Join industry expert, Jack Probst, as he provides you with a definition of a service, as per ITIL V3, and how value is created for those services. He further provides an understanding of how to map those IT services into the Service Catalog.

Chad Pregracke, President of Living Lands and Waters, talking about how to raise money when all you’ve got is passion!

Often overlooked in many IT Service Management process improvement initiatives is how to move a newly defined IT Service Management process from a program – or project – environment into production. This move has its own set of challenges and if not properly planned, there is risk that all your hard work will be viewed as less than successful. So, if you want to ensure your success listen to this PinkPODCAST.

Overall, this high-octane podcast was developed to provide you with the key action items you must address to ensure a successful transition to production. This includes an understanding of the specific roles and responsibilities that must be in place as well as a discussion about tool training, continual process improvement and ongoing communication.

In the conclusion to “The Key to Transitioning From Project to Production”, Gary goes through the ARCI (RACI) matrix and its various production activities and summarizes his presentation.

Please note: Following Gary’s conclusion are questions and answers. Questions are not audible due to recording limitations in the audience.

Often overlooked in many IT Service Management process improvement initiatives is how to move a newly defined IT Service Management process from a program – or project – environment into production. This move has its own set of challenges and if not properly planned, there is risk that all your hard work will be viewed as less than successful. So, if you want to ensure your success listen to this PinkPODCAST.

Overall, this high-octane podcast was developed to provide you with the key action items you must address to ensure a successful transition to production. This includes an understanding of the specific roles and responsibilities that must be in place as well as a discussion about tool training, continual process improvement and ongoing communication.

In Part 4, Gary defines the key things to transition and creating a transition plan for each process and wraps up with a discussion of the typical roles in production.

Often overlooked in many IT Service Management process improvement initiatives is how to move a newly defined IT Service Management process from a program – or project – environment into production. This move has its own set of challenges and if not properly planned, there is risk that all your hard work will be viewed as less than successful. So, if you want to ensure your success listen to this PinkPODCAST.

Overall, this high-octane podcast was developed to provide you with the key action items you must address to ensure a successful transition to production. This includes an understanding of the specific roles and responsibilities that must be in place as well as a discussion about tool training, continual process improvement and ongoing communication.

Gary continues with Part 3 establishing a Transition Team, developing a Transition Plan, identifying the elements before the transition can begin and the Transition Team’s responsibilities.

Often overlooked in many IT Service Management process improvement initiatives is how to move a newly defined IT Service Management process from a program – or project – environment into production. This move has its own set of challenges and if not properly planned, there is risk that all your hard work will be viewed as less than successful. So, if you want to ensure your success listen to this PinkPODCAST.

Overall, this high-octane podcast was developed to provide you with the key action items you must address to ensure a successful transition to production. This includes an understanding of the specific roles and responsibilities that must be in place as well as a discussion about tool training, continual process improvement and ongoing communication.

In part 2, Gary examines what is meant by transitioning from program/project to production. Gary continues with criteria for developing an organizational strategy, a transition team and a transition plan.

Often overlooked in many IT Service Management process improvement initiatives is how to move a newly defined IT Service Management process from a program – or project – environment into production. This move has its own set of challenges and if not properly planned, there is risk that all your hard work will be viewed as less than successful. So, if you want to ensure your success listen to this PinkPODCAST.

Overall, this high-octane podcast was developed to provide you with the key action items you must address to ensure a successful transition to production. This includes an understanding of the specific roles and responsibilities that must be in place as well as a discussion about tool training, continual process improvement and ongoing communication.

Gary Case begins his discussion on what it takes to transition an implementation from project to production. Gary will examine what occurs at the beginning and end, looks at the major failures of implementing ITIL and what the program is responsible for.

With Service Level Management (SLM) becoming an integral part of all IT organizations, a Service Level Agreement (SLA) is transforming from an application-based document to an end-to-end service-based agreement of negotiated and agreed upon levels of service and support. As a result, the ability of IT to deliver these agreed upon levels has also become more visible to customers. This is where an Operational Level Agreement (OLA) comes in! An OLA is a critical component when establishing levels of service and support. Are you using OLAs to full advantage?

Laurie brings to a conclusion To OLA or Not To OLA and goes through the managing of SLAs and OLAs and provides some tips for implementing OLAs and a Release Plan. She summarizes with an understanding that it’s not a question of should you OLA but when you should OLA.

With Service Level Management (SLM) becoming an integral part of all IT organizations, a Service Level Agreement (SLA) is transforming from an application-based document to an end-to-end service-based agreement of negotiated and agreed upon levels of service and support. As a result, the ability of IT to deliver these agreed upon levels has also become more visible to customers. This is where an Operational Level Agreement (OLA) comes in! An OLA is a critical component when establishing levels of service and support. Are you using OLAs to full advantage?

