Wednesday 4 December 2013

The Ghosts of a Service Management Christmas

Unbelievable, it’s December already ... again.
I guess it is only fitting around this time to conclude this year of blogs with a seasonal topic. In this case the ghosts of a Service Management Christmas.


The Ghost of Christmas past: Service Management
Let’s take a moment to reflect on and celebrate the achievement of Service Management!

Being a zealot, I come from a time when service management was literally unheard of, and we were pretty much preaching the good news. Since then there wouldn't many (IT) companies left today who aren't at the very least aware of the service management principles. And whilst it may not be perfect (far from), there is a certain acceptance.

ITIL is past the hype-curve. Although this poses new challenges (in the ‘through of disillusionment’), at least we've left the inflated expectations and start seeing for what it is: a descriptive guidance (not a goal in itself!).

And let's not forget (despite my earlier mentioned ‘zealot’ status) that there are more flavours in the service management universe: COBIT has matured to be a complete framework, AGILE and LEAN are in demand and ‘golden oldies’ like PRINCE2 retain their value. No one framework is king, they all excel in their own areas and we now realise that ‘mix-n-match’ is the name of the game.

The Ghost of Christmas present: AXELOS
For those of you that are still unaware of this: Capita has purchased 51% of the ‘best-practice’ portfolio of the British government, and together they have created a joint venture called Axelos as the IP-holder, accreditor etc. This has brought a lot of uncertainty to those currently ‘involved’ in the ITIL world (or PRINCE2, or MoR, or…): Exam Institutes, Accredited Training Organisations, consultants and the like.

So far Axelos has been saying all the right things (listening to the market, minimal/no immediate change, invest in product development, including alternative training products -read gamification-). But their actions have been less ‘insightful’: a £10 Foundation Exam app and a £1,000 ITIL maturityassessment all indicate a more expensive future.

Of immediate concern is now the training accreditation and examination. Exam royalties are rumoured to triple, but to-date no official pricing has been announced. With APMG relinquishing their role as the accreditor on 1 January (and becoming ‘just’ an EI) there are still a lot of unknowns: no copyright clarity, reaccreditation requirements (or timeframe) …

Whilst the market may hardly notice this, I think it has put most things ‘on hold’ of the past year, hopefully to restart again when the takeover has been completed. 

Which brings me to
The Ghost of Christmas future: ITIL 2015
This may be a case of wishful thinking: but with 6 months development, starting in the middle of next year, followed by a 6 months review and fine-tuning period; we could have a new ITIL in the middle of 2015 (giving me 6-months leeway ‘til the end of that year and the need for a different name).

And what an opportunity for Axelos to get it right and position itself in the market as THE premier service management framework provider. A few things that I’d like to see:
·         Real language (no bull): focus on the concepts\outcomes of ITIL, not the theoretic definitions. After all, ITIL is descriptive.
·         Consistency: link all books, all processes and loose the ambiguity where possible. For instance is CSI a process or not?
·         Integration: clarify the co-existence of ITIL with various other frameworks (overlaps, strengths …)
·         Focus & expand: ITIL has built a name in Operational processes (loosely including the Transition ones), so whilst Service Strategy is certainly important, it is unlikely organisation will adopt this ‘as-is’. Instead focus on the strengths of the operational process and expand the offering with more templates, (implementation) cases and support. People are always looking for a silver bullet and whilst ITIL will never be that, it can provide more guidance than its current 5 publications.


I get all warm feelings thinking about this, sign with me

Jingle bells – service management hell – ITIL’s on its way
Oh what fun – it is to write – a process manual

Wishing you all the best for the upcoming holidays and 2014!

the ITIL Zealot
December 2013