Pink20 Keynote

Ever wish your boss, colleagues, or even your partner, came with an instruction manual?!

Allan Pease, best-selling author of Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps, joins us (again!) to present his very witty and humorous commentary, which always motivates, entertains, and yes, even educates!

Understanding how the brain functions has become a major key in promoting the change process in business, and in giving insights into how to communicate effectively. Allan has spent several years collecting scientific research, interviewing experts and collating a comprehensive study of the profound communication differences between men and women, and people in general, to give us insights into why we each have a different reaction to the same thing. He is an expert on winning communication techniques for business, and in our personal lives too.

Allan, known internationally as “Mr. Body Language”, appears regularly in media around the world, and is sought to give advice on personal image by everyone from business executives and Prime Ministers, to TV personalities, royalty and rock stars. Allan will show you how to become a great communicator and to win more business – and he’ll make you cry with laughter at the same time!

His keynote presentation includes a very provocative (and sometimes controversial!) look at:

• How to get the best in business by understanding what people are really thinking
• What people really need to do to get on in business
• How to avoid arguments, disagreements and conflicts
• How to get co-operation and gain credibility
• Communication styles: understanding the differences between the sexes

Join Allan and you will enrich your communication with an understanding of others – as well as yourself!

Pink20 Keynote

Stick Management is out. Carrot management is in!

The Carrot Principle offers proven strategies to help recognize and motivate your valued employees – and Chester is on hand to tell you all about it.

Since its original publication in 2007, The New York Times bestseller The Carrot Principle has received rave reviews in The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, CNN, 60 Minutes, The New York Times, and has helped a host of managers to energize their teams, and companies to dramatically boost their business results. The book was even adopted by the prestigious Franklin Covey International training and consulting group for its leadership training.

Revealing the ground breaking results of one of the most in-depth management studies ever undertaken, The Carrot Principle shows definitively that the central characteristic of the most successful managers is that they provide their employees with frequent and effective recognition. This breakthrough study of 200,000 people over ten years found dramatically greater business results when managers offered constructive praise and meaningful rewards in ways that powerfully motivated employees to excel. These managers lead with carrots, not sticks, and in doing so achieve higher productivity, engagement, and retention.

Drawing on case studies from leading companies including Disney, DHL, KPMG, and Pepsi Bottling Group, Chester will highlight how the key to recognition done right is combining it with four other core traits of effective leadership.

Great recognition can be done in a matter of moments and it doesn't take budget-busting amounts of money. Chester will reveal how his simple steps will make you a high-performance leader and take your team to a new level of achievement.

Pink20 Keynote

Be prepared to be amazed. Josh Linkner, a jazz guitarist since age 14, credits a musical background for giving him a different way of looking at business. In this stunning interactive presentation, a live jazz performance by Josh and his band is woven with stimulating dialogue. You’ll actually hear, through their music, fresh ways to unleash your organization’s creative mojo.

In jazz, 99% of the notes are improvised; created in real-time. Yet it’s the structure of a jazz combo – not the inherent talent of individual musicians – that allows for such breathtaking creative expression. In today’s business landscape of dizzying speed, exponential complexity, and ruthless competition, we can no longer just play the notes on the written page. You will learn powerful lessons inspired by jazz musicians (a.k.a “real-time innovators”) to help you:

• Develop your own ability to improvise, no matter what job title you hold
• Establish team dynamics that foster creative thinking and risk taking
• Uncover fresh approaches to previously unchallenged assumptions
• Break free from traditional thinking and uncover vast new possibilities
• Learn 5 secret techniques used by jazz musicians to foster creativity, which can easily be adapted to your own organization
• Expand your ability to deal with ambiguity and recover from setbacks

Code: General

Allan, known internationally as “Mr. Body Language”, appears regularly in media around the world, and is sought to give advice on personal image by everyone from business executives and Prime Ministers, to TV presenters, Royalty and Rock Stars. Allan will show you how to become a great communicator and to win more business – and he’ll make you cry with laughter at the same time!

It is a scientific fact that people’s gestures give away their true intentions. Yet most of us don’t know how to read body language – and don’t realize how our own physical movements speak to others. Drawing upon more than thirty years in the field, as well as cutting-edge research from evolutionary biology, psychology, and medical technologies that demonstrate what happens in the brain, Allan will tell you about the many components of body language and give you basic vocabulary to read attitudes and emotions through behavior.

Discover:

• How palms and handshakes are used to gain control
• The most common gestures of liars
• How the legs reveal what the mind wants to do
• The most common male and female courtship gestures and signals
• The secret signals of cigarettes, glasses, and makeup
• The magic of smiles – including smiling advice for women
• How to use nonverbal cues and signals to communicate more effectively and get the reactions you want

Join Allan and you will enrich your communication with an understanding of others – as well as yourself!

Code: General

Denise is a communication and motivation expert and always a very highly rated speaker at Pink’s conference. You will love her super high-energy presentation.

Life would be so easy if everyone we interacted with was just like us. They would understand our cryptic e-mail messages, forgive our bizarre text messages, and understand why we unfriended them on Facebook. There would be no hard feelings, no conflict, and clearly, world peace. Unfortunately, no one else is exactly like you and to succeed in life and business, you have to work with the crazy, the angry, the silly, and yes, even the smarter and more articulate. This session will help you do just that. You will learn about barriers to communication and how to remove them. You’ll take a communication styles quiz and find out just how different a large portion of the world really is and how to get along with them. People won’t stop being crazy, but this session will help you stay sane.

Code: Beyond Beginner

Are you a senior IT manager or aspiring to become one? Then you need to know the answer to: what is a Lean IT Leader? And, why is this leadership approach so powerful?

Troy will explain that a Lean IT Leader is someone who knows how to model and continually improve the Enterprise IT value system. Lean IT organizations enjoy a culture that celebrates excellence, teamwork, and innovation. Lean Leaders promote a mantra of continuous improvement through Leadership methods that instill a Kaizen mindset and a shared passion to create value, increase speed and reduce costs within teams and individuals.

To achieve these goals, Lean Leaders, including Lean CIOs(!), are able to examine how well work flows through the whole organization, irrespective of boundaries such as functional silos. Using Lean principles, IT Leaders can look at IT processes, policies, workflows, and data in order to identify sources of waste and impediments to the overall value flow. This effort requires systems thinking and the holistic ability to review the relationships between people, process and technology factors that contribute to each value stream.

How is this all accomplished? Can it really be done? Yes! Troy, one of the world’s leading Lean IT authorities, will tell you how. And, he’ll use content from Pink’s Lean IT Leadership certification course to highlight key points.

To maximize participation, this session is scheduled more than once throughout the conference – it is presented as a Power Hour session on Monday and Tuesday of the conference.

Code: General

Holy IT business value, Batman!

The Riddler, Two-Face, Catwoman, The Joker, The Penguin, Robin and Batman, and even Commissioner Gordon and Alfred! What can they teach us about how to run a successful IT organization? Well, as it turns out…lots! Join George for this entertaining look at an otherwise serious and very meaningful subject – how IT can, and should add, true business value. George’s session will be fun AND you will learn something…and we promise he will not wear tights, but we can’t guarantee he won’t wear a mask or a cape!

The iconic Gotham City is filled with a cast of numerous characters who have all applied very ingenious and forward-thinking ways of using their own strengths and invented super tools to bring down the city and Batman. There are bad guys, and good guys too – there are those who do work very collaboratively with Batman. George will profile a handful of Gotham City’s most desirable (and undesirable!) citizens and compare the characters’ main strengths to best practices found in Lean, ITIL 4, DevOps, Business Relationship Management, and Organizational Change Management. Attend this session and you will walk away with several very important teachings from many of Pink’s most popular certification courses.

Code: General

Chaos. Disorder. Anarchy. Yes, these do happen at times in our personal and business lives – not just in comic books! Jonathan will provide guidance about leadership practices to use when some or all of these exist in your IT world. He will explain that when vision and direction are sometimes lacking, people become desperate for a leader – and that leader is you! Leadership is not an easy calling, and many forces would see you fail. However, you can succeed and become the leader your organization needs. Using his personal leadership experiences, Jonathan will guide you down the challenging path of IT Leadership and show you how to win. Using the mythology of Batman, he will show you how to identify and defeat the Five Super Villains every IT Leader must face. Whether you lead an entire organization or a team of one (yourself), this session is for you. You will walk away with practical steps on how to become a better leader, and also understand the key and critical differences between managing and leading.

Code: Beginner

You’ve read ALL the books on leadership. You’ve been to conferences and heard the so-called experts tell you how to be a better leader. You think you know what you need to do, but you still haven’t quite gotten there yet. Why have you not become the world’s greatest IT leader? Is it because leading a team in IT is not as simple as it might seem? Is it because of the extra pressure and stress?

In this session, David will remind us of the core responsibilities of today’s IT leader, and then explain HOW to make sure our teams deliver in supporting the business by completing projects on time, within scope, and on budget. Yes there’s stress to discuss, and it’s worth acknowledging the things that are “special” about IT; but, David will make sure you stay focused on the leadership skills that prepare you to cope in today’s fast paced IT Service Management environment. He will cover the following topics:

• The challenge of meeting increased demands with reduced resources
• Thinking innovatively to create new solutions to old problems
• Identifying strengths and weaknesses in you and your teams
• Laser focusing on the right things at the right time!