In this weeks podcast of To OLA or Not To OLA, Laurie looks at understanding the IT Service and the IT Domains, and goes through the contents of an Operational Level Agreement (OLA).

With Service Level Management (SLM) becoming an integral part of all IT organizations, a Service Level Agreement (SLA) is transforming from an application-based document to an end-to-end service-based agreement of negotiated and agreed upon levels of service and support. As a result, the ability of IT to deliver these agreed upon levels has also become more visible to customers. This is where an Operational Level Agreement (OLA) comes in! An OLA is a critical component when establishing levels of service and support. Are you using OLAs to full advantage?

Laurie continues her discussion on IT systems and begins to explore the service dependency model and the contents of a Service Catalog and Service Level Agreement. In addition, Laurie covers an approach to implementation.

With Service Level Management (SLM) becoming an integral part of all IT organizations, a Service Level Agreement (SLA) is transforming from an application-based document to an end-to-end service-based agreement of negotiated and agreed upon levels of service and support. As a result, the ability of IT to deliver these agreed upon levels has also become more visible to customers. This is where an Operational Level Agreement (OLA) comes in! An OLA is a critical component when establishing levels of service and support. Are you using OLAs to full advantage?

This week Laurie discusses the concept behind business goals and IT services and differentiates between an IT service and an IT system, while providing examples of the different types of services.

With Service Level Management (SLM) becoming an integral part of all IT organizations, a Service Level Agreement (SLA) is transforming from an application-based document to an end-to-end service-based agreement of negotiated and agreed upon levels of service and support. As a result, the ability of IT to deliver these agreed upon levels has also become more visible to customers. This is where an Operational Level Agreement (OLA) comes in! An OLA is a critical component when establishing levels of service and support. Are you using OLAs to full advantage?

Join Laurie Dolan as she provides a brief overview of SLM and its definition. She goes into what OLAs are and why they’re a necessary part of an organization.

Many companies strive to get all ITIL processes to at least a ‘Control’ level of process maturity. This takes time, and for most processes requires major changes to metrics, standards, roles and responsibilities, documentation, and communication and management processes. Gary and Brian will walk through each of ITIL’s Service Support and Delivery processes to provide a high level overview of what being at a ‘Control’ level of maturity means for each one. They will then explain why it’s important for IT companies to aim for the next two levels of process maturity – ‘Integration’ and ‘Optimization’ – and what is involved. This is a must if your IT company is seeking to transition its ITIL goals to more advanced stages.

In part 5, Gary and Brian discuss what drive's continuous improvement of a process and what needs to be considered.

Many companies strive to get all ITIL processes to at least a ‘Control’ level of process maturity. This takes time, and for most processes requires major changes to metrics, standards, roles and responsibilities, documentation, and communication and management processes. Gary and Brian will walk through each of ITIL’s Service Support and Delivery processes to provide a high level overview of what being at a ‘Control’ level of maturity means for each one. They will then explain why it’s important for IT companies to aim for the next two levels of process maturity – ‘Integration’ and ‘Optimization’ – and what is involved. This is a must if your IT company is seeking to transition its ITIL goals to more advanced stages.

Gary and Brian take you through how to develop your management information framework in order to ensure your process is efficient and effective. This will allow you to make informed decisions on your processes. Remember, if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it!

Many companies strive to get all ITIL processes to at least a ‘Control’ level of process maturity. This takes time, and for most processes requires major changes to metrics, standards, roles and responsibilities, documentation, and communication and management processes. Gary and Brian will walk through each of ITIL’s Service Support and Delivery processes to provide a high level overview of what being at a ‘Control’ level of maturity means for each one. They will then explain why it’s important for IT companies to aim for the next two levels of process maturity – ‘Integration’ and ‘Optimization’ – and what is involved. This is a must if your IT company is seeking to transition its ITIL goals to more advanced stages.

Join Gary Case and Brian Price as they provide an understanding of governance within the process implementation as it pertains to the roles of process management and finding the right people to undertake those roles.

Many companies strive to get all ITIL processes to at least a ‘Control’ level of process maturity. This takes time, and for most processes requires major changes to metrics, standards, roles and responsibilities, documentation, and communication and management processes. Gary and Brian will walk through each of ITIL’s Service Support and Delivery processes to provide a high level overview of what being at a ‘Control’ level of maturity means for each one. They will then explain why it’s important for IT companies to aim for the next two levels of process maturity – ‘Integration’ and ‘Optimization’ – and what is involved. This is a must if your IT company is seeking to transition its ITIL goals to more advanced stages.

Listen to Gary Case and Brian Price as they define key activities to move beyond the defined level and explain how the value of IT is perceived and acted upon through differing values. In addition, they provide an understanding of the value of a process versus the maturity of a process and introduce a transition plan required to go from project to production.

