all develop when thinking about and with ITIL. For instance we can get too hung up on the flowcharts in ITIL being holy writ. We gloss over that ITIL seems confused over what is a process, a function and a capability, and that the "common vocabulary"  breaks down when you try and use it across a complex supply chain. In this specific context my main beef is that "incident" "event" "request" "change" and "problem" as defined in ITIL don't explain what exactly the service desk should be doing, and how that links to what is happening in the world of the user. I'm not saying they are wrong, I'm saying they represnt a partial, slightly artificial and inadvertently inside-out view of the world.


** It is inevitable that this article will be seen in the light of a larger debate about ITIL and ITSM, but my prime focus here is the Service Desk. There is a certain snobbishness in the ITSM world about the Service Desk, as if they are not members of the club.

*** This is something a lot of people seem to be missing. This is not like previous IT led attempts to get users to use the technology. This time it is the business who are keen to explore new ways of working. After all nobody likes hanging on the phone for half an hour just to get  their password reset. Disintermediation has become a fact of life, just ask your high street insurance broker...ah, you probably can't because they lost their job four years ago.

**** It seems eminently sensible to me that with the prospect of these changes on the horizon a professional IT department would be looking at the potential implications. Most of the suggestions I make here hold good whether the so called "revolution" takes place or not. I am left uneasy by the comment from more than one pundit that the service desk will "just evolve" to meet these challenges. The last twenty years of trying to get a reasonable standard of ITSM into many organizations should have taught us that it isn't going to work like that. What is true is that some service desks will end up extinct. 

****** The three most ardent critics of this article are people who I have a lot of respect for. It saddens me, then, when one says "I notice all the people who say xxxxx  are all IT technical people" and another "Sometimes I think we're surrounding by highly dangerous ITSM Consultants armed with a few certificates which are no substitute for using your brain"  Now let me be perfectly clear that there are areas of the ITSM  world where I totally agree th. However I'm far from convinced that it is highly relevant or helpful to this particular debate******. Those being vocal on both sides of the argument all have many years practical experience of ITSM and all have a reputation for promoting the cultural aspects of ITSM. I ended the article with a quote from Rob Stroud for a reason. 

******* I'm British. I'm being polite. What I actually think is unprintable and I've broken the * key on this computer from over use.

Service Integration

One of the questions I get asked quite frequently, given my job title, is

"What exactly is Service Integration?"

It is actually a very good question, not least because in my experience many organizations are persuaded by third party advisors to commit their long term service strategy to a service integration model without fully understanding what it is and what the implications are of what is a very big subject. So big in fact that it really deserves a book to be written about it. In the meantime this will have to do as an explanation of  what SI is, why is it attractive to organisations, and what the ITSM implications are if it is to be successfully implemented, including my top ten tips.

What is SI

It is clear that there is no single consensus on what constitutes SI. There is range of overlapping strategies that fall under the broad label of Service Integration (SI). The definition I find most useful is: 

“The management by a supplier filling some or all roles of the traditional retained service management organisation of e2e service levels delivered by multiple suppliers”

I believe that a key aspect of SI is that the SI provider acts as a virtual constituent of the retained organisation, but the paradigm SI model includes:

• The SI provider taking on commercial risk for the delivery of services in return for outcome based rewards
• The SI provider takes on a governance role as well as a management role
• A 'Plug and Play' approach towards suppliers, allowing for rapid re-sourcing and effective 'co-opetition' between incumbents
• The SI provider having full authority over all other suppliers
• The SI provider driving innovation and transformation of service provision.

None of these elements are individually novel, and neither do they all need to be present. In reality many SI solutions are much less strategic in their remit than this and   in some cases there is little commonality between two approaches both legitimately labeled as SI.

For instance ownership of the contracts with other suppliers might stay with the retained organisation with  the SI provider only being  held contractually responsible for their own performance in monitoring and reporting on other suppliers. In other case the contracts might be novated to the SI supplier and the SI supplier held directly responsible for the failure of other suppliers to meet their targets.  In an extreme case, the individual suppliers might all be achieving their targets but the SI supplier is required to handover service credits because the required e2e service is not being delivered.

We are even seeing organisations who talk of providing an “internal SI solution.” If we accpet that as a valid use of the term does the the definition of SI become

"Any strategy designed to align the performance of individual suppliers with an e2e service delivered to users and customers"

Is that just a way of saying SI is the same as e2e service management? I believe that in many cases it is, even if that wasn't the original intent.

Why is SI Attractive?