At the end of this session, David promises you will be much better prepared to be able to lead your team effectively and productively.

Code: General

Robin has been instrumental in helping to design the new ITIL 4 courses. She has been part of the Axelos global team and there is probably no one in the world who possesses as much knowledge of ITIL 4 content as Robin. In addition, she holds a Masters in Organizational Development and certifications in many bodies of knowledge including Lean, DevOps, Agile and Scrum and Organizational Change Management (OCM). If you are interested in learning about ITIL 4’s advanced courses from an ITIL Managing Professional (the first one on the planet to hold this designation, and who taught other trainers around the world!), then join Robin as she provides what’s-in-it-for-you information about each of the advanced courses in the Managing Professional and Strategic Leader streams.

Code: Beginner

For almost twenty-five years, this best practice framework for IT Service Management has enabled IT organizations to be more productive, effective, service oriented, and process-minded. In addition to highlighting key differences between ITIL v3’s Service Lifecycle model versus ITIL 4’s Service Value System model, this session is designed for those new to ITIL or needing a refresh. The agenda includes a high-level overview of ITIL’s history, key concepts and practices, and it also highlights ITIL’s business value.

To maximize participation, this session is scheduled more than once throughout the conference – it is presented on Sunday afternoon as a Pre-Conference Optimizer and Monday as a breakout session.

Code: Beyond Beginner

Are you a senior IT manager or aspiring to become one? Then you need to know the answer to: what is a Lean IT Leader?

A Lean IT Leader is someone who knows how to model and continually improve the Enterprise IT value system. Lean IT organizations enjoy a culture that celebrates excellence, teamwork, and innovation. Lean Leaders promote a mantra of continuous improvement through Leadership methods that instill within teams and individuals a Kaizen mindset and a shared passion to create value, increased speed and reduced costs.

To achieve these goals, Lean Leaders, (including Lean CIOs!) are able to examine how well work flows through the whole organization, irrespective of boundaries such as functional silos. Using Lean principles, IT Leaders can look at IT processes, policies, workflows, and data in order to identify sources of waste and impediments to the overall value flow. This effort requires systems thinking and the holistic ability to review the relationships between people, process and technology factors that contribute to each value stream.

How is this all accomplished? Can it really be done? Yes! Troy, one of the world’s leading Lean IT authorities, will tell you how.

To maximize participation, this session is scheduled more than once throughout the conference – it is presented on Sunday afternoon as a Pre-Conference Optimizer and Monday a breakout session.

Code: Beginner

In this overview, Beverly will explain Lean’s origins and major guiding principles. You’ll walk away with an understanding of what Lean Management is, and an awareness of its business and IT value.

Simply put, Lean is focused on getting the right things to the right place at the right time in the right quantity to achieve perfect work flow, while minimizing waste and being flexible and able to change. To accomplish this, Lean thinking changes the focus of management from optimizing separate technologies, assets, and vertical departments to optimizing the flow of products and services through entire value streams that flow horizontally across technologies, assets, and departments to customers. Eliminating waste along entire value streams, instead of at isolated points, creates processes that need less human effort, less space, less capital, and less time to make products and services at far less costs and with much fewer defects, compared with traditional business systems. Organizations are able to respond to changing customer desires with high variety, high quality, low cost, and with very fast throughput times.

To maximize participation, this session is scheduled more than once throughout the conference – it is presented on Sunday afternoon as a Pre-Conference Optimizer and Tuesday as a breakout session.

Code: General

Are your ITSM processes “defined?” Are they fully “optimized?” Do you know what these mean, and why it’s important for you to know?

Attend this session and you’ll learn about the key concepts and guiding principles of “process maturity”. The session includes an overview of the CMM (Capability Maturity Model) and the six different process maturity stages: 0 – Not Performed; 1 – Initial; 2 – Repeatable; 3 – Defined; 4 – Managed; 5 – Optimized.

What do each of these mean? Why should every IT manager know about this? Jen will give an explanation of each stage and why understanding a maturity level is necessary to implementing ITIL and ITSM best practices and overall successful project management.

To maximize participation, this session is scheduled more than once throughout the conference. It will be presented on Sunday afternoon as a Pre-Conference Optimizer and Tuesday as a breakout session.

Jennifer is also presenting a half-day workshop on how to apply a process maturity assessment to Problem Management on Wednesday afternoon during the conference.

IT Service Management (ITSM) as a term has been around for well over 30 years. During that time a lot of spin-off practices and frameworks have emerged. Which ones have you had the most success with? Which ones have you struggled with? And what can we expect going forward? Come along and either listen, or contribute, to find out what we need to do to get the most out of what we’re already doing, as well as prepare for the new evolutions, trends and bodies of knowledge we can expect to head our way in 2020 and beyond.

Everywhere we look today we see terms like “Digital Age”, “Digital Transformation” and “Digital Economy”. It seems like every IT moniker has to start with the word “digital”! But what does that mean? If we aren’t “doing digital”, does that mean we’re missing out on something, and we’re letting ourselves down? Come along to find out how we ensure our IT teams are aware of what’s meant by “digital”, where it’s most meaningful, and what we need to do about it.

We started with “Service Management”, now we have the opportunity for “Service Automation” - but it doesn’t stop there. We’re already seeing some IT service innovators introducing AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Machine Learning in the drive to increase service quality and value. So how does it all work, and what can we expect going forward? Are we on a path to perfect service quality? Can we expect significant reductions in headcount, or just new roles? Let’s find out!

Code: General

Although bright, brilliant, and even articulate, many IT professionals struggle with communication—a skill that when lacking can diminish success and stifle a career. Improving your communication skills is another step toward success in an organization. Basic communication requires that information is shared between people, the content is seen, heard and understood. But...there are nuances to communication that go beyond the basics to help ensure that information is received, considered, and understood in the way that it was meant to be. Successful IT leaders know technology AND they must know how to communicate with impact to build relationships, encourage action, and create results.

During this session Linda will help you understand what it means to communicate with impact and the steps taken at Southern Illinois University to do just that. She will use her hands-on experience to provide actionable tips to improve your communication skills and build leadership qualities. She will also discuss:

• How to identify communication turn-offs
• How to build strong relationships with colleagues as a leader
• How to build consensus among stakeholders
• How to strengthen teams

Code: General

More than ever, IT leaders at all levels need to cultivate a strong culture to keep their teams performing at their peak. Most companies are in the throes of significant digital transformation, intense industry competition, and the pressure to do “more with less.” This can lead to change fatigue at a time when the need for leaders to obtain the discretionary effort of their associates just to keep pace, let alone conquer, the many challenges facing them. IT leaders continually need to hone their skills in building an engaged workforce and a high-performance culture. Joe Hayes, CIO of Prudential’s Group Insurance business and former winner of PINK’s Case Study of the Year and Project of the Year, will share his winning ways for creating a highly engaged, productive and positive workplace culture.

Code: Beyond Beginner

Jack takes the very important subject of IT Leadership and uses the Pink20 conference theme to highlight several lessons about how to lead an organization in today’s demanding business world. There is certainly a lot we can learn from Batman that will help us build and lead people! For each lesson, Jack will profile a Batman trait, philosophy, or action, and the discussion will be very significant because he will also reference the next steps to be taken on how to apply it within your IT organization. In addition, he will provide guidance for each lesson on where to go for more details – a book, a specific certification course, or a specific best practice he has experienced himself during his time as a senior IT leader and/or during his many years of strategic consulting. Don’t miss this insightful session on how to be a leadership superhero!

Code: General

Are there differences between and female and males in the workplace? And, if yes, what can we learn from one another? Cristina is set to courageously tackle these subjects! Using her 20+ years of experience in IT, a predominately male dominated industry, as well as her personal life experiences, she will explain how learning to accept natural differences and leveraging each other’s strengths can promote a more productive and equal work environment. Cristina will look at some of the known scientific differences, and then interactively discuss how the differences become strengths through various situations. Audience participation will be encouraged as Cristina seeks to leverage the group's personal experiences.

Code: Beyond Beginner

We’re deep into the Digital Age, and it’s already clear that the knowledge and skills needed by today’s IT leaders is quite different from the leaders of the past. In this session, David will highlight for you his views on what makes a successful “Digital Leader” in today’s IT Service Management world. Key topics to be discussed include:

• Sharpening the IT saw. How to REALLY keep abreast of new trends and technologies, and how to assess what’s most meaningful and valuable to your organization
• Focusing on how data is used in an organization. Successful digital strategies are more about the awareness of how an organization is structured and performs as it is about the potential for newer technologies
• Becoming a true advocate for the customers of your organization. This can only happen if you can get inside their minds and understand what is important to them, and what they expect from you
• Truly understanding how risk can be reduced when the dots connect together
• A checklist for successfully effecting innovative change

Code: General

Individuals climbing the ladder in the technology field can face numerous challenges, and quite often these challenges are doubled for a woman in the same field. Have you ever heard the following: “You are on the succession plan, but maybe next time” or “Who would we get to do your job if we promoted you?” Have you ever completed a major project only to have someone else take credit for it?