Many companies strive to get all ITIL processes to at least a ‘Control’ level of process maturity. This takes time, and for most processes requires major changes to metrics, standards, roles and responsibilities, documentation, and communication and management processes. Gary and Brian will walk through each of ITIL’s Service Support and Delivery processes to provide a high level overview of what being at a ‘Control’ level of maturity means for each one. They will then explain why it’s important for IT companies to aim for the next two levels of process maturity – ‘Integration’ and ‘Optimization’ – and what is involved. This is a must if your IT company is seeking to transition its ITIL goals to more advanced stages.

Join Gary Case and Brian Price as they set the stage for defining the Pink Maturity Model and CMM and the challenges of getting to a Managed Level and missing the target.

Join Terry as he concludes The Dynamic Duo of Customer Service with an understanding of what Problem Management is and how it takes care of Incident Management.

In part 5 Terry goes through the answers and explanation to the audience about the differences between Incident Management and Problem Management. Note: Due to clarity of volume, the audience questions have been removed; this does not impact the nature of the podcast.

In part 4, Terry provides further information on Incident Management covering Management Information, Supply and Demand, Documentation and Formal Planning.

Join Terry Sherman as he examines the key activities of Incident Management and the key results.

Please Note: This is a .MOV file and is best viewed with QuickTime.

Join Terry Sherman as he continues to explore the relationship between Incident and Problem Management and goes through the goals, identifying Problems and Known Errors and covers basic maturity concepts.

Please Note: This is a .MOV file and is best viewed with QuickTime.

When starting their ITIL implementation journey, many organizations choose to focus on the Service Desk function and key processes that will give them quick wins such as the dynamic 'sister act' of Incident and Problem Management. Join Terry Sherman as he explains why beginning your ITIL journey here helps you to achieve highly visible successes that can lead to gaining further commitment for change. Terry will highlight the strategic benefits of implementing fully integrated Incident and Problem Management processes, including what 'fully integrated' really means.

Please Note: This is a .MOV file and is best viewed with QuickTime.

Listen, while a Pink Elephant consultant will take you through a scenario that illustrates steps for implementing Configuration Management while referencing ATLAS.

This podcast will cover four major points:

• The challenge
• Four Step Improvement Model
• ATLAS
• Bringing them both together

Take advantage of this podcast if you are interested or in the process of implementing Configuration Management in your organization. View slides while listening to Pink Elephant’s consultant to maximize your learning experience.

Please Note: This is a .MOV file and is best viewed with QuickTime.

Listen, while a Pink Elephant consultant will take you through a scenario that illustrates steps for implementing Change Management while referencing ATLAS.

This podcast will cover four major points:

• The challenge
• Four Step Improvement Model
• ATLAS
• Bringing them both together

Take advantage of this podcast if you are interested or in the process of implementing Change Management in your organization. View slides while listening to Pink Elephant’s consultant to maximize your learning experience.

Please Note: This is a .MOV file and is best viewed with QuickTime.

Many companies struggle with the concept of who should be on the Change Advisory Board. There are several factors that have to be considered regarding the makeup of your Change Advisory Board (CAB). Primary questions that need to be answered are what is the size of your company and the complexity of the IT infrastructure? Are you a globally disbursed company or concentrated in a single country? Do you have many different platforms or just a few? The answers to these questions will determine whether a single CAB will suffice or if multiple CABs are necessary. But it really doesn’t matter if you will have one or many CABs. They will all have similar characteristics.

Since the release of ITIL V3 in June 2007, organizations have been hearing from many sources, including consultants, tool vendors and the authors themselves, on how ITIL V3 presents a fresh, new perspective towards developing and delivering IT services.

The information presented has mostly been a high-level view; however, many organizations, and particularly IT executives of those organizations, have been asking for a more specific view of V3 that answers questions about the contrast between V2 and V3, and the impact of V3 on their training plans.

Rich Petti brings this podcast series to a conclusion by summarizing the Role Of The Service Desk In The 21st Century and provides answers to some questions that he is presented with.

Rich Petti provides some implementation tips and comments on recent developments in newly published standards of how the Service Desk is not being recognized in these published standards. Further, Rich draws some conclusions as to why this is occurring.

Join Rich Petti in the continuation of The Role of the Service Desk in the 21st century, as he presents further understanding of the ownership and responsibilities of the Service Desk and the prerequisites for it to become successful.

So who’s responsible for control issues? Who’s responsible for compliance issues? And who’s responsible for governance issues? Is it the Service Desk? Rich Petti continues with a discussion on the need for a control-type process and how the Service Desk of tomorrow handles all the related issues.

What is technology’s role in control? What is the dependency on the Service Desk? Who’s controlling the controllers? Rich Petti answers these questions and begins to define the role of the Service Desk and how it will remain similar in the future.

