Category Archives: IT Service Management

The Four Aspects of IT Services, Aspect One

IT service management is about delivering sustainable value to the business from the use of technology. It is not about defining the best process. It’s not about assigning process owners or service level managers. It is not about implementing a … Continue reading

Posted in IT Management, IT Service Management, Services, Value | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

How to present value in business terms in the real world

A few years ago, I found myself in a two day meeting with a sales person, a technical presales person, and a client’s IT executive team. The company I worked for sold IT Service Management software and the client was … Continue reading

Posted in IT Management, IT Service Management, Process | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

IT support sucks but we made our metrics

SLAs should only include those items that can be effectively monitored and measured at a commonly agreed point. Inclusion of items that can’t be effectively monitored almost always results in disputes and eventual loss of faith in the SLM process. … Continue reading

Posted in IT Management, IT Service Management, Service Level Management | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The End-user’s Perception is Your Reality

In order for processes and services to be managed and optimized, there must be a feedback loop that provides management information regarding the functioning of the processor service. This requires monitoring the process or service in appropriate ways to ensure … Continue reading

Posted in IT Management, IT Service Management, Service Level Management | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

IT as Strategic Partner

The quantity and levels of service that IT is able to provide are always bounded by the associated costs. IT Service Level Management (SLM) is tasked with helping the customer understand the tradeoffs between cost and benefit. This should be … Continue reading

Posted in IT Management, IT Service Management, Service Level Management | Leave a comment

Configuration Management Database Introduction

The configuration management database is a virtual concept and is made up of many physical databases and physical stores of information. It becomes a CMDB, when the information is brought together with a common interface that makes the information accessible … Continue reading

Posted in CMDB, Configuration Management, IT Management, IT Service Management | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Operations and Development Tear Down That Wall

Many IT organizations suffer from less than optimal communication between development and operations groups. This happens so often that a special term has been created to describe what happens during the transition process. IT people say that developed software is … Continue reading

Posted in Change Management, IT Management, IT Service Management, Process, Release Management | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Definitive Stores Reduce Costs

What happens in a typical organization when there is catastrophic damage to a hardware component that requires rebuilding form scratch? In many organizations the existing production configuration would not be definitively known and the exact version of software that was … Continue reading

Posted in IT Management, IT Service Management, Release Management | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Great Release Management Requires Project Management

Release management impacts every process area in the production environment. In addition its effectiveness and professionalism contributes significantly to the general perception of the development group. The most finely developed product ever is considered useless by the business if it … Continue reading

Posted in IT Management, IT Service Management, Process, Release Management | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Define Your Roles for Best Communication Flows

Effective communication flows are important for any organization. They become increasingly important as organizations grow in size or are required to operate in a more rapid fashion. Communication flows are also one of the most difficult aspects of an organization … Continue reading

Posted in IT Management, IT Service Management, Roles | Tagged , , | Leave a comment