During this session, Nicole will discuss some of the challenges that she has faced in her 20 years of climbing the IT ladder. Using her personal experiences within various organizations including Grinnell Mutual, she will share stories of past challenges and “ah-ha” moments that have promoted her growth over the years. Nicole will talk about how giving back and paying it forward enabled her to get where she is today – and how things didn’t always go as planned.

Nicole will also discuss the steps that you can take for continued growth in IT and to take charge of your own career including:

• How to develop yourself with a purpose
• How to embrace networking
• How to ask for what you really want
• Why waiting for change is not the answer

Code: General

It has been said that you cannot teach anyone to swim or ride a bike by sending them to a seminar. Yet, we seem to ignore this key fact when we need to upskill our staff in IT!

As a leader in IT, you’ve probably seen how people come back from training and certification experiences and often struggle to apply their new knowledge in the real-world pressure-cooker environment of today’s busy IT organization. By their very nature, many of today’s IT certification programs – whether ITIL 4, or DevOps, or Lean – seem to focus on theoretical possibilities. All good knowledge indeed; but, how do you apply the concepts back at work?

In this session, Paul will explain how new thinking needs to be applied when planning training for staff. In particular, the following questions will be discussed:

• How should leaders set objectives for training?
• What options do leaders have for imparting new practical knowledge to staff?
• How can leaders and staff make new learning “stick” – and what does this really mean?
• How can we know when training has been effective – is there a way to measure?
• Are business simulations effective; what are they; and what are the pros and cons of this option versus more traditional classroom training?

Code: Beyond Beginner

Are you a senior IT manager or aspiring to become one? Then you need to know the answer to: what is a Lean IT Leader?

A Lean IT Leader is someone who knows how to model and continually improve the Enterprise IT value system. Lean IT organizations enjoy a culture that celebrates excellence, teamwork, and innovation. Lean Leaders promote a mantra of continuous improvement through Leadership methods that instill within teams and individuals a Kaizen mindset and a shared passion to create value, increased speed and reduced costs.

To achieve these goals, Lean Leaders, (including Lean CIOs!) are able to examine how well work flows through the whole organization, irrespective of boundaries such as functional silos. Using Lean principles, IT Leaders can look at IT processes, policies, workflows, and data in order to identify sources of waste and impediments to the overall value flow. This effort requires systems thinking and the holistic ability to review the relationships between people, process and technology factors that contribute to each value stream.

How is this all accomplished? Can it really be done? Yes! Troy, one of the world’s leading Lean IT authorities, will tell you how.

To maximize participation, this session is scheduled more than once throughout the conference – it is presented on Sunday afternoon as a Pre-Conference Optimizer and Monday a breakout session.

Beyond Beginner

In this 5 part series, Jack will profile the concept of “IT business value” and what it really means, how it should be designed, planned, communicated and executed, and how to continuously improve capabilities.

Part 1: What It Really Means For IT

The concept of business value underlies the meaning and purpose of conversations about services and service delivery. The challenge is that understanding, measuring and learning to leverage the delivery of business value can be vague and potentially confusing. In this session, the first of a series of five sessions on delivering business value, Jack will provide a context for defining business value and a frame of reference for aligning business value with service value – a critical focus for all service providers. Following this session will be 4 subsequent units that will expand on the frame of reference.

Part 2: Setting & Aligning Direction

Business value does not just happen. Organizations that have developed a strong focus on the importance of business value have aligned organizational planning and execution activities to assure everyone in the organization – whether those providing products and services to customers or internal service providers – understand the importance of delivering value at the right time, in the right place with the right intent. Jack focus in this session is on the importance for leaders to set the right directional “compass” for the organization and thus avoiding missteps that can be potentially disastrous. Jack will provide practical guidance for value alignment and examples from the field.

Part 3: Mapping The Value Delivery Capabilities

Success doesn’t happen by chance! Organizations exist and survive in ecosystems. Instantiating business value deliver capabilities into an organization, leaders must understand how the demand for value is translated through internal systems into viable customer relevant products and services. Critical to affecting the system is understanding not just how value is created internally but what are and how do externalities influence customer demand and organizational efficacy. During this session, Jack will bring forward the importance of systems thinking that are supported by value chains, business and operating models and approaches that can simplify what would seem to be a daunting task.

Part 4: Critical Business Value Delivery Capabilities

So far, the Delivering Business Value five-part series has grounded the discussion of business value, setting the direction and couched delivery capabilities within a system archetype. There are three organizational capabilities vital to these concepts – leadership, innovation and relationship building. Leaders plays an overarching role in guiding both the innovative and creative spirit of the organization to deliver business value that sustains competitive advantage. However strong internal and external relationships assure that value needs and concerns are understood, met and issues addressed. Jack will highlight proven approaches and provide guidance for you your organization can assess these important capabilities and defining paths forward.

Part 5: Improving Capabilities

Managing optimal service value internally and externally relies on individual, team, and functional behavior that is consistent, repeatable and necessary. Processes can support operational, tactical and strategic efforts of the organization in pursuit of superior value delivery. There a few processes that stand out as vital to the business value delivery acumen. In this capstone session, Jack align the prior 4 sessions with key service delivery and management processes that, without which, success can be an uphill slog. During the final minutes of this session will be a review of a guiding framework that can be employed within your organization.

Code: Beyond Beginner

It was once said that people don't care what you know until they know that you care!

Join Douglas as he looks through his senior IT leader lens and describes his organization’s “Day In The Life” innovative approach to continual improvement, based on building relationships and walking a few miles in others’ shoes, including your internal business partners and customers.

Douglas will describe how his team at Blue Cross and Blue Shield (HCSC) introduced new collaborative programs that have successfully integrated business and IT services, reducing business downtime and creating a true “one team” atmosphere. His session looks at how the innovative “Day in the Life” program has been distinguished with the organization’s highest honors and has become a staple for how we shift operations to be more customer centric. Douglas will also share information and lessons learned on how HCSC took their ITSM operational excellence to a new level by creating opportunities, which have resulted in tangible metrics success including the realization of an 87% reduction in major incidents and a 94% Root Cause identification rate.

Code: Beyond Beginner

Delivering value to customers and stakeholders begins with an understanding of who they are, how each group defines value and how and by what means value is delivered. Developing a holistic Relationship Management strategy also means you have defined the key roles that work as a team to define, deliver and measure value delivery.

During this session, Jenna will discuss how NIC’s value delivery journey has evolved by implementing a holistic Relationship Management approach. She will show how, through relationship management, NIC’s IT organization has experienced unparalleled success in customer satisfaction, engagement, and operational support.

Jenna will also address the following:

• What they learned creates value and what does that mean to customers
• How they explored tactical and strategic value delivery approaches that work
• How key roles such as Business work together to support Relationship Management
• How to recognize the differences between perception and reality

Code: Beyond Beginner

Albertsons and Safeway embarked on a multi-year endeavor to merge two dissimilar corporate cultures. While Safeway was highly standardized with a large corporate presence, Albertsons had a strong decentralized approach to operating its business. On the tails of a difficult payroll system upgrade – while at the same time trying to bring the Albertsons stores onto the already existing payroll system within defined timelines – challenges arose when determining priorities. The IT department held the only seat at the governance table!

During this session, Cindy will describe how IT and other business units came together as partners for justice to design a governance process – one that met the necessary IT requirements and its technical architecture and security alignment, while satisfying the business’ strategic objectives and priorities during a time of fast-paced change. Cindy will walk through the challenges faced and overcome along the way, as well as discuss how the business benefitted from the change.

Code: General

Many CIOs are exploring AI (Artificial Intelligence) as a key enabler to roll-out their IT and data strategies and to improve employee satisfaction.

Join this informative session where Dan will describe how the automation of operations through AI has already generated successful outcomes, and also how CIOs are using AI to accelerate their digital transformation goals. Specifically, you’ll learn:

• How AI-driven automation can reduce IT costs
• How to improve operational efficiencies with AI
• Why AI-driven automation can improve customer satisfaction
• Five actionable tips to successfully incorporate AI into digital transformation initiatives

Code: General

Digital Transformation seems to be the latest industry catchphrase. Nobody really knows what it means; but, everybody wants it. Whatever it means, one thing is certain. We are in an age of digital disruption. This disruption means that IT skills, behaviors and culture NEEDS to change, and quickly. Tomorrow may be too late. The future is NOW! What does this mean? What needs to change and who needs to change? The IT manager of tomorrow must lead this change – are you up to IT?

In this session, Paul will look at experiences from more than 400 organizations and the critical success factors identified for transforming into “today’s IT digital manager”. Failure is NOT an option! In this presentation, you will receive seven pragmatic tips to take away and start applying today.

Code: Beginner

Effective Service Management can take an IT group, and a whole organization, to the next level. But, in Jeff’s case tackling improvements around Incident, Problem, Change, etc., seemed overwhelming and challenging – especially because it involved IT and healthcare. In this session, Jeff will discuss how his organization’s Service Management journey went from a very manual intensive ticketing system, to a highly performing system that puts them at the forefront of Service Management, including change, release, incident, problem and knowledge. You will learn how University of Kansas Health System used Service Management to improve the process, and also incorporated Lean and Agile principles to streamline the process and create a path of continuous improvement.