As human beings could impact internal controls, Rich Petti talks about focusing on the need to automate processes as much as possible while ensuring that the processes are properly designed. Further, Rich looks at the difference between business control and process control and the understanding that although the Service Desk doesn’t own Incident Management it is responsible for Incident Management.

What will the Service Desk of tomorrow be like? Rich Petti looks at how the role of the Service Desk plays amongst all the processes to answer three questions:

• Who will track and monitor internal adherence?
• Where will the required documentation reside?
• Who will manage access?

Join us for the conclusion of “Can You Legislate Availability?” as Jack Probst concludes his look into legislating availability and answers questions about availability in different organizations.

Continuing Part 5 with high availability as a reporting issue, Jack Probst explains how COBIT® and ITIL® support IT. He goes on to provide an understanding of the regulatory environment and the availability of data and information, while mitigating risk with the regulatory bodies and security management.

In Part 4, Jack Probst explains the impact of availability and managing risk to reduce it as much as possible. Jack looks at what happens if IT fails and how it affects sustained or growing revenue, customer relations or business reputation and the security of information.

What kind of risk can be tolerated by the business? Is it financial or environmental or something else entirely? And what about high availability? What are the vital business functions of your business and their requirements for high availability? Listen to part three as Jack Probst presents you with an understanding of what the business can tolerate, vital business function requirements and service portability.

What is the value of availability and uptime? Is it possible to attain five nines and only 5.25 minutes of downtime per year? Listen to part two as Jack Probst continues his quest to find out if we can legislate availability by presenting you with an understanding of what availability is, what risk is and how to reduce it, and what all those nines translate into.

I need five nines! Or even six nines! In the survival-critical IT infrastructure of today’s business and Government, 99.9999% availability (32 seconds per year of downtime) is more than a concept; it’s a reality. Five nines or 99.999% availability (5.25 minutes per year of downtime) is commonplace. IT infrastructures now literally hold people’s lives in their “hands”. Listen to this podcast and find out if we can legislate availability.

When determining staffing levels, it’s always good practice to make sure your staff is the right size no matter what department you’re in. Listen to IT Service Management Consultant, Jim McKennan, as he describes running a cost-effective and efficient department.

Join us for the conclusion of the magical world of COBIT®. IT Governance is an important factor in the corporate world – find out why it is now and not before. IT objectives are becoming quite a significant factor for companies. COBIT has become the umbrella and integrator for a number of best practice frameworks. Take a quick trip into the world of COBIT for a high level overview of what an IT organization implementing best practices should be doing.

Join us for part 3 of the magical world of COBIT®. IT Governance is an important factor in the corporate world – find out why it is now and not before. IT objectives are becoming quite a significant factor for companies. COBIT has become the umbrella and integrator for a number of best practice frameworks. Take a quick trip into the world of COBIT for a high level overview of what an IT organization implementing best practices should be doing.

Join us for part 2 of the magical world of COBIT®. IT Governance is an important factor in the corporate world – find out why it is now and not before. IT objectives are becoming quite a significant factor for companies. COBIT has become the umbrella and integrator for a number of best practice frameworks. Take a quick trip into the world of COBIT for a high level overview of what an IT organization implementing best practices should be doing.

Enter the magical world of COBIT®. IT Governance is an important factor in the corporate world – find out why it is now and not before. IT objectives are becoming quite a significant factor for companies. COBIT has become the umbrella and integrator for a number of best practice frameworks. Take a quick trip into the world of COBIT for a high level overview of what an IT organization implementing best practices should be doing.

Take a quick trip into the world of ITIL® for a high level overview of what an IT organization implementing best practices should be doing. Part 4 continues with a look at what ITIL is.

Take a quick trip into the world of ITIL® for a high level overview of what an IT organization implementing best practices should be doing. Part 3 continues with a look at what ITIL is.

Take a quick trip into the world of ITIL® for a high level overview of what an IT organization implementing best practices should be doing. Part 2 continues with a look at what ITIL is.

Take a quick trip into the world of ITIL® for a high level overview of what an IT organization implementing best practices should be doing. Part 1 takes a look at what ITIL is and introduces the Service Support processes.

In this PinkPodcast, IT Management Consultant Robin Hysick interviews Jack Probst, a leading expert in ITIL Project Implementation, about his Top 5 Tips for Leading Process Implementation Projects.

Part six of this six-part series is the final segment of a series of PinkPodcasts based on a conference session delivered by Troy DuMoulin, Pink Elephant’s Director of Product Strategy, on the topic of IT Governance.

Part five of this six-part series is a continuation of a series of PinkPodcasts based on a conference session delivered by Troy DuMoulin, Pink Elephant’s Director of Product Strategy, on the topic of IT Governance.

