Thanks for the feedback. The team did a great job on this episode. Thanks for the ideas on additional topics.

Cheers

Karen (and the ITSMAP team)

Great discussion! Some good points raised here. As a vendor, we get a lot of RFPs, and seen them all – from ridiculously simple and naive, to the Dept of Finance behemoths that have more bloat than Windows Vista. There is a massive range.

One frustration that gets me is when a business requests a feature/process they don’t understand, is not relevant or is not really interested in implementing. Often these are marked as “Mandatory”.

We see a lot of “Shiny syndrome”.

Agree that a great RFP should have a “Background” discussion that describes the organization, what they are trying to achieve, what their culture is and what changes they are looking for. Unfortunately, many don’t fully understand this, and/or buy into it. Often a business knows they need a tech solution (software etc), but fail to understand the processes and business re-engineering that goes along with it. It’s a situation we see all the time.

Often, businesses (people) expect software/tech to create/define their process. Whilst software can to some extent document, implement and describe the process, these really should exist beforehand. I think this plays a part in the RFP creation process.

Corporate buy-in and ownership of a project is key.

There was an interesting discussion among vendors over at ITSM TV on a similar topic. I made the following comment http://www.prd-software.com/Blogs/EntryId/103/ITSM-Vendors-discussion.aspx

Regarding price? Agree that strong haggling on price is counterproductive. A certain amount is OK – beyond that, and you risk pushing the vendor into the ugly side of CRM….This hurts everyone.

Ideas for next month’s show? Live from CeBIT, Darling Harbour, Sydney – from the PRD Software / HelpMaster booth!

Topic? Gadgets, devices and tech. BYOD and the mum and dad tech economy and how this is driving new patterns in service management.

Love the podcast.

Best regards,
Rod

One of you mentioned organizational change management as being important to ITSM and I couldn’t agree more.

It is a continuing process to get qualification included and this process will in many cases be triggered by and either an application or the annual CPD registration. As an example we recently handled an application with an “unknown” ITSM course from a University. This course has now been assessed and will be included in the next version of the priSM Handbook.

My advice is that you submit whatever you find relevant and the Regional priSM Institute in your region will have a look at it and make an recommendation to the Global priSM Institute.

Best regards,
Michael,
Registration Services Director, Global priSM Institute board.

1. Repetitive tasks will keep ‘em busy.
2. So easy, even kids can do it
3. It could be a never ending game….ha!

Great job,
Jules

I just read your 3 part article on Social Media and thought it was very interesting. I think I was at one of the conferences that you refer to and at the time my mind was made up that social media was just used by unproductive team members and it had no place in the workplace.

My opinion is definitely swinging full circle and am starting to believe that the only way forward is to embrace social media and use it to our advantage.

Good article, well done!

Brendan

Similarly years ago, training or retaining staff wasn’t on the radar for many companies. These days it’s often a corporate priority, but perhaps not because organisations are warm and fuzzy. I have a client in the wealth management industry that offers staff 6 months paid maternity / paternity leave. This was introduced as their study showed that retaining existing staff through spending 6 months on their salary was actually much, much cheaper than recruiting, training, coaching and making productive a new staff member – a 9-12 month exercise which was not always successful…..so now retaining staff is a high corporate priority!

So yes, corporates will adopt sustainability and CSR because it helps the bottom line and they will get some mileage out of the feel good marketing (note how many sustainable companies are banks?!) And government organisations will adopt it because it is mandated eg in the