Jeff’s presentation also highlights the following:

• How to develop greater awareness of the relationship between Service Management and Lean IT
• The issues involved with their transition and how they were successfully overcome
• A view of the before and after Service Management and Lean implementation data analytics

Code: Beyond Beginner

Are you a senior IT manager or aspiring to become one? Then you need to know the answer to: what is a Lean IT Leader? And, why is this leadership approach so powerful?

Troy will explain that a Lean IT Leader is someone who knows how to model and continually improve the Enterprise IT value system. Lean IT organizations enjoy a culture that celebrates excellence, teamwork, and innovation. Lean Leaders promote a mantra of continuous improvement through Leadership methods that instill a Kaizen mindset and a shared passion to create value, increase speed and reduce costs within teams and individuals.

To achieve these goals, Lean Leaders, including Lean CIOs(!), are able to examine how well work flows through the whole organization, irrespective of boundaries such as functional silos. Using Lean principles, IT Leaders can look at IT processes, policies, workflows, and data in order to identify sources of waste and impediments to the overall value flow. This effort requires systems thinking and the holistic ability to review the relationships between people, process and technology factors that contribute to each value stream.

How is this all accomplished? Can it really be done? Yes! Troy, one of the world’s leading Lean IT authorities, will tell you how. And, he’ll use content from Pink’s Lean IT Leadership certification course to highlight key points.

To maximize participation, this session is scheduled more than once throughout the conference – it is presented as a Power Hour session on Monday and Tuesday of the conference.

Code: General

Lean IT and Organizational Change Management are both gaining momentum within a growing number of organizations. In most cases, they are approached independently vs. looking at how when blended, can help each other be more successful during an ITSM improvement and/or implementation. The IT Service Value Stream relies on efficient and effective tactics to accelerate value for customers but, it can be difficult for an organization to complete a successful transformation to a sustainable Lean IT Culture without good OCM. Over the past year, an IT division within the US Navy has learned how to avoid and recover from mistakes when they tried to eat the Lean IT elephant all at once vs. starting small initiatives in an area where they have a sphere of influence and control and leverage low hanging fruit to gain momentum. During this session, Alan will lead an interactive discussion surrounding synergies between the Lean IT and OCM frameworks and investigate how they can turn your Lean IT diet into a sustainable lifestyle.

Code: General

Service Management is so much more than just Incident, Problem and Change. Organizations often struggle to move beyond a process centric approach. The organizations that focus on end-to-end service provision, now encapsulated in ITIL 4 value streams, are gaining more and more from their Service Management processes.

During this session, Andrew will take you through the Service Management journey at the IT Services Department at University of Oxford. He will elaborate on how the Service Catalogue was used to improve end-to-end service provision and how they have adopted Agile and Lean and are now using ITIL 4 with its emphasis on value streams, to move to a higher level of co-creating value with the business partnerships within the university. He will discuss the failures and triumphs that have been encountered along the way and the lessons learned from each.

Code: Beginner

In this overview, Beverly will explain Lean’s origins and major guiding principles. You’ll walk away with an understanding of what Lean Management is, and an awareness of its business and IT value.

Simply put, Lean is focused on getting the right things to the right place at the right time in the right quantity to achieve perfect work flow, while minimizing waste and being flexible and able to change. To accomplish this, Lean thinking changes the focus of management from optimizing separate technologies, assets, and vertical departments to optimizing the flow of products and services through entire value streams that flow horizontally across technologies, assets, and departments to customers. Eliminating waste along entire value streams, instead of at isolated points, creates processes that need less human effort, less space, less capital, and less time to make products and services at far less costs and with much fewer defects, compared with traditional business systems. Organizations are able to respond to changing customer desires with high variety, high quality, low cost, and with very fast throughput times.

To maximize participation, this session is scheduled more than once throughout the conference – it is presented on Sunday afternoon as a Pre-Conference Optimizer and Tuesday as a breakout session.

Code: General

Automation. Speed. Agility. Adaptability. Are we talking about the organization of the future? You could be forgiven for thinking so, with the hazy and vague view of DevOps that is so commonly seen today. But at Pink, we believe this describes how your IT organization could be today.

We have worked relentlessly with subject matter experts to bring you the ideas and innovations that shape the future with Pink Elephant’s 15 Essential Practices For DevOps Success.

Attend this two-part session with our DevOps guru, George Spalding. Taken from Pink Elephant’s DevOps Essentials Certification Course, George explains the exclusive-to-Pink ‘Full Stack’ approach, which integrates best practices such as Lean, Agile and ITIL/IT Service Management. George’s practical and uncomplicated advice will guide you on where to begin, and what to do to ensure your DevOps implementation transforms your department into an organization of the future – today!

Presented as two separate sessions, Part One includes practices one through eight and Part Two includes practices nine through fifteen.

Code: General

No doubt about it – DevOps continues to be a growing movement! But, what exactly does it mean? And, why is there still confusion?

Join George for this very revealing session as he debunks many myths and misconceptions surrounding DevOps. George is a DevOps guru – you don’t want to miss his session that explains it all (really!)

George will highlight how DevOps has become a very strong cultural and professional movement that stresses communication, collaboration, integration and automation to improve workflows and efficiencies between Software Development, IT Operations and ITSM professionals. He will also profile content from Pink’s DevOps Essentials certification course that profiles a “Full Stack” approach with focus on people and culture, processes and automation. Attend this revealing session to learn how to instill a culture of collaboration and increased communication across your enterprise.

To maximize participation, this session is scheduled more than once throughout the conference – it is presented on Monday afternoon as a breakout session and Tuesday as an Early Riser.

Code: General

Both DevOps and ITIL 4 have a lot to say about deploying and releasing effectively and efficiently into production without impacting availability. However, for many these two disciplines seem to be at odds or at least very challenging to describe how they work together in harmony. In this practical session, Troy will provide a clear picture of how to use the DevOps ‘Full Stack’ (culture, practices, and automation) along with ITIL 4 practices to provide an integrated approach for high-velocity value creation.

Topics to be covered:

• ITIL release and deployment integrated with continuous delivery
• How to ‘right size’ change authorization for fast flow
• Integrating Agile XP test-driven development with service validation and testing
• Tying together the CMDB, asset management, and DevOps automation

Code: General

Traditionally, IT organizations have established different teams and practices for IT Operations and IT Service Management. In an IT landscape that is rapidly evolving in its use of dynamic, cloud-based infrastructure, DevOps practices, automation technologies and cognitive capabilities, successful IT leaders move towards an aligned ITSM and ITOM approach to make their organization more effective.

Join Peter for an in-depth discussion about how an integrated IT Service Management and Operations approach will help IT organizations improve their effectiveness. Peter will look at some of the factors that drive an increased need for close interaction between IT Service Management and IT Operations and identify required capabilities for such interaction. He will look at how to easily establish a closer interaction, using a flexible, evolutionary approach. Peter will also review several innovative use cases that help you re-imagine aligned experiences in your organization – leading to improved outcomes.

Code: General

DevOps practices are increasingly established in many business and IT organizations and change the rules regarding how to deploy and operate software solutions. IT Service Management is perceived to have responded sub-optimally to the emergence of DevOps, and product teams will often not accept any externally imposed/suggested operational methodology which does not demonstrably provide value. To optimize the outcome of ITSM activities, traditional ITSM processes and tools need to be re-visited – from the Service Desk to Change Management. ITSM leaders need to balance centralized governance requirements with the desire of DevOps teams to increase velocity of innovation.

Join Peter to learn and discuss about emerging ITSM practices that are more aligned with DevOps, such as omni-channel interactions, Swarming, High-frequency Change Control or Cynefin. Learn how you can use these practices to re-position ITSM to be a valuable addition to DevOps groups and thus establish greater organizational confidence and adoption.

Code: General

ITIL 4 defines four dimensions of Service Management that collectively are critical to the effective and efficient facilitation of business value for customers and other stakeholders in the form of products and services. These are: organizations and people; partners and suppliers; information and technology; value streams and processes. Taken from Pink’s ITIL 4 Foundation certification course, Robin will describe each of these in detail and explain how these four dimensions represent perspectives which are relevant to the whole Service Value System and all IT services being managed, including the entirety of the Service Value Chain and all of ITIL 4’s 34 practices.

Code: General

Core to ITIL v3 was a set of 26 processes and functions arranged in a Service Lifecycle consisting of Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation and Continual Service Improvement.

ITIL 4 takes a different approach, with a Service Value System (SVS) that demonstrates how opportunity/demand is turned into business value. It consists of a set of guiding principles, governance, service value chain activities, a set of 34 practices, and continual improvement. The central element of the SVS is the Service Value Chain, an operating model which outlines the key activities required to respond to demand and facilitate business value creation through the management of products and services. Taken from Pink Elephant’s ITIL 4 Foundation certification course, Troy’s session explains the need for this model and why the Service Value Chain is more flexible and dynamic than ITIL v3’s Service Lifecycle.

Code: Beginner

For almost twenty-five years, this best practice framework for IT Service Management has enabled IT organizations to be more productive, effective, service oriented, and process-minded. In addition to highlighting key differences between ITIL v3’s Service Lifecycle model versus ITIL 4’s Service Value System model, this session is designed for those new to ITIL or needing a refresh. The agenda includes a high-level overview of ITIL’s history, key concepts and practices, and it also highlights ITIL’s business value.