Part four of this six-part series is a continuation of a series of PinkPodcasts based on a conference session delivered by Troy DuMoulin, Pink Elephant’s Director of Product Strategy, on the topic of IT Governance.

The ITIL Refresh publications and newsletters issued by official ITIL publisher, The Stationary Office (TSO), have given us some interesting insight into the future of IT Service Management as documented by ITIL. You will find links to these documents on Pink’s ITIL v3 Information Central webpage.

Part three of this six-part series is a continuation of a series of PinkPodcasts based on a conference session delivered by Troy DuMoulin, Pink Elephant’s Director of Product Strategy, on the topic of IT Governance.

Part two of this six-part series is a continuation of a series of PinkPodcasts based on a conference session delivered by Troy DuMoulin, Pink Elephant’s Director of Product Strategy, on the topic of IT Governance.

In part one of this six-part series, Pink Elephant’s Troy DuMoulin explores the concept of IT Governance, and the more holistic view that is emerging: IT Governance is really about establishing a vision and direction for IT that supports the business objectives and actually establishes an organization, structures and processes that make sure the individual components and domains play nice and work together for the common goal.

In this PinkPodcast, President David Ratcliffe speaks to two ITIL V3 authors, Pink Elephant’s George Spalding and Gary Case, about the next generation of ITIL, the new content and the proposed release date.

Pink Elephant’s President David Ratcliffe, and VP of Global Events, George Spalding, recap some of the incredible highlights over the four day event, which took place February 18-21, 2007.

Listen to Isabel Feher-Watters of the Professional Services Team and Glen Notman, an IT Management Consultant, as they discuss how Pink Elephant has received status as a global Registered Education Provider (REP) from the Project Management Institute (PMI). PMI has assessed and recognized Pink Elephant's courses as having appropriate learning material relevant to the field of project management. Ten Pink Elephant courses are currently registered with PMI and are listed on the PMI website.

As part of Service Level Management, there are three underlying themes expressed in the ITIL documentation of best practices for SLM that support the goals of IT Service Management. These include:

• Partnerships
• Simplicity
• 'What'...not 'How'

In this PinkPodcast featuring Pink Elephant consultant Jim Wright, explore how these themes support the two objectives of IT Service Management: IT services should align to business needs; and IT should act as an agent for change to facilitate business transformation.

The goal of Problem Management is to minimize the adverse impacts of incidents and problems on the business that are caused by errors in the IT Infrastructure and to prevent recurrence of incidents related to these errors. Problem Management seeks to get to the root cause and initiate action to remove the error. How can we use Problem Management to improve the service that we offer to our customers?

This Podcast takes a look at the benefits we can gain by implementing efficient Problem Management.

Continuity planning - flavor of the month or an afterthought? We all know we should do it, but have you?

It's easy to bury your head in the sand and think it can't happen to you, but it could, and if your business is dependant on IT, how can you not put plans and countermeasures in place to reduce or eliminate the risk of a disaster?

Let's take a look at what ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) says about IT Service Continuity. This podcast will identify some of those areas that are easy to miss when you're planning.

With less than four weeks to go, Pink Elephant's President David Ratcliffe, and VP of Global Events, George Spalding, discuss some of the exciting final touches for the largest ITSM event ever - the 11th Annual International IT Service Management Conference & Exhibition, coming February 18-21, 2007 at the Venetian, Las Vegas.

Hear all about:

• The complete line-up of pre and post-conference courses
• Sunday Primer Workshops, including the fun and interactive PinkSim session
• Daily highlights in the conference program
• ITIL Awards
• Other global Pink events coming in 2007

Are you Being Served?

Have you ever stopped to consider that ITIL is a Service Management Framework? Well, consider that if ITIL is a service management framework, this means that all of the processes have only one goal: To Plan for, Deliver and Support IT services!

But what if you don't have services defined? Then perhaps ITIL in its full glory has limited to no value at this point of an organization's maturity. However, if it is understood that no technology component exists for its own right and that the individual components from various domains actually work together in connected systems that support IT services, then this is another story altogether.

This being the case, then perhaps the Service Catalog is much more than an a la carte menu or brochure for the business customer. The truth is that the Service Catalog is the foundation for ITIL implementation projects!

The Service Catalog is the central theme of the upcoming book that Pink Elephant is co-authoring with NewScale - Defining IT Success Through The Service Catalog.

Employee Compliance is the degree to which employees adhere to the organization's defined policies, processes, and procedures.

You have spent the last six months developing your policies, processes and procedures with as much stakeholder involvement as feasible. You purchased a state of the art Service Management tool. You have defined roles and responsibilities and made sure your communication plan has made everyone aware of what is coming.

Why do you think anyone will change what they are doing today and follow these new methods? If there is one constant in the universe, it is that people don't like to change unless they feel personally accountable or are changing to what is perceived as somehow better than what they were doing before.

