Fresh Links Sundae encapsulates information I have come across during the past week. They maybe ITSM related or not quite. 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.

Responding to the assertion that robotics may soon replace people on the IT support function, Rob England believes that such assertion is decidedly premature. Let’s not underestimate the resilience of people and societies (The IT Skeptic)

When facing the dilemma of serving IT constituents and maintaining sound technology architecture at the same time, Gregory Tucker reminds us the risks of over-responding to user requests that compromise a designed service. Managing to Design (Tracted IT Management)

A key driver behind the DevOps movement is to balance between the need for changes and the need for stability. Using a causal loop diagram, Charles Betz offers a model to illustrate how changes, IT availability, and business value affect one another. Part 1 and DevOps CLD part 2 (lean4it)

With a four-part series, Niek Bartholomeus discusses the drivers and suggests the approaches for introducing DevOps in a traditional enterprise. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Implementing a release management solution in a traditional enterprise (BMC Communities Blog)

Most organizations practice the chain-of-command like structure for handling support requests. Stuart Facey believes that bringing the necessary people and experts together in a collaborative manner is a better approach and will go a long way to improve the support experience for customers. The service desk shuffle: Collaboration trumps hot potatoes (The ITSM Review)

Some IT organizations adopt the “trial by fire” approach to weed out the new comers. Sometimes those organizations tolerate more of the rude behaviors from the senior team members towards the junior ones. Patrick Gray suggests that perhaps it is effective to do it differently. Does IT eat its young? (TechRepublic)

With an abundance of “free” security tools available, many organizations have asked whether the free solutions can be as effective as the ones that require an up-front financial investment. Sorin Mustaca suggests that most “For Free” analysis of the costs stops at the acquisition and ignores others like the installation and maintenance costs. Security “for free”? ((ISC)2 Blog)

Good blogs are like good restaurants – one goes there for a delicious meal and leave pleasantly satisfied. Melissa Hathaway suggests ways to populate a blog with more timely and relevant content for its targeted readers. Engage Your Blog Readers with Meaty Content (Writing On The Web)

While use cases might not always be the most appropriate choice for every project; however, there can be misconceptions about exactly when and how the use cases should be used. Laura Brandenburg outlines three scenarios when it’s appropriate to apply use cases. When Would You Write a Use Case? (Bridging the Gap)

Many leaders all too often believe that their organizations operate with efficient, free-flowing communication and found themselves surprised by the lack of understanding from the staff at the lower levels of the organization. Marshall Goldsmith suggests that proactively practicing follow-up will cure many miscommunication situations. Don’t Just Check the Box (Marshall Goldsmith Personal Blog)