To maximize participation, this session is scheduled more than once throughout the conference – it is presented on Sunday afternoon as a Pre-Conference Optimizer and Monday as a breakout session.

Code: General

The ITIL v3 Service Management model includes 26 processes and functions designed around a five-stage lifecycle. ITIL 4’s new Service Management model includes 34 practices (not processes!) designed around a Service Value System.

During this session, Gary’s focus will be on describing the following:

• What IT leaders need to know about the significant differences between a practice versus a process or function.
• ITIL 4 groups its 34 practices into three categories: General Management, Service Management, and Technical Management. What is the significance of these distinctions for IT leaders?
• Which of the ITIL 4 practices are new (were not part of ITIL v3) and what’s important for IT leaders to understand about them?
• What considerations are there for IT leaders who want to decide between continuing to follow ITIL v3 best practices versus ITIL 4? Is it one or the other, or both? And for how much longer?

Don’t miss this top-notch educational session that will help you understand how to plan your future team training and continual improvement programs. And bring your questions! Gary will answer all of them.

Code: Beginner

According to ITIL 4, a guiding principle is a recommendation that guides an organization in all circumstances, regardless of changes in its goals, strategies, type of work, or management structure. Taken from Pink’s ITIL 4 Foundation certification course, Beverly’s presentation will focus on the seven guiding principles that embody the core messages of ITIL and of Service Management in general, supporting successful actions and good decisions of all types and at all levels. They are: focus on value; start where you are; progress iteratively with feedback; collaborate and promote visibility; think and work holistically; keep it simple and practical; optimize and automate.

These principles can (and should) be used to guide organizations in their work as they adopt a Service Management approach and adapt ITIL guidance to their own specific needs and circumstances. The guiding principles encourage and support organizations in continual improvement at all levels. These principles are also reflected in many other frameworks, methods, standards, philosophies, and/or bodies of knowledge, such as Lean, Agile, DevOps, and COBIT. This allows organizations to effectively integrate the use of multiple methods into an overall approach to service management.

To maximize participation, this session is scheduled more than once throughout the conference. It will be presented on Monday morning as a Early Riser session and Wednesday as a breakout session.

Code: Beyond Beginner

Batman is extraordinary because he does not have any real super powers! He is excellent at his job because he knows how to use his utility belt very effectively. This, together with his ingenuity and courage, and his ability to problem solve, have made him a powerful force! So, what’s in your IT superhero utility belt? What enables you to be an extraordinary IT leader?

AXELOS is planning to fully launch the complete suite of ITIL 4 books and accompanying certifications by the time of this conference. Alongside the 3 new Specialist books and the Strategist book, there is also the “ITIL Leader: Digital & IT Strategy” volume. There’s a lot we can learn from AXELOS’ research and David intends to draw from this new knowledge to help you kit out your utility belt. Just like Batman, there are tools and techniques that are really essential, and then there are other resources to draw upon at special times under special circumstances. Come to this session and hear David explain how the complete ITIL 4 resources will become the foundation of your new “IT Leader’s Utility Belt”.

Code: General

ITIL 4 talks about how continuous improvement is the responsibility of everyone. But how can you do that when you feel like you don’t have the right structure or support? Call on your super powers, of course!

During this session, Elaine will discuss how one of the most important super powers of all involves engaging with the customers and users of IT services and processes to understand what their needs are and how to cement strong value-added partnerships.

Elaine explains how The Office of IT at Brigham Young University has embarked on a campus outreach program where engagement with all campus colleges and departments is fostered, leading to problems being found and solved. In the end, all of this is being done by everyday people who are using the information and their existing skills to engage others and uncover ways that things can be improved. Partnerships between IT, customers, and users are growing, and continuous improvement is thriving. All because everyday people are using their super powers to solve problems.

Using her experiences at BYU, Elaine will discuss the following;

1. How everyone can engage in solving problems, regardless of their job or position
2. How problems can be solved using the continual improvement process steps
3. How ITIL 4’s service value chain and guiding principles contain key super powers that everyone can use

Code: General

With the introduction of ITIL 4 and the Service Value Chain, understanding the success of a service is more than just knowing what was done. It is also knowing how it was done. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are an excellent mechanism to provide insight into service delivery; but, how can they be used beyond the Service Desk? And how can an organization come to a consensus on Standard KPIs for all of IT and the business when the best efforts are often met with obstacles, such as: defensiveness; the “good enough” way of thinking; and of course, the snowflake syndrome.

During this session, Sarah will discuss how using ITIL 4’s principle of ‘Start Where You Are’ helped define the baseline of a Service Value Chain at Rochester Institute of Technology, so that improvement opportunities were identified and pursued. She will discuss how they used the Service Value Chain and the Service Value System to overcome their KPI challenges, which were to develop a list of standard KPIs for IT and the business that now provide information about the customer experience as well as process performance.

Join Sarah as she talks about:

• How to avoid getting bogged down by dividing KPIs into three categories: mandatory, downtime and performance
• How compiling a list of Lean Performance Measures helped with their journey
• The next steps at Rochester Institute of Technology

Code: Beyond Beginner

Join Jennifer for this two-part half-day workshop.

During part one, Jen will present an overview about the key concepts and guiding principles of “process maturity”. The session includes a discussion of the CMM (Capability Maturity Model) and the six different process maturity stages: 0 – Not Performed; 1 – Initial; 2 – Repeatable; 3 – Defined; 4 – Managed; 5 – Optimized. Jennifer will tell you what they mean and why it’s important for you to know.

During part two, Jen will apply a process maturity assessment to Problem Management. This is your opportunity to take a “health check” of this important ITIL process. She will take you through a questionnaire of approximately 35 questions that will enable you to score your Problem Management process – is it “defined”? Is it “optimized”? Jennifer will help you determine the maturity of your process, and as you walk through each question, you will learn what is needed to take your Problem Management process to the next level of maturity.

Code: General

Best Practices For Implementing Incident Management
Best Practices For Implementing Problem Management
Best Practices For Implementing Change Management
Best Practices For Establishing A Highly Functional Service Desk

While many IT professionals have started their ITIL 4 journey, many are still focused on implementing best practices according to v3. That’s OK – both versions are very relevant, and we’ve got it all covered!

Judy, a well-seasoned ITIL Expert, is on hand to present four different sessions and to answer your most pressing questions about implementing Incident, Problem and Change Management processes, and how to establish a highly functional Service Desk. Judy will start each of her four presentations with a brief overview of best practices for that particular process and/or function. Then, for the remainder of the time, she will respond to questions and address your biggest challenges in moving ITIL theory into actual practice. These are not your typical “death by PowerPoint” sessions; rather, they are like getting free consulting!

Code: General

“Digital Transformation” – it’s a commonly uttered phrase; yet, it seems like everyone has their own perspective of what is (or isn’t) included. Research conducted by AXELOS has shown that there are in fact four different kinds of transformations that should be considered when an organization embarks on a digital transformation initiative. These are known as the ‘Four Pillars of Digital Transformation’, and they are: Operational Transformation, Business Transformation, Cultural Transformation, and Experience Transformation.

Join Catherine to learn about each type of transformation, how they can interact in often unpredictable ways, and how ITIL 4 was architected to be able to address this complex challenge.

In this session, you will discover the main factors that should be considered for each transformation type, and how each of the newly developed ITIL 4 Managing Professional modules can equip IT professionals and leaders with the necessary management or technical skills needed for successful transformation efforts.

Transformation is built on ITIL.

Code: General

High-velocity IT, where organizations use highly automated systems across their value chain, requires a re-imagining of Service Management. During this session, Akshay will introduce the new ITIL 4 module, High-Velocity IT, and explain how organizations can begin to work like a digital native. He will also outline five key objectives of High-Velocity IT organizations, and how this can be realized using key concepts found in ITIL 4. The session will focus on creating value streams that track work across the organization using the ITIL 4 Service Value System, and will demonstrate how to develop effective value stream mapping to visualize how work moves through the ITIL 4 Service value chain.

During this practical and interactive session, attendees will hear about specific and tangible learnings that they can put into practice straight away including how to use a visual management board and how to effectively prioritize work.

Code: General

Has your organization adopted ITIL’s ways of working from versions 1-3? Is it working with 100% efficiency? Or, do you know you need to update some working methods; but, you are not sure which ones or where to start? Join Akshay for some top tips on where to start with your organizational transition. There is always room for continual improvement

With the increasing demands on IT service management teams to deliver high quality products and services at a faster rate, some service management approaches are not always adequate to deliver the necessary results. ITSM teams need to evolve how they manage teams, resources and workflows to ensure they are always co-creating valuable products and services.

This session will provide you with four different options on where to start with evolving the processes, improving efficiencies, adopting new technologies or ways working, and adapting to a service culture.

Code: General

A conference mainstay, and favorite from Harvard Business School. Every IT leader should know about Kotter’s 8-step model for implementing change!