Employee Compliance refers to developing a proactive management strategy around ensuring that the processes, policies and procedures are actually being followed after they are deployed. Without a planned approach to employee compliance, the deployment and ongoing adherence to defined polices and procedures is a cross your fingers and hope affair.

Listen in as Troy DuMoulin, Director of Product Strategy, discusses employee compliance, then visit his blog where you will find additional information on this subject.

Note: Please be advised that this is an Enhanced PinkPodcast that contains a slide presentation and is best viewed with iTunes or QuickTime.

Designing and building new processes are only part of the IT Service Management (ITSM) puzzle. There is still the challenge of implementing new processes in an organization that is accustomed to working with whatever it has defined as today's processes. Thus, the challenge comes down to changing behavior and changing not just an individual or a team, but the behavior culture of an organization. So how do you do that? Here at Pink Elephant, we have turned to the eight-step approach espoused by Dr. John Kotter in his book, Leading Change. Take a quick tour of these eight important steps to make a difference in your organization and to help make your next process project a success.

Note: Please be advised that this is an Enhanced PinkCast that contains a slide presentation and is best viewed with iTunes or QuickTime.

Do you implement too many changes everyday? Are there conflicts when scheduling changes? Could you have grouped changes into some sort of bundle? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you need to consider implementing a Release Policy. ITIL describes many types of possible Releases; yet, many organizations still struggle with translating these definitions into reality. Listen to this PinkCast by Pierre Bernard, Manager of Education Services, and learn:

1. What is a Release?
2. What characteristics comprise a Release Policy?
3. What are the differences between Release categories: Minor, Major or Emergency Release?
4. What are the differences between Release types: Delta, Full or Package Release?
5. How do you populate a Release Policy? What is the best method to use?

Note: Please be advised that this is an Enhanced PinkCast that contains a slide presentation and is best viewed with iTunes or QuickTime.

Using an illustrative story to review the goal and activities of Security Management, Pink's Executive Consultant Rich Petti discusses the various aspects of Security Management, a Service Delivery process. Rich also delves into how Security Management is linked to customer satisfaction, how it is related to Availability, Continuity, and Service Level Management, and how it plays a key role in meeting governance requirements.

The focus of this PinkCast is on a high level view of the key definitions including CIA as applied to appropriate protection of data.

• Security Management Goal: To meet the security requirements of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and external requirements further to contracts, legislation and externally imposed policies; to provide a basic level of security, independent of external requirements
• Key Definitions mentioned:
• Security Awareness
• Security Incidents
• Security Level
• Confidentiality
• Integrity
• Availability
• Activities:
• Planning
• Implementation
• Control
• Evaluate
• Maintain

Many Service Desk Managers struggle with the concept of conducting annual performance reviews for their staff members. Usually this exercise happens in a very short period of time just before they are due and creative writing becomes the method for completing them. This turns out to be very painful for all involved.

The ITIL framework can be a big help in making these performance reviews more accurate and meaningful to the Manager, the staff members and the company. This PinkCast is designed to summarize the steps that need to be taken to make Performance Management easier and more relevant to all that participate.

Capacity Management

Using an illustrative story to review the goal and activities of Capacity Management, Pink's Executive Consultant Rich Petti discusses the reactive and proactive aspects of Capacity Management, a Service Delivery process. He also delves into how Capacity Management is linked to customer satisfaction, is closely related to Availability, Continuity and Service Level Management, and plays a key role in meeting governance requirements.

The focus of this PinkCast is on the sub-processes and iterative activities.

• Capacity Management Goal: To ensure that the current and future capacity aspects, and performance aspects of the business requirements are provided cost-effectively
• Key sub-processes reviewed:
  • Business Capacity Management
  • Service Capacity Management
  • Resource Capacity Management
• Key activities discussed
• Iterative activities:
  • Monitoring
  • Analysis
  • Tuning
  • Implementation

How To Create A Service Catalog According To ITIL Best Practices

The role of Service Level Management (SLM) and its primary tool, the Service Catalog, are critical success factors in the process of moving to repeatable and auditable service provision. The Service Catalog represents a trusted record of the services provided by IT, its default capabilities, measures and primary means of access and provision. In short the Service Catalog represents the value IT provides to business enablement:

• What is not defined cannot be controlled
• What is not controlled and stabilized cannot be measured
• What is not measured consistently cannot be improved

How To Create A CMDB According ITIL Best Practices

Configuration Management is one of the most necessary but difficult processes to implement if you want to achieve a high level of maturity in IT service management. And, the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) provides a critical resource for almost all other IT service management disciplines. If implemented and managed correctly, the CMDB will provide valuable information about where assets are and how they impact the delivery and quality of IT services. However, there are many obstacles to negotiate and pitfalls to avoid - so good guidance is essential before you attempt this most important project.