As I've already said many organisations are being propelled towards an SI solution by an external advisor, and some observers have described SI as “a solution in search of a problem” An informal analysis of organisations adopting SI suggests that there are genuine factors driving them towards this approach. These include:

• Struggling to understand how their complex value networks map on to both suppliers and customers
• A lack of appropriate experience in managing multiple contracts and frameworks of service level agreements to specify a level of e2e service
• They experience of individual suppliers comfortably meeting their contracted service levels whilst the overall service remains unsatisfactory to the customer and user communities
• Wanting to see collaborative innovation from their suppliers.
• Recognizing traditional approaches have failed to integrate suppliers into a common culture

In theory these can all be addressed by conventional ITSM best practice but the SI provider has the advantages of access to tools, skills and in some cases contractual relationships that are not available to an in house service management team. For instance a large outsourcer filling the SI role will be able to leverage global alliances with other suppliers.

A number of SI initiatives have been apparently cancelled, or replaced by conventional sourcing strategies, before contracts have been let because the IT department has not articulated or sold a business case that makes sense to their board. In particular a number of boards have questioned why SI is being planned as an additional layer rather than replacing managers within the retained organisation. The benefits for the business, as opposed to the IT department, have still to be quantified in the traditional terms of lower costs, improved quality, greater innovation and higher levels of assurance. 

Making SI a Success

As the SI market begins to  mature it is becoming easier to assess the features of a successful solution, at least in the short term. What is clear is that it is not a one size fits all solution, it is an approach that needs to be tailored to match an organisation's current and expected level of service management maturity, and their appetite for risk and innovation. 

My top ten stand out features of a well thought out approach are:

1. Absolute clarity of roles, responsibilities and authorities across all parties and a common vocabulary
2. The risk born by the SI provider has to be aligned with the level of authority they have over other suppliers.
3. There needs to be a clear roadmap for the entire life of the SI contract that is linked to the delivery of value to the business.
4. The SI TOM needs to be designed holistically across the retrained organisation, the Si provider and the other suppliers, rather than expecting a supplier’s SI capability to be bolted on to a pre-existing structure.
5. A white box approach to data and information needs to be established by the SI provider to ensure there is one version of the truth across the value network.
6. Establishing a truly e2e view of services to customers is a vital element, requiring the services of service architects using frameworks such as OBASHI
7. Maximum benefit is delivered when the SI provider is the supplier with most “skin in the game” rather than a supplier limited to just providing the SI function. Whilst SI independence is important this can be guaranteed by appropriate governance and reporting lines.
8. ITIL, ISO 20k and other frameworks and guidance cannot be applied out of the box. Asking the SI provider to “conform to ITIL 2011” is not a sufficient specification to ensure the desired outcomes
9.  Process workflow needs to be optimised to take into account the differing service targets across the value network. Techniques such as lean and the Theory of Constraints are extremely useful in an SI environment.
10. The retained organisation, SI provider and other suppliers need to develop a common and collaborative culture rather than developing an adversarial model

Conclusions

I believe that over the next two years we will be hearing an awful lot about Service Integration as a number of significant contracts to deliver SI are awarded. The UK's Ministry of Justice, for instance, is currently tendering for an £18m SIAM (Service Integration And Management) contract. As of today the market is still relatively immature, with very few organisations actually operating an SI model. My personal view is that as SI develops it will become more distinct from the simple e2e service management model, with more emphasis on the commercial and innovational aspects, but that the techniques developed under the SI banner will in turn influence more an more aspects of ITSM.

Kodak Moments

It seems apt that in the same month Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.  Rob 'IT Skeptic' England should unleash his views on the irrelevance of social media and other transformational technologies. After all Kodak is a perfect example of a successful company derailed by not understanding the implications of transformational technologies, and don't even have the excuse that they were slow to adopt because the  technologies weren't invented here. Kids, that thing strapped to the side of it is what we used to call a cassette tape.

Many of you will know that I'm a passionate amateur photographer, but not so many of you will know that had I gone done down another trouser leg of time I would have trained to become a professional photographer instead of going to university. It was a tough choice to make. Like many wage slaves there are times when I still think about leaving ITSM behind and running a bijou little gallery in an English market town, so I try and keep in touch with the industry.

And that explains why Skep's arguments sounded strangely familiar to me, because I've heard it all before in the world of photography. Now that isn't to say I'm dismissing all of Rob's argument, but I do believe that  he is ignoring is the cumulative impact of individual changes on the whole ITSM eco-systen. When you look back on the story of digital photography that is what you see, but of course it is an awful lot easier to see things with hindsight. For instance with hindsight you can see that quip I made about the cassette  tape wasn't just an arbitrary comment - imagine where digital photography would be without the parallel development of new storage media like SDHC cards. Do you begin to see what I mean about the cumulative impact?