Leading Change is recognized as one of the all-time best business books and the definitive work on the subject. Harvard Business School Professor John P. Kotter methodically and carefully explains his eight-step process for leading and managing major organizational change in an easy to understand fashion. Leading Change captures his wealth of knowledge and experience working with major companies all over the world. Professor Kotter takes concepts like leadership, urgency, vision, strategy, quick wins, and communication and puts them in well-explained, practical terms that anyone can follow.

If you're a manager at any level of your IT organization who is currently leading any aspect of a change (and today, it’s an ongoing occurrence!), understanding Kotter’s eight-step change process is a must-know, and this is a not-to-be-missed session. Plus, learn how to apply the best practices from this book from one of the world's leading ITSM consultants – Robin Hysick. You'll gain huge benefits from Robin's extensive ITIL implementation and IT project management experience as she walks you through several real-world examples for each of the eight steps.

Code: General

Commissioner Gordon’s daughter, and Batman’s OTHER love interest, is Batgirl! Did you know that Batgirl is a librarian? In addition to being a crime fighter and the daughter of Gotham City Police Commissioner James Gordon, Barbara Gordon – aka Batgirl – has a doctorate in library science and is the head of the Gotham City Public Library.

Pink’s own Jack Probst is also working toward his doctorate and is here to share with you the best books to read to better understand how to lead and communicate change, and how to make change stick! Jack will profile several best-selling business books including: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip and Dan Heath; Leading Change, by John Kotter; The Jelly Effect: How to Make Your Communication Stick, by Andy Bounds; and Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson. As Jack profiles each book and its key teachings, he will also explain why you, as an IT manager seeking to understand Organizational Change Management and how to successfully lead people through change, should add these books to your must-read lists.

Code: General

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!

Conference attendees love Denise’s very high energy presentations.

A communication and motivation expert, Denise’s session features two things everyone likes: chocolate and motivation! It teaches nine motivational concepts that can help participants get more out of every day, both personally and professionally. You will learn about persistence, passion, effective allocation of resources, the law of diminishing return, and more! During this session, Denise includes a chocolate tasting to demonstrate not only how to appreciate chocolate, but life itself.

Code: General

As Robin notes, approximately 70% of change initiatives fail due to the ineffectual handling of the process side of change and because the people side of change is not managed effectively – if at all. The problem is, many managers are not aware of the models for leading their organizations through major change!

Robin will share several methodologies taken from Pink’s certification course on Organizational Change Management, including a major focus on: Lewin’s Three-Stage Model of organizational change and why the all-important last stage, Freeze, is often overlooked (huge mistake!); Bridges’ Transition Model that provides an approach for effectively guiding individuals through the lifecycle of a change initiative; and guidance on how to provide effective leadership during change initiatives.

Code: General

There are dozens of resources on IT Change Management – what tools are available, how to implement it in your organization, ITIL best practices, etc. There is very little information that focuses on best practices for communication within IT Change Management. Brigham Young University had very little documentation or standard practices for IT change communication. Without a solid communication plan, the organization was struggling to communicate with the campus, vendors and interdepartmentally about IT change.

During this session, Mandy will share how – over the course of a year – BYU improved their communication plan. They set out by logging all of their efforts, failures and successes, and developed a change communication plan complete with documentation, images and examples. She will share the lessons learned, including practical examples of how to improve communication within IT Change Management, focusing on the following:

• How to build communication bridges with business partners and vendors
• How to develop strategy to reach different audiences, who have difference needs
• How to improve communication on higher priority changes

Code: Beyond Beginner

Since the mid-2000s, Organizational Change Management and Transformation have become permanent features of the business landscape. Vast new markets and labor pools have opened up, innovative technologies have put once-powerful business models on the chopping block and capital flows and investor demand have become less predictable. To meet these challenges, firms have become more sophisticated in the best practices for Organizational Change Management. They are far more sensitive to and more keenly-aware of the role that culture plays.

To succeed, they must have an intimate understanding of the human side of change management – the alignment of the company’s culture, values, people, and behaviors – to encourage the desired results. Plans themselves do not capture value; value is realized only through the sustained, collective actions of the thousands – perhaps the tens of thousands – of employees who are responsible for designing, executing and living with the changed environment.

Join Bonnie as she discusses how the above is applicable to her leadership situation and the many facets of Organizational Change Management in her organization including:

• Addressing the “human side” systematically
• How they started at the top
• How her organization involved every layer and made the formal case
• Processes used for creating ownership and communicating the message
• How they assessed the cultural landscape and addressed the culture explicitly

Code: General

Building meaningful and successful relationships along the integrated Service Value Stream, like personal relationships, requires investment to initiate, nurture and grow into something long-lasting. As a result of continuing advancements in impersonal and non-verbal communication options (e.g. email, texting), some organizations have lost the art of talking to people. We’ve heard the three most important elements of a successful ITSM organization are: communication, communication, and communication. So, why are we having 2-way conversations using “reply-all” via email?

During this session, Alan will discuss his real-life experiences and reflect on what he’s learned about various communication practices in his more than 20 years of working in various ITSM roles. He will also elaborate on how, during the past 18 months, his team’s efforts within their US Navy branch is advocating the “old” practice of personal conversations (e.g. face-to-face or phone) to foster new and improved relationships within his organization and with the customers their Service Relationship Management Team supports and advocates for.

Code: General

Change Management can often be a roadblock for development and infrastructure teams wanting to get their changes in place. Daunting processes and procedures, having to track down multiple approvals, waiting for CAB meetings, etc. can all lead to the perception that Change Management adds little value and just gets in the way of getting things done. While effective Change Management can take an IT group and organization to the next level, making the transition to an optimal process can often seem overwhelming and downright impossible. The good news is, it doesn’t have to be!

Have you ever felt like you have gone to bed, but woke up 5 years earlier? Kris does! Shortly after her Pink19 presentation on a Change Transformation Project, Kris joined OGE Energy to help optimize their IT Change Management Process. In this session, Kris will take you on the OGE journey – which started off with almost all the same process pains identified in her last project, but in an entirely different industry and culture. She will focus on how changes were implemented as well as the struggles met along the way. Kris will also highlight the need for strong organizational change management when “changing change".

Kris will also explore the following key items that are critical to a successful transformation:

• The importance of using a LEAN approach to process design
• Creating a common vision and vocabulary to help with understanding and adoption
• Critical communication, including concise documentation and appropriate training
• Creating a culture of accountability to help facilitate “shifting left” and allowing more autonomy for Change Requesters while still providing process value

Code: Beyond Beginner

In this high-level management overview, Troy profiles the model used in Pink’s certification course, Integrated Service Management Essentials. His overview includes a look at the model’s major components including: what does integration look like; the concepts of demand, plan, build, run; business value and what this really means; the voice of the customer – what it means and how/why to use this as your guiding light; and the roles of ITIL, Lean and DevOps in the integrated model.

Don’t miss this eye-opening session to understand the next steps you need to take to more fully understand and then implement an integrated approach to IT Service Management.

Code: General

How long can an IT Service Management journey take? Nationwide has been on a continual IT Service Management journey for nearly 20 years. They have experienced major changes within the organization and along with those, major changes in the industry. During this session, Jeff will discuss how this multi-year journey has delivered value to the organization through years of constant IT change, as well as the ups and downs that they have experienced along the way. He will also discuss how Nationwide is now delving into automation to respond to increasing pressures of speed to market, reduced costs and the ever-increasing availability demands. Jeff will explain the steps they have taken with their ITSM processes to address Cloud, DevOps, Security challenges and Continual Change, the challenges they have faced and where they are now with their never-ending journey.

Code: General

Changes in the way IT delivers services and products brings a fair amount of uncertainty, confusion and mixed expectations. There are multiple processes, methodologies and frameworks from which to choose, and each presents a unique set of challenges. In many cases, leadership within an organization can become disillusioned by the results promised using a single framework or methodology. However, taking the parts that work best for your business or technology problems and using them together can have a positive impact on the outcomes. Which one should your organization use? Is one better than the other? Do any of them work well together?

During this session, Preston will describe how Quicken Loans leveraged the best parts of ITSM, Agile and DevOps to impact the outcome for its IT and business challenges, resulting in being able to move faster and with certainty.

He will also discuss:

• What happened to the CAB (Change Advisory Board)?
• How to gain a better understanding of the value you can derive from each framework
• The value of Lean, ITSM and SAFe and how they work well together

Code: Beginner

Working in a small business IT department has several unique challenges. The level of technological sophistication that employees and business clients expect is much the same as within large departments. How does an IT department consisting of less than 10 people create the ‘full-sized’ IT experience? The answer lies in many of the critical success factors that larger organizations once knew but have forgotten.

• No silos: When you only have a few specialists, everyone takes an all-hands-on-deck approach. They bring their specialization, but are willing to do any work required
• Keep It Simple: The larger the organization it seems the more complex the processes. Small shops survive by keeping processes simple and elegant
• Service Brokers: When you simply don’t have all of the necessary skills, you find ways to integrate partners that fill gaps
• Automate, Automate, Automate: Through digital optimization and integrated tool chains, a few key people can accomplish wonderful things

Using his personal experiences, Chris will share how Brailsford & Dunlavey’s IT department was transformed from a reactive ‘keep the lights on’ focus to a fully integrated and proactive technology team. Chris will also discuss how a team of five members manages a private-cloud operations infrastructure, internal and client-facing application development projects, and a white-glove Integrated Service Management experience. He will share what large IT organizations re-learn from their small sized counterparts.