A popular offering from many IT Service Management consulting firms are process simulations. Process simulations seem to come in all shapes and sizes, each with their own set of pluses and minuses. What makes for a good process simulation and what purpose would it serve in your organization? This PinkCast, delivered by Executive Consultant Jack Probst, speaks to the nature of process simulations and what criteria you should consider when deciding on where a simulation could supplement your education activities.

Note: Please be advised that this is an Enhanced PinkCast that contains a slide presentation and is best viewed with iTunes or QuickTime.

Many organizations struggle with implementing Problem Management. In reality, Problem Management should be one of the easier processes to implement. Unfortunately, some organizations still confuse Incident and Problem Management; often, they only implement Problem Management when reacting to a Major Incident and someone high enough in the organization has yelled loud enough.

Incident Management data is important to Problem Management, but often the Service Desk / Help Desk has a feel for what types of incidents recur on an ongoing basis.

This PinkCast will discuss the following:

• Challenges around implementing Problem Management
• Quick Wins when implementing Problem Management
• Value and benefits of Problem Management
• How Problem Management is crucial to turning a vicious cycle into a value cycle

The IT Infrastructure describes many types of possible changes. Many organizations still struggle with translating these definitions into reality. One way to achieve this is to look at change models.

A change model will have the following characteristics:

• The part of the infrastructure affected such as service, system or configuration item
• Who (person or group) will be assessing, developing, testing and implementing the change
• What needs to be documented about the change
• Whether or not there will be any training required
• What needs to be communicated about the change

Listen to this PinkCast from Pink Elephant’s Manager of Education Services, Pierre Bernard, and learn more about change models; the four main change categories and what they mean; how to determine the change scope; and how to determine the affected components in the IT infrastructure.

“Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.” ~ Ann Morrow Lindberg

In keeping with the spirit of Pink’s mission statement, we continue to focus on new ways to research, document and promote best practices in a spirit unique to our culture. In this spirit, Pink Elephant has recently launched our newest communications medium – “Blogs”.

Come take a look at several blogs recently added to our website. Visit one of our blogs and share experiences, thoughts or discover the ITSM issues people are talking about. For a little fun, check out where Pinky, Pink Elephant’s globe-trotting ambassador, has traveled to spread the word about IT management best practices!

The adoption IT Service Management represents a significant effort and cultural transformation that is not for the faint at heart. Over the year, Pink Elephant has made an effort to bring industry recognition to leaders and corporations who have made a significant commitment to the philosophy of Service Management.

Each year at our annual IT Service Management conference we sponsor three important awards.

• ITIL Project Of The Year
• ITIL Practitioner Of The Year
• ITIL Certification Student Of The Year

This PinkCast looks at what these awards mean, as well as the process for nomination and selection.

For the past ten years, Pink Elephant has brought some of the world's most intriguing and inspiring keynote speakers to its International IT Service Management Conference. With the program now complete for Pink Elephant's 11th annual conference, taking place February 18-21, 2007 at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, this PinkCast offers an update on some exciting new featured speakers coming to the world's largest event dedicated to IT best practices.

Knowledge Management is a valuable addition to resources available to IT Service Management processes. But, Knowledge Management is a topic that is not the easiest to define or scope. This PinkCast is intended to serve as a primer on the subject of Knowledge Management - what it is and what it isn't. This session will serve as a springboard for future programs which will begin to explore how Knowledge Management is useful for the various ITIL processes.

Note: Please be advised that this is an Enhanced PinkCast that contains a slide presentation and is best viewed with iTunes or QuickTime.

One of the challenges for any ITIL implementation is building the Business Case. Many organizations are comfortable with identifying the Value of implementing ITIL while others want to conduct a full business case complete with a Return on Investment (ROI) statement. The latter is often difficult in many organizations due to a lack of consistent metrics and measurements that can be used as a baseline to start building a ROI scenario.

This Podcast will discuss the need for and the challenges of developing a Business Case for implementing ITIL.

Let's face it - everyday, the IT professional is bombarded with numerous demands on their time. First they have what are supposedly their own jobs to complete; then, they have all of those deliverables demanded by the projects they have been assigned to. Last but not least, they are called upon to fix incidents or perform root cause analysis or to be involved in a Change. What is a guy or gal to do with all of these demands upon their time?

That is exactly the question Pink Elephant is going to address in this PinkCast. The simple but profound premise is that unless a policy exists to assist an organization with this question, prioritization will always be relative to each individual and not shared. If this is the case, then the following statements are unfortunately true:

• There is no true ability to deliver against the SLA
• ITIL Service Support integration is almost impossible
• Forget trying to automate escalation and notification in your tools

In ITIL, it is necessary to establish the criteria for the success of the change in accordance with the business requirements for the change. These criteria for success are established though the release qualification criteria, or acceptance criteria developed by Release Management.