The Historic Contemporary Perspective

 Photographers, like IT nerds, are renowned for their obsession with the latest technology, so you would have thought they would have jumped at the possibilities offered by digital imaging. Some did, but many didn't. Many, many letters pages in photography magazines have been filled by those determined to convince others that film is good and digital is evil. To some extent the debate still takes place, though now it is a little easier to guess that the authors of the letters have been dipping their nibs in green or purple ink.

To be fair there were reasons why digital didn't look too great to start with. The technology was expensive, and tended to become obsolete very quickly, whilst the quality wasn't that wonderful once you removed the rose tinted glasses. That's a long way behind us now though. New cameras might come out all the time, and to some extent manufacturers, and consumers, are still intent on outdoing each other in terms of mega-pixels but the truth is you can go out and buy even a relatively cheap digital camera today that produce incredible results under conditions where you wouldn't even have bothered to lift a film camera to your eye, and you can still be using the same camera in five years time. In fact the sector where film is thriving is the artistic plastic fantastic area of over-priced cameras that were once sold as toys, their imperfections now being seen as features. That won't sound familiar to any of us in IT, obviously.

There were two other related arguments professional photographers leveled against digital. The first was that it removed their hard earned status as professionals and their ability to make a comfortable living, because amateurs could compete on an equal footing. As someone once said

"If you buy a camera you become a photographer. If you buy a clarinet you just become a man with a clarinet"

That highlights the other part of the argument, that digital technology has taken the skill out of photography.

The first b&w picture I took, developed and
printed myself some 30 odd years ago. 

I'm not without sympathy for those viewpoints. Having said that I'm extremely grateful I've been able to replace a chemical darkroom for a digital one. Chemicals and I weren't a good combination.  I actually believe that the quality of the average professional photographer has improved massively as a result of the digital revolution, and also that the true professional still has their place. I just don't think we need as many of them as we used to and that they might need to find a new place in the market.

Behind a lot of the antagonism there were both conscious and unconscious feelings at play. After all  there were photographers who had made a lot of investment, both in analogue technology and in developing the skills needed to exploit it who now saw their livelihood and their status slipping away. Again, far be it for me to suggest that similar fears might be driving some of the thinking around potentially transformational technologies in IT.


The Perfect Storm

Regardless of all the above Kodak and Polaroid wouldn't have got in a mess if other parts of the digital jigsaw hadn't been in place. Very quickly ,those pieces started to appear on the table, and like any jigsaw one of those pieces that didn't appear to have any relevance to the picture on the box turned out to be the most significant in bringing the big picture together.

I've already mentioned the importance of development in solid state media, but what about the development of the software to provide a digital darkroom, be it top end products like Photoshop or open source products like Gimp, and don't forget the need for cheap home printers able to match and exceed the quality of mail order and high street film processors. All these had their part to play in ensuring the ascendancy of digital.

In IT the transformational technologies - and actually I believe Rob has has been disingenuous in using that term to summarize all the changes that are below, at, or just above our horizon, depending on which part of the globe you are in - include a shift to various cloud based models, a shift to multi sourcing and service integration, the increased use of official BYOD and the unofficial  usage of mobile devices as an integral part of business processes. No one element is going to trigger monumental change, but the combination will. I don't know exactly how yet, because I think just the edge pieces of the jigsaw are in place.


The Missing Piece?

By one of those amazing and not at all contrived coincidences the missing piece in both the completed digital imaging jigsaw and the half completed future of ITSM jigsaw turns out to be the same piece: Social Media. Watch this space.

Review of the Year

OK, normally I'm notoriously late, so I thought I would get ahead of the game and post my review of the year early. What do you mean it is still January? Really, so much seems to be happening.

Well, a few things, anyway.

First of all some clear patterns are now appearing in the Service Integration market place, which is keeping me and the team busy. I guess it is time that I finally blogged on the subject.

A couple of my posts have had interesting consequences. The post on 2012 predictions has led to Aale and I burning the midnight oil to put together a Brighttalk presentation on Service Desk 2.0 Yes it shows that we threw it together, but we are putting a more detailed paper together. It seems to have resonated with a few people, and also to echo what other people, like Maff Rigby are saying.

The second is a less recent post on social media that the IT Skeptic has just got round to picking up on in his inimitable, and in this case highly skeptical, way. Now whilst I agree that there is a lot of hype around social media I can't help thinking that Rob is being a little reactionary. I also think, though he doesn't, that geographical differences are affecting his perception.

