As organizations grow, the IT processes that support them need to mature. I like to use the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) scale when thinking about IT processes. The CMMI scale was invented by Carnegie Mellon University in 1987 and has five levels of maturity: Level 1 – Ad hoc – Processes are done uniquely …
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Even companies without a formal incident process in place will have something in place to address users’ break/fix issues. The process may be ad hoc (Maturity Level 1) or something that is repeatable but not well documented or able to be reported against (Maturity Level 2). Regardless, most organizations don’t throw away computers when they …
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I’ve encountered a lot of confusion about the difference between Metrics, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and Critical Success Factors (CSFs) so let’s talk about that.* First let me just say that Metrics unto themselves are useless. This is a Metric. Isn’t it lovely? Just a dot on a graph. Of course it has a value …
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ITIL’s guidance on Risk Management has changed through the years. In ITIL v2, it was based on C.C.T.A.’s Risk Analysis Management Methodology (the acronym is CRAMM, I kid you not). It looked at the combination of Assets, Vulnerabilities, and Threats to derive a Risk score to which Countermeasures were applied. ITIL v3 2011 defers Risk …
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Wow, I can’t believe the amount of stir there is around this topic. Why is there so much confusion? Organizations try to put ridiculous rules, that are for the most part poorly defined and even more poorly enforced, around how critical their IT Services are to the operation of the organization. Does it affect customers’ …
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Of the 26 ITIL v3 2011 processes, two have measurable returns on investment. The other 24 are very hard to sell to upper management because the value produced by those processes can be very hard to quantify in real-world dollars. Look at Change Management. Most organizations implement Change Management because they had some very disruptive …
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Throughout my career I have always been a trainer. Regardless of my title, at some point in every job I’ve ever held, I have found myself in front of a group of people, with a PowerPoint presentation at my back, explaining how to do something new. And I love it. If the salary of a …
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