Join Pink Elephant's Managing Consultant Graham Price and learn about some of the key considerations for the Change and Release implementation review.

Go behind the scenes with Pink Elephant's President David Ratcliffe, and VP of Global Events, George Spalding, and hear all about the exciting plans underway for the 11th Annual International IT Service Management Conference & Exhibition, coming February 18-21, 2007 at the Venetian, Las Vegas.

Find out how Pink Elephant intends to offer fresh, relevant content at the largest worldwide conference for IT Service Management. David and George will discuss:

• What’s different for the 2007 conference
• What’s available for those who are in the more advanced stages of IT Service Management, as well as for those just starting out
• Who’s on the roster of outstanding keynote presenters (including the subject of a soon-to-be Hollywood movie!)
• How to stay informed about conference developments
• And much more!

Never been to a Pink Elephant conference? This PinkCast tells you what you can expect, from the content-rich sessions to the valuable networking opportunities. But why not see it for yourself? View a clip from last year’s conference!

An ITIL implementation project requires a major cultural change and a transfer of knowledge to:

• Ensure awareness of the program
• Provide training for the specific roles and participants
• Monitor and adjust the attitudes and behaviors of the employees
• Advertise the long term benefits expected

To achieve these objectives, there needs to be a formalized and comprehensive Communications Plan. This plan, if implemented effectively, can make the difference between success of the overall ITIL program, or failure through a lack of interest or understanding.

Join Bill Irvine, Pink Elephant Executive Consultant, in this PinkCast which will highlight the components of an ITIL Communications Plan and provide examples of some of its key contents to be fully effective.

Since the advent of Henry Ford’s Model T and the creation of complex assembly lines, organizational designs have focused on breaking apart complex processes into individual tasks – the result of which manifests itself as silo or stove pipe based organizational charts where the right hand has little knowledge of what the left hand is doing.

As technically focused IT shops transition into service organizations, we have to splice back together what has been artificially separated. In reality, what is occurring when an organization defines IT Services and Process, is that two new virtual horizontal organizational structures are being established on top of the traditional domain-based silos. The end result of this is the establishment of a matrix organization where individuals within now have multiple lines of accountability and are constantly faced with the requirement to prioritize their time.

Without a doubt, a critical role to process implementation is the creation and empowerment of a single, accountable process owner whose management activities and scope of governance span across the great divide between organizational silos.

The process owner plays the important role of champion, visionary, protector and advocate – without whom the process has absolutely no chance of survival.

Implementing ITSM processes always represents significant organizational change, concerns and resistance. Many of the issues raised are legitimate risks that need to be identified, documented and managed as either an issue for the project Charter or project risk log.

Add to this the need for newly formed project team’s to constructively air the concerns and risks they perceive in achieving project success and we have the perfect opportunity to conduct a workshop activity called Mountains, Molehills and Dead Buffaloes.

Mountains and Molehills are probably self-evident but listen to this PinkCast to find out what Dead Buffaloes are and how to address all of these issues.

A problem defined is a problem half solved!

To truly understand the health and welfare of anything one must look at it from multiple perspectives. This statement summarizes the position of a best practice measurement model called the balanced Score Card documented by Kaplan and Norton.

The traditional BSC method is a strategic approach and performance management system that enables organizations to translate a company's vision and strategy working from four perspectives:

• Financial perspective,
• Customer perspective,
• Business process perspective,
• Innovation: Learning and growth perspective.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_Score_Card

Pink Elephant has expanded on this approach and gone one level deeper under the Business Process Perspective and have expanded this area of measurement into four additional measurement quadrants

• Value: Is the process objective being achieved?
• Quality: Are the process activities being executed according to pre-defined quality parameters?
• Performance/Throughput: Is the process being done at a rate of speed that meets targets?
• Compliance: Is the process being done consistently by all parties within the process Scope?

How many times have you seen the glint in the executive's eye when he or she proudly proclaims a first call resolution of 80% percent or higher? How many of us focus on this supposed key metric as the primary Key Performance Indicator for our outsourced Service Desk Contract?

What if we were to say that this single metric is probably the most misleading metric of all time? This week's PinkCast examines the "First Call Resolution" myth and what it actually might be covering up.

We invite you to listen to this engaging interview with George Spalding, Executive Consultant with Pink Elephant.

Want to find out more about what a company with a name like Pink Elephant has to teach organizations about managing IT? Go straight to the source!

In this interview with David Ratcliffe, President of Pink Elephant, Executive Consultant and ITSM guru Troy DuMoulin digs deep to find out more about Pink Elephant including how they have been involved with ITSM and ITIL since inception and their plans for exploring the next frontiers of IT Management.

Maybe you'll also find out how the company got its name...