Tag: Martin Grobisen

Fresh Links Sundae – July 13, 2014 Edition

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!

Many firms talks about the necessity of transforming themselves and moving towards becoming a “digital enterprise.” Bob Lewis recommends a three-step program to achieve the digital transformation. Is the “digital revolution” revolutionary? (IS Survivor Publishing)

The increasing use of cloud computing has led to IT losing control of some of its enterprise resources. David Linthicum explains how IT can reassert itself and bring oversight back on top of those cloud-based resources. How cloud computing can strengthen IT’s control (InfoWorld)

Often, a process’ deficiency requires us to perform deep analysis in order to discover the linkage. Ryan Ogilvie gives an example of how analyzing the appropriate change and incident metrics can lead to a productive examination of IT service issues. What percentage of ‘suckage’ does your #ITSM processes have? (Service Management Journey)

Business and IT both need to change quickly in order to meet business demand but still keep the risk at a manageable level. Martin Grobisen suggests ways we can use the change management process to improve operations and create an environment that fosters innovation. 8 Quick Tips About Change Management (ITSM Lens)

IT managers often face the unpleasant task of directing computing resources for a business application at the expense of another. Steve Brasen suggests two simple tips of leveraging ITIL to assist with the decision making. Prioritizing Workloads – Deciding What’s Hot and What’s Not (EMA Blog Community)

Working with many complex projects, we have to monitor and manage closely many aspects of the cost, schedule, and quality. Glen Alleman reminds us why maintaining a statistical mindset is crucial for managing today’s projects. Why is Statistical Thinking Hard? (Herding Cats)

Introducing the concept of DevOps to an organization is never easy because DevOps often bring an assortment of cultural changes. Ho Ming Li discuss five potential difficulty areas for this cultural-changing endeavor. 5 Common Barriers When Introducing DevOps (ActiveState)

As the World Cup games wind down, many of us have cheered on the US men national team, especially for goalie Tim Howard. Patrick Potter discusses what parallels we can draw from watching Howard’s solid performance during the tournament. What Does Internal Audit and Team USA goalie Tim Howard Have in Common? (RSA Archer GRC)

Fresh Links Sundae – June 15, 2014 Edition

Brady Orand and Global Knowledge are running a blog series “11 Common Mistakes of ITIL Foundation Newbies.” Here are the first five installments of the series. ITIL Newbie Mistake #1: Too Much Focus on the Processes ITIL Newbie Mistake #2: Certified and Done ITIL Newbie Mistake #3: Focusing on Processes First ITIL Newbie Mistake #4: Attempting a Project in Isolation ITIL Newbie Mistake #5: Developing a Service Catalog without Considering Business Needs (Global Knowledge Training Blog)

Using Forrester’s research data, Kate Leggett illustrates what is the most important factor in good customer service and recommends approaches for organizations to offer excellent service. Surprise! Customer Service Doesn’t Need To Be Delightful – Just Effective (Forrester Blogs)

These days, picking an appropriate public cloud provider can be a daunting task due to the large number of provider choices. Sarah Chapman and Leonard Whitten outline the factors you should consider when evaluating your public cloud provider options. Pick Your Public Cloud Providers Like You Would Pick Your Hotel (SUNGARD AVAILABILITY SERVICES BLOG)

Many IT organizations believe they provide adequate services but rarely take the necessary effort to assess themselves. Ryan Ogilvie believes that on-going dialogues with the customer are essential for IT to validate its own performance. Performing ITSM Self Assessments – Don’t Wait too Long (Service Management Journey)

Some people would advocate that estimating is a waste, and project decisions can be made without estimating. Glen Alleman argues that executing projects without estimating is like driving in the dark with the lights off, not a prudent business move under any circumstance. An Agile Estimating Story (Herding Cats)

Pearl Zhu believes that a well-designed dashboard can serve as an effective management tool to enable business leaders to make better decision. She recommends a list of measurements and KPIs within which a comprehensive CIO Dashboard should include. CIO Dashboard (Future of CIO)