Code: General

Paul and George will walk you through a few example exercises that take place during the more popular business simulations that Pink offers as training options. If you’ve thought about exploring “simulation games”, but weren’t quite sure how to go about it, here is a very unique opportunity to experience a few demonstrations from one of the best simulation trainers, and from one of the creators!

This session will explain what typically occurs during a day-long business simulation. The discussion includes who is involved, typical roles, objectives, and types of exercises. They will discuss the pros of this type of experiential training together with critical success factors for making the most of the investment. Thousands of IT organizations have already used business simulations as a way to enforce key concepts of ITIL, DevOps, Lean, project management, and more. Attend this not-to-be-missed session and get a unique opportunity to learn more about how this training option can be used very successfully to reinforce application of the concepts learned during certification courses.

Code: General

Design patterns are common, reusable solutions to regularly occurring problems and are frequently used in architecture, software design, and many other fields. Many organizations face common challenges when designing, creating, transitioning, and delivering IT-enabled services, however, little documented knowledge exists describing common patterns that organizations can apply to address real-world challenges.

Such patterns will increase organizational efficiency and effectiveness and save time and money. There are many areas of service management where design patterns exist but have not been formally documented and shared. These areas include service portfolio management, service catalog management, change management and incident management. During this session Michael will discuss how leading service organizations can apply common design patterns to increase the velocity and value of service management best practices adoption.

Michael will also discuss the following:

• The history of design patterns
• How design patterns are commonly used in other industries
• The common service management challenges that all organizations face and the design patterns that map to those challenges
• Service management patterns that organizations can easily apply for common service provider activities

Code: General

Today’s digital businesses face more complex threats than ever before. These range from IT services failures, application latency and outages to performance and security issues, none of which your customers will tolerate. For decades, the goal of Incident Response in IT has been to increase user productivity.

How do you get them back up and running as fast as possible? Truthfully, Incident Management is usually more of a band-aid than a cure. We know how to eliminate existing incidents using root cause analysis and Kaizen and we know how to reduce incidents up front by improving the quality of changes. But what IT still struggles with is cyber or security-related incidents. Most service desks function as the frontline reporting structure for ALL types of incidents, but without a specific process for handling security issues.

During this session, Vincent will address the following:

• The cybersecurity threats which may impact your systems and your services
• Why Security Incident Response requires a different process
• What technologies are used to detect and respond to security incidents
• The opportunity for Service Support to become the central incident coordinator

Code: Generic

There has been much press over the past several years about the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT devices are not new, but their prevalence within businesses is increasing as more practical uses for them are discovered, advancements in AI and blockchain technologies increase, as well as the ongoing development of the 5G communications network. In turn, IoT devices are increasing reliance on the ability to manage and mine big data. IoT devices have outgrown the ‘coolness’ factor and are now presenting asset management control and cybersecurity challenges to IT Management.

During this session, Charlie will discuss these challenges and explore ways in which IT Service Management can effectively manage them to optimize the value and benefits that these devices can provide.

Code: Beyond Beginner

In this session, Phyllis will show how businesses need to be mindful of the risks and opportunities provided by today’s new technologies. She will give specific examples of how existing business models have been, and can be, affected by technologies such as search bots; sensors; the Internet of Things; dash buttons; chat bots; predictive analytics; artificial intelligence and machine learning. What will be learned from these examples is how the application of new technologies in corporate IT services can deliver meaningful improvements to quality, increased business value, the opportunity for new ways to serve customers, and reduce costs.

The main learning objectives from this session are:

• An understanding of which of the new technologies can improve support
• How to use chatbots with knowledge and scripting
• How to use predictive analytics to drive incident routing and other information
• Using location awareness to more directly assign work

At the end of the session, Phyllis will ensure you walk away with a detailed checklist and a high-level roadmap for your next steps in applying new technologies into your IT operation.

Code: General

Every IT Service Management (ITSM) team has had a goal to “shift left” – but despite all the efforts on knowledge, portals, and early chatbots, most tickets are still handled manually by the service desk. As a result, a good portion of the IT budget remains dedicated towards answering repetitive questions instead of focusing on strategic initiatives.

During this session, Fran will discuss why now is the perfect time to shift left. He will discuss how the convergence of AI, SaaS, Big Data, and consumer-level self-help have come together to give chatbots the potential to deflect a large percentage of calls from the ITSM help desk. He will also talk about how strategic use of chatbots can help enterprises minimize Tier 1 calls and realize hard dollar savings.

Join Fran as he also discusses:

• Why “shift left” initiatives, on average, get less than 10% employee adoption and how this average can be increased
• How to take advantage of AI, SaaS, Big Data, and consumer-level self-help for ITSM

Code: General

Join Charlie as he introduces you to Pink’s new IT Asset Management Essentials certification course – which includes a new exclusive-to-Pink “integrated” ITAM model. Learn how your IT organization can increase its business value by effectively and efficiently acquiring and managing the life cycle of hardware, software, and mobile IT assets – as well as emerging technologies. The new integrated IT asset management model also includes ITIL 4’s teachings. This session is scheduled more than once on Pink20’s program to maximize learning opportunities for conference attendees.

Code: General

Employee expectations for support are rapidly evolving and internal support teams are being measured against consumer-like experiences – with 68% of employees demanding self-service options and expecting faster, easier access to support. Businesses are turning to new emerging technologies, like Artificial Intelligence (AI), to help meet the challenge and modernize their employee support.

During this session, Chris will explore industry trends and practical management techniques for knowledge management, Artificial Intelligence and employee self-service. He will also provide an overview of research spanning knowledge management adoption, goals and areas of improvement to AI perceptions. Chris will also talk about the impacts of technology on employee support such as changing support team roles and managing new employee expectations. Using his personal experiences, Chris will talk about the steps involved in the deployment and adoption of AI and how businesses can benefit.

Code: General

Employees are consumers, too. They regularly interact with companies that provide superior customer service experiences. The effects of this consumerization mean expectations for that same level of service have made their way to the workplace. So, how can organizations address these expectations when it comes to internal service delivery? In a recent SolarWinds survey, more than 85% of IT professionals said that IT will be “mission critical” or “very important” in driving the employee experience in their organizations this year.

During this session, Tim will discuss how the best way to start improving employee engagement and experience with the technology employees rely on, is through the service desk. He will define IT’s role in employee engagement and discuss why the service desk needs to meet employees in places convenient for them, provide them with intuitive solutions and resources, and empower self-service.

Code: General

Can Artificial Intelligence improve your Service Desk delivery without becoming a hindrance to IT? A well-managed AI Chatbot project can significantly enhance Service Management effectiveness by exposing, categorizing and organizing your ITSM data. When exposed and further enriched with machine learning, natural language processing and sentiment analysis, this information can be leveraged to supercharge an organization’s service management and technology lifecycle governance efforts.

Join Ed as he discusses the current Artificial Intelligence trends in the ITSM industry. Using his personal experiences, he will also elaborate on how to expand the scope of automation across business operations and the benefits thereof.

Code: General

Today’s digital-first approach to engaging employees and connecting with customers is creating more demands on IT support and service delivery than ever. According to EasyVista, more than 61% of enterprises are experiencing an increase in the number of tier 1 support requests. At the same time, IT leadership is being asked to reduce IT costs and increase satisfaction levels of both employees and customers. This means that every organization must look at a “shift-left” strategy that includes self-service which works by creating a digital experience that is engaging, pervasive, and smart. Those that succeed can show real savings to the organization, resulting in the ability for IT to more with less.

In this session, Evan will use three customer case studies to discuss how self-service can achieve a shift-left strategy. He will also discuss why self-service is failing in many organizations and the changes being made by AI and virtual agents.

Code: General

Self-service is more than a century old, beginning with vending machines in the 1880s, followed by self-serve gas pumps and to today’s ATMs and online shopping. Self-service has slowly but surely become the go-to method of user communication with any business, IT included. With that, IT has come to realize that business users need to have more control of the services they get from IT starting with application access to password resets. Despite the shining benefits of smoothening user experience and increasing agent productivity, many businesses find it hard to drive the adoption of self-service.

Is selfless service the mindset required to aid in the self-service adoption within organizations? How can this be done? Join Karthik as he shares his personal experiences surrounding selfless service. He will also discuss benefits of the self-service portal and how its adoption can increase business value.

Code: General

This is a case study presentation by ServiceNow, that will illustrate the Now Platform benefits by leveraging Sleep Number’s outcomes.

Sleep Number was using outdated and disparate IT tools to track incidents, changes, and service requests, with no centralized CMDB. Does this sound familiar? It quickly became clear that for the organization to move forward, a transformation in the way work was being done was needed. The transformation began with the selection of a cloud-based ITSM solution and the adoption of the ITIL framework. An alignment of their IT services with industry best practices was also needed. These changes led to the replacement of four legacy systems in less than three months. Now, three years into the transformation, they are taking advantage of other Service Management capabilities to further their growth and IT maturity.