The most exciting development has been around Back2ITSM There is now quite an active Facebook group but what I've been most exited about is the offers of support we've had from the itSMF UK, SDI, and the Service Desk and IT Support Show. We are still trying to clarify how we can provide a structure to encourage collaboration and minimize the amount of control needed to produce high quality, vendor independent collateral, but we are very close to releasing an initial charter.

ITSM Predictions for 2012

I know what you are thinking.

"How come this blog is suddenly so active, he must be going through a quiet patch over the holidays"

Nothing could be further from the truth.

They say that if you want a job done you should give it to a busy man, and at the moment my team and I are very, very busy and the blog is getting written as relaxation in those short periods between client presentations, meetings and teleconferences. Given the global situation that isn't what you might expect, which only goes to show making predictions is a mug's game. So here goes:


1. Service Integration

Expect this to be the next big thing in ITSM.  It is already a central concept behind most of the mega outsourcing deals currently being negotiated in the UK and you can expect to see it filter through to smaller organisations, job adverts for Service Integration Managers, and tool vendors bigging up their support for it. OK I head up the Service Integration consulting team in TCS, so I would say that wouldn't I, but think of it the other way round

Why do you think TCS has a Service Integration consultancy team in the first place?

You don't know what Service Integration is?

Now isn't the time to enlighten you, but we probably need to talk.


2. Service Architecture

You can't take a service integration approach without having a deep understanding of how your systems and IT services map on to business value networks. The various varieties of uber technical architect and frameworks we've seen to date haven't cracked this one yet. Expect to see a higher profile for OBASHI and the emergence of a new breed of top down architect. If you think I'm talking about SOA then you are a lost cause.


3. Service Design

No, not in the ITIL sense, in the real sense that others are using it. Hand in hand with this will come a realization that Ian Clayton was right all along, and ITIL really isn't an Outside-In approach. Oh yes, a bonus prediction: Expect to see the term Outside-In misused and reduced to a meaningless cliché by those who don't get it.


4. Shadow IT 2.0

Not really a prediction because it is already happening and on many levels: BYOD, cloud, SocMed. The difference in 2012 is that IT departments will wake up to the fact is actually happening rather than just threatening to happen. The savvy CIO will think carefully but then act quickly.


5. Service Desk 2.0

The Service Desk has been at the heart of ITIL for so long that perhaps we've all started to take it a little bit for granted, but there are some real game changers out there. Self service, support for Shadow IT, the use of SocMed for support purposes, a renewed focus on the softer skills. Service Desk staff are living in interesting times.


6. Soft Skills

Here's a little insight. Research shows 80% of those who tell you that "People are more important than tools or processes" don't believe it themselves. 90% of those who say it don't practice it.

In 2012 people will become a clear differentiator between service providers. When times are tough you turn to those you can trust to see you through the hard times.

By the way, I made those statistics up.


7. Hard Facts - Hard choices


IT in 2012 is going to have to be able to objectively support every spending decision it makes There are going to be some very hard choices made as a result. There will be real pressure on internal  IT to demonstrate how it is adding value, and a shift towards outsourcers providing the bulk of utility IT services on a wholesale basis. Remember though, like quality, cheapness comes at a price.


8. ITIL is so 2011

Don't get me wrong, ITIL remains a useful resource, but people won't find the answers they need inside its pages. Some will be seduced by the lure of alternative frameworks "Yeah, we used to be an ITIL shop, but now we are Lean/Agile/whatever" and find too late that that they aren't the solution either. Expect to see successful ITSM practitioners looking for answers from their peer groups around the globe and to take charge of their own destiny. Expect them to make new demands on the ITSM training market, tool vendors and conferences.


9. A New Kind of Event

There are incredible pressures on budgets for training and conferences, and a nagging doubt in the minds of many over what value the current offerings are really delivering. Don't expect to see an out and out revolution in 2012, but do expect to see some of the established ITSM events asking some hard questions of themselves and making a real effort to adopt to new realities with more interaction, more ways for those who can't attend in person to participate. Above all else expect them to deliver more real world takeaway action points  that people can apply in the office on Monday morning. If they don't, then let people know and don't waste your money next year.


10. Same Old Same Old

Stephen Mann's blog will continue to be insanely popular. I will continue to say "I think" and "What's really interesting" far too many times on every single ITSMWPROW podcast. Service Now will still be thought of as the exciting new kid on the block whilst getting the bulk of corporate sales. The majority of ITSM practitioners will continue to believe that quick wins are the key to success rather than facing up to the need for fundamental changes. THE event of the ITSM year will be the Pink conference in Vegas, even though my invite must have got lost in the post this year.The ITskeptic will still be scaling the walls of Castle ITIL, even though he's been given the key. Someone, somewhere, will realise that all that time and money they've spent on building a CMDB has provided zero benefit and a week before Xmas 2012 a major high street name will have a major outage that will be traced to a change.