Martin Grobisen believes that advanced IT service management tools need not only apply to IT functions. The automation and management tools also can be applied to line-of-business processes to drive innovation across departments. He suggests some potential business cases which can be supported with IT service management tools. 7 Quick Ways to Take Advantage of Process Automation for Line-of-Business (ITSM Lens)

For many organizations, the deficiency in trust causes a great deal of tension between IT and the lines of business. Kevin Lees discusses how IT can overcome such deficiency to gain true business alignment. How IT Can Transform “Trust Debt” into True Business Alignment (VMware CloudOps)

Fresh Links Sundae – March 3, 2013 Edition

Fresh Links Sundae encapsulates information I have come across during the past week. They maybe ITSM related or not entirely. Often they are from the people whose work resonates with me, and I hope you will find them at least thought-provoking or something of value.

Collaboration between organizations requires an understanding of each organization’s operating style and values. Bob Lewis outlines an approach that can help assessing an organization’s style and achieving a better understanding of it. A matter of organizational style A follow-up post explains what happens when the operating modes don’t line up between organizations. (IS Survivor Publishing)

Reflecting from a recent experience on a cruise, Robert Stroud describes how the service management and program management concepts should also be used outside of IT. Service Management is Valuable Outside of IT as Well! (CA Technologies)

Using information collected from a recent webinar on leveraging ITSM to increase business satisfaction and the perception of IT, Stephen Mann shares the poll results and his thoughts. Is Customer Experience Important To Internal IT Organizations? With Free Statistics! (Forrester Blogs)

Complexity often gets in the way of providing workable solutions to the business. Alex Honor explains how the complexity was built and what we can do to avoid or limit it. The key to simplicity isn’t “Know How” it’s “Know Why” (dev2ops)

Traditionally, Continual Service Improvement (CSI) is often thought of as the last set of processes we put in place when formalizing ITSM. Rob England advocates perhaps we need to start with CSI first. Everything is improvement (The ITSM Review)

Looking back at the 2013 Oscars, Martin Grobisen recounts some of the winner speeches and shows how the excellent work from the Service Desk can also enhance an organization’s IT performance. ITIL goes to the Oscars (ITSM Lens)

A well done ITSM effort can sometimes bring unexpected benefits to an organization. Jennifer Simpson describes a recent audit experience where practicing ITSM actually helped her IT organization during the audit process. IT Service Management and Audits (ITSM Portal)

Marketing is about changing people’s actions, and successful marketing effort is often a targeted one. Seth Godin advocates that you need to know who your audience is and how the change will affect them before a marketing effort can be truly successful. You can’t change everything or everyone, but you can change the people who matter (Seth’s Blog)

When it comes to personal career growth, incremental improvement is good but sometimes a major change in the mindset is needed. Anna Farmery outlines her suggestions on what questions to ask when striving for a better career. How to Have a 10 Times Better Career (The Engaging Brand)

We often hear advice from successful people that follow our passion can lead to personal success. Scott Adams explains that success is much more than simply following one’s passion. Follow your Passion? (Scott Adams Blog)

Fresh Links Sundae – February 17, 2013 Edition

Aligning with the business is an on-going goal for many IT organizations. Bob Lewis suggests an exercise for IT organizations to use in order to better understand the business so achieving alignment will be easier to accomplish. Profiling the business/Profiling IT (IS Survivor Publishing)

Although many IT shops still treat automation as a “nice thing to do,” Stephen Mann advises that moving ITSM forward in our increasingly complex environment will not be effective without some form of automation. He also suggests tips on how to handle automation effectively. Automation: Is It The Only Way For IT To Really “Do More With Less”? (Forrester Blogs)

While many IT organizations have implemented CMDB, most of those organizations have only a rudimentary level of ITSM maturity in leveraging such key information source. Robert Stroud advocates that having a solid handle on the critical components that make up the services can make the organization more effective in delivering them. CMDB: The Key to Delivering Effective Services (CA Technologies)