Code: General

There is a treasure trove of insights in the text descriptions entered into your incident tickets regarding common symptoms, root causes and resolutions. However, with thousands of incidents generated weekly, it can be hard to manually extract these insights and make them available to your Incident teams.

How can you leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to make sense of the human-generated incident data? During this session, Joe will discuss how to achieve Smart Incident Management using artificial intelligence and analytics. He will show how to leverage NLP to help make sense of large volumes of unstructured text descriptions and identify related incidents using Incident Topic Clustering.

Code: General

Successful digital transformation requires improvement of back-office operations by modernizing antiquated manual procedures with technology and automation. Most back-office teams, such as HR and Facilities, provide services and support; but, many don’t tie into a larger service management strategy. Enterprise Service Management (ESM) should be the platform for better, faster, and less expensive back-office transformation across your entire organization.

In this session, you will learn how modern ESM platforms are built, why AI-enabled capabilities and automation make the key difference in employees’ adoption of new tools and practices, and how to build the business case for ESM. Vesna will explain how machine learning works with several use cases for ESM, including conversational virtual agents, smart ticketing, and prescriptive analytics. Better back-office operations are vital in creating successful customer and employee engagement, and successful ESM implementations. She will also talk about how AI-powered automation turbocharges back-office digital transformation!

Code: General

As organizations undergo digital transformation, they are exploring new ways to deliver IT service management. The traditional model of ITSM is changing – and a new way of thinking has arrived with cognitive service management (CSM). IT organizations must evolve to meet new expectations for service delivery. The next stage of the service management journey embraces and integrates cognitive technologies to create a new intelligent enterprise. Enabled by digital automation, AI, and machine learning, Dave will discuss and showcase how organizations can achieve new levels of agility, productivity, and efficiency. He will also discuss several ways chatbots, RPA, cognitive automation and other AI/ML technologies can help you bring superior service management across multi-cloud environments to bring your intelligent enterprise to life.

Code: General

With IT departments balancing demanding requirements from across the organization as well as coping with the impact of digital transformation, there’s an increasing need to focus on the importance of agility and scalability.

Using real-life success stories from Bacardi, University of Michigan and North York General Hospital, Jade will provide actionable recommendations to help you transform service management and measure your value to your organization.

By attending this session, Jade will help you understand the benefits of built-in metrics and performance measurements to enable you to measure your success. In addition, you'll see how the use of advanced automation will free up your team's time, allowing you to focus on more complex issues.

Jade will also discuss the following:

• How to identify trends, measure performance, and present your business value
• How to keep pace with automation, service orchestration, and DevOps practices
• Lessons from the field: how others successfully scaled their service management

Code: General

Organizations are constantly closing the gap between IT and development, constantly striving to be more agile, and respond to the changes and needs of their customers. Businesses must become faster and better to survive. The faster teams deliver, the larger the challenge of visibility. Reporting is that elephant in the room that can often seem like an afterthought. Moreover, management needs to know the end-to-end pipeline as to how IT and development work together.

During this session, Joshua will discuss the visibility needs of both IT and Agile on a scale independent of each other as well as together. Additionally, he will discuss how to fill the gaps and provide solid visibility. Joshua will provide a better understanding of why reporting is a challenge in IT and development and the steps that can be taken to make it easier.

Code: General

Most IT Service Management (ITSM) teams would like to increase their ability to create more value for their entire organization. They often find themselves hampered by how well they handle their current workloads, often feeling overwhelmed by waves of incidents, unhappy end users, lost assets and non-stop password reset requests. The result is that resources are committed to tactical activities in lieu of supporting a more strategic initiative.

During this session, Dave will discuss lessons learned and technologies that IT teams use that have improved operations, in order to free up more resources from dealing with common and repetitive tasks and requests. He will also talk about metrics teams have used to track their progress.

Join Dave as he discusses:

• Proven metrics to track ITSM performance and efficiency
• How to leverage an Omni-channel communication strategy to increase self-service adoption
• Automating phone interactions for a better calling experience for both agents and employees
• Improving operational efficiency and customer satisfaction with AI

Code: Beyond Beginner

In this one-of-a-kind (and industry first!) half-day highly educational session, Troy – who is an ITIL 4 major content contributor and part of the global architect team – will discuss ITIL 4’s Service Value System (SVS) model with specific focus on the four business dimensions that IT organizations need to understand and manage within the context of the Service Value Chain.

His workshop goes beyond just ITIL 4 “foundation" content, and he reviews:

Organizations and People

• Leadership of a SVS (not silos)
• Organizational change (leading a transformation)
• Workforce and talent management (a new practice of ITIL 4)

Information and Technology

• Moving from point solutions to an integrated approach to automation
• Connecting Project Management, Service Management and Software Development automation
• Critical ITSM considerations when adopting an internal and external cloud strategy

Partners and Suppliers

• The ITIL 4 concepts of Service Relationship Management – What happened to BRM?
• How to manage complex supply chains (SIAM)
• The updated understanding of value and outcomes in the context of Product and Service definitions

Value Streams and Processes

• How the ITIL value chain as an enterprise operating model can be used to govern and manage
• The ITIL 4 value chain and value streams – how do they relate?
• How can the ITIL 4 value chain support the goals of Integrated Service Management? (DevOps, Agile, Lean, Organizational Change)

In the past, many organizations (and some ITIL consultants too!) have mistakenly promoted an à-la-carte approach to the ITIL body of knowledge. The message often repeated was that “Adopt and Adapt” meant you only have to pay attention to those processes which were relevant, and the assumption was that many of them were not.

Troy will explain how and why this approach unfortunately had many negative side effects that continue to cause challenges for IT organizations to this day. A key theme of ITIL 4 is that value is created by an integrated end-to-end value chain and a set of practices supported by a network of service providers that cannot tolerate silos. This includes the view that all of the 34 practices listed in ITIL 4 are critical for any service provider to understand and proactively manage. You don’t get to choose whether they are important or not, you only get to choose in what order and priority to address them.

Don’t miss this exclusive and powerful education experience from one the world’s leading ITIL experts!

Code: Beginner

This is a repeat and very popular conference session, updated to include ITIL 4 content!

Easy in theory, but not always easy to implement! Join Charlie as he digs deep into his vast implementation experience and takes you beyond the theory in the ITIL certification courses. It’s like getting free consulting!

Charlie will start by identifying the biggest issues that most organizations have when applying the theory of ITIL to these three key and interrelated processes; he'll then provide you with practical how-tos for how to overcome the most common barriers to success. This is a not-to-be-missed session if you want to learn not just “what to do” but “how to” get it right!

Charlie’s half-day workshop is taken, in part, from Pink Elephant’s ITIL Release, Control, & Validation certification course.

Code: General

Move over ITIL Experts! There’s a new designation in town – ITIL Managing Professional (MP). In this highly informative session, Robin reviews the key teachings of the four courses that make up the new ITIL designation. Three of these four courses are in a stream referred to as “ITIL Specialist”, and they are: Create, Deliver & Support; Drive Stakeholder Value; and High Velocity IT. The fourth course is co-shared with the “ITIL Strategic Leader” stream: ITIL Strategist: Direct, Plan & Improve. Robin has been directly involved in ITIL 4 development during the past two years, and she is one of the most knowledgeable consultants in the world. She is one of the best! Don’t miss this opportunity to hear directly from her.

Code: Beyond Beginner

Value, a common term used in the world of service management – or more specifically, business value – is not only core to the definition of a service, but to a service provider’s ability to create, deliver and manage the services.

During this workshop, Jack will expand on the key concepts presented during his five-part session series on delivering business value. He will provide a consolidated approach for how to think holistically about what the fundamental nature of value is; how value is created and managed by a service provider; and how to identify the four core factors that can contribute to success in the delivery and management of business value through services.

Code: General

Join Gary as he walks you through an overview of this key new ITIL 4 advanced certification course. Gary’s session includes a review of the four Managing Professional (MP) courses, of which this is one. He also describes how this particular module covers all types of engagement and interaction between a service provider and their customers, users, suppliers and partners. It focuses on the conversion of demand into value via IT enabled services.

Code: General

Join Beverly as she walks you through an overview of this key new ITIL 4 advanced certification course. Beverly’s summary includes a review of the four Managing Professional (MP) courses, of which this is one. She also describes how this particular module covers the 'core' service management activities and expands the current scope of ITIL to cover the 'creation' of services. This module focuses on the integration of different value streams and activities to create, deliver and support IT-enabled products and services while also covering supporting practices, methods and tools.

Code: Beyond Beginner

Join Jennifer for this two-part half-day workshop.

During part one, Jen will present an overview about the key concepts and guiding principles of “process maturity”. The session includes a discussion of the CMM (Capability Maturity Model) and the six different process maturity stages: 0 – Not Performed; 1 – Initial; 2 – Repeatable; 3 – Defined; 4 – Managed; 5 – Optimized. Jennifer will tell you what they mean and why it’s important for you to know.

During part two, Jen will apply a process maturity assessment to Problem Management. This is your opportunity to take a “health check” of this important ITIL process. She will take you through a questionnaire of approximately 35 questions that will enable you to score your Problem Management process – is it “defined”? Is it “optimized”? Jennifer will help you determine the maturity of your process, and as you walk through each question, you will learn what is needed to take your Problem Management process to the next level of maturity.