Fresh Links Sundae encapsulates information I have come across during the past week. Often they are from the people whose work I admire or resonate with me. I hope you will find these ideas thought-provoking at the minimum. Even better, I hope these ideas will, over time, help my fellow IT pros make better decisions, be awesome, and kick ass!

Vaughan Merlyn is running a five-part series on business relationship management on his blog. He discusses the common failure modes he comes across and what the IT organizations can do to implement an effective BRM practice. Common Failure Modes in Business Relationship Management – Part 1  Common Failure Modes in Business Relationship Management – Part 2  Common Failure Modes in Business Relationship Management – Part 3  Common Failure Modes in Business Relationship Management – Part 4 & Key IT Roles for Driving Business Value (IT Organization Circa 2017)

Although IT and business ultimately have the same goal in serving the enterprise, they often do not communicate effectively with one another in many organizations. Establishing a business relationship management function can improve the IT-business interactions. Ryan Ogilvie discusses that IT can do to get started. Translating IT and Business Speak (Service Management Journey)

IT organizations continue to face aggressive cost saving mandates, and IT service management practice could be leveraged to contribute positive results. Reginald Lo presents his perspectives on how does Service Management directly save costs and how do we reduce the cost of Service Management. Streamlining Service Management to Achieve Cost Savings Targets (VMware Accelerate)

A number of organizations have implemented IT practices around the DevOps concept with varying degree levels of success. Mike Loukides discusses what the DevOps trend is today and what organizations need to do in order to be effective. Revisiting What is DevOps (O’Reilly Radar)

A recent Forrester study found that many organizations experience low first change success rate for and long lead time on changes for IT infrastructure and applications. Matthew Selheimer discusses the problems he sees as the impediments to organization changes and how to improve the first change success rate. The secret to change success – understanding multiple perspectives (The ITSM Review)

Companies often assign leaders to affect changes (culture, behaviors, or climate) within the organization. People have different opinions on whether a leader should change a culture and, if so, how to change a culture. Rob England helps us answer the question of “Should you try to change culture?” and what a leader should do to promote changes. Don’t try to change culture (The IT Skeptic)

Putting out fires can be a common problem for the Program Management Office while struggling to manage a portfolio. Glen Alleman outlines five recommendations we should keep in mind, so we do not lose sight of the big-picture view of the project management process. Don’t be an Accidental Project Manager (Herding Cats)

In his new e-book Workforce of the Future: Building Change Adaptability, 2nd Edition, James Taggart discusses four major forces that are exerting major impacts in our lives. He outlines ten leadership lessons each one of us should leverage to adapt to the on-going change. 10 Leadership Lessons to Succeed During Turbulent Change (ChangingWinds)