Before taking on the BYOD research and trying to formulate a workable policy for your organization, Martin Grobisen suggests four areas to focus your research and policy-making effort. Introduction to the 4 Policies of MDM (ITSM Lens)

Some IT organizations attempt to deliver quality services but still experience negative feedback from the user community. Julie Montgomery discusses some common mistakes that can undermine your service improvement effort. 10 Common Mistakes That Totally Sabotage Your IT Service Quality (Plexent Blog)

When considering a career change, there are always job skills that can be fully leveraged for the new endeavor. Aaron Whittenberger talks about five general skills that can help you move forward in a business analysis career. 5 Transferable Soft Skills That Will Catapult Your BA Career Forward (Bridging the Gap)

There are some people who seem to get a lot more done than others. Jeff Haden outlines seven attributes that are making the differences for those highly productive people. 7 Qualities of Über-Productive People (Inc.com)

Reflecting from his own personal experience and observations, Marshall Goldsmith advises that, as a nation, American could be less competitive if we continue to ignore the reality in an increasingly competitive global environment. The Danger of Denial (Marshall Goldsmith Personal Blog)

While corporate downsizing and restructuring is a common occurrence, Stanley Bing takes a humorous look at this topic and explains how to analyze your odds of staying where you are. Are you going to keep your job this year? (Fortune Management)

In our increasing connected communities, Seth Godin outlines the three attributes that can enable us to be more supportive of one another and can make us a better participant in our own communities. Open, generous and connected (Seth’s Blog)

Fresh Links Sundae – December 2, 2012 Edition

While many organizations may view ITSM as a simple exercise of implementing the processes in the ITIL books, Kirstie Magowan explains why “implementing” ITIL is missing the point and how not to lose the big picture. Repeat after me: “I am not IMPLEMENTING ITIL®” (The ITSM Review)

It is human nature to seek out the quick and simple solutions to business problem, and ITSM is no different. David Ratcliffe explains why IT Service Management is all about the challenge of leading and managing people. My 1, 2, 3 of ITSM: Or, What Is IT Service Management REALLY All About? (Pink Elephant)

Many organizations would like to get a much better handle on the tracking and utilization of their IT asset. Jon Hall talks about why he thinks IT Asset Management has an image problem and what we can do to address and improve the situation. Let’s work together to fix ITAM’s image problem (Evolving ITSM)

Partly spurred by Jon Hall’s insights on IT Asset Management, Stephen Mann talks about the current state of Software Asset Management effort in many organizations and presents a quick analysis. The Rise, Fall, And Rise Of Software Asset Management: It’s More Than Just A “Good Thing To Do” (Forrester Blogs)

We all had our fair share of working with ineffective managers or bosses. Bob Lewis gives two suggestions on what can leaders do to prevent or to minimize the negative effects of having ineffective managers in their organizations. An ounce of bad-boss prevention (IS Survivor Publishing)

Gamification has been a popular topic in the IT service management space lately. Martin Grobisen shares his opinion on why such reward and recognition mechanism may not be as effective as some would like to believe. Service Desk Gamification – Not the Priority (ITSM Lens)

Compelled by a recent debate on the need for service catalog, Rob England outlines his view of why service catalog is a critical foundation to any IT service provider organization. Service catalogue and service request catalogue (The IT Skeptic)

Responding to a recent LinkedIn discussion where someone advocates that incident priority should never be changed once determined, Gregory Tucker expresses his view on why the incident prioritization is much more dynamic. Changing Incident Priority and Incident Prioritization in Detail (ITSMinfo.com)

It is almost the end of 2012. Bob Sutton updates his reading list and shares them with his blog readers. 11 Books Every Leader Should Read: Updated for 2012 (Bob Sutton)

Being a parent can be a fulfilling life experience, but you don’t need to be a parent to appreciate what Rachel Martin has written for all of us to think about. 43 Life Lessons that Kids Teach Us. (finding joy)