Remember if these things don't happen in 2012 it doesn't mean I'm wrong. 

It just means I'm still ahead of the curve.

Episode 11: A Little Gentle Prodding

At the end of Chapter 10 Brandon Lane CIO and Jimbofin, Ghost of ITSM Present, are in a lift with Wysiwyg, leader of the ITIL Imps. Read on.

"Is it just me or is it a little stuffy in here?"

Whilst Brandon appeared to be addressing no one in particular it was no coincidence that rather acrid smoke was beginning to emerge from Wysiwyg's ears.

"He can't help it, it is a natural reaction of an ITIL Imp when they come into close proximity to the business. We suspect it is caused by the frustration they have that the business can't see that everything the ITIL Imps do is for the good of the business."

"What sort of things?"

"Oh you know, arcane and long winded change management procedures, management reports that don't tell the business anything they didn't already know, service catalogues in which the business doesn't recognise the names of any of the services, service desks that won't take your call because you haven't logged it on the self-service portal, capacity plans that..."

"OK, I get the point. Most of those things get me steamed up as well, but does he really think doing all those things is what the business wants?"

"Oh yes. Though I should warn you he's never actually met a CEO before. In fact we don't think any ITIL Imp ever has. We aren't really sure what will happen. There is a danger he might explode."

"Do you mean Wysiwyg or Hans?"

The lift jolted to a halt.

"I don't know, let's find out shall we?"


Brandon was used to waiting outside Han's office until called for, but Wysiwyg and Jimbofin marched right in, Jimbofin with the confidence that comes from knowing where the bodies are buried, and Wysiwyg with the confidence of someone who doesn't mind adding to the bodycount themselves. In any case Hans was oblivious to their entrance. He was obviously still trying to get someone on the service desk to take some sort of action, though he was now less concerned that the action was to fix his Blackberry* than that the service desk agent take some action involving a peculiar and possibly impossible feat of human contortion.

Wysiwyg prodded him with his trident.

"What the **** was that?" He looked up and for the first time seemed to see his visitors, or at least two of them. "And Brandon who the or what the **** is that?"

"Erm, this is Wysiwyg"

"Does he work for you?"

For someone going through as much as Brandon had been going through over the past few days, whether in reality or in his dreams, he still retained the quick thinking of an auditor.

"You wanted your Blackberry fixed, so I thought I would bring our best ...person....up to help you."

"That's your best person?"

"If you recall Hans, I haven't actually been CIO long enough to recruit my own team."

"And how did you know my Blackberry wasn't working since I can't get through to your so called Service desk to report it? Owww"

Wysiwyg had prodded him again. And this time he spoke.

"Well you are wasting your time ringing the service desk."

"Yes, I know that thank you, they are useless."

"No," said Wysiwyg, "You misunderstand. Blackberries are unsupported VIP devices. The Service Desk won't take calls about Blackberries."

"What do you mean unsupported, it was IT who got me them in the first place, eventually. Oww, stop doing that."

Wysywig looked genuinely hurt.

"But I was just trying to remind you that you AGREED to them not being supported when we agreed to get them for you."

"Just for the record, because I'm sure someone is keeping it, Brandon, let me point out that IT didn't agree to anything. Do you know why? I'll tell you why, because IT doesn't have any authority to agree to let  me have anything or not. I tell IT what I want and you get it, with the money I let you have. At least that is the theory."

Brandon was wise enough to realise this was not the moment to say "Yes, but if I could just point out...."

"Yes, but if I could just point out"

Apparently ITIL Imps aren't quite so wise.

As the confrontation escalated Jimbofin tapped Brandon on the shoulder.

"Well, I'll be off then, though you'll be seeing me later, in real life, meanwhile enjoy the show."

"You aren't leaving me here with these two are you?"

"I'm afraid so, I'm needed elsewhere, but don't worry, the Ghost of Future present will be coming to help you soon."

And with that he was gone, but no sooner had he left than Brandon noticed the office becoming darker as a shadow fell. Hans and Wysiwyg seemed not to notice, so immersed were they in their full and frank discussion. Brandon turned to look at the doorway.

It was filled by a giant of a man with a flowing mane.

"BRANDON LANE, I AM THE GHOST OF ITSM FUTURE, BUT YOU CAN CALL ME IAN"

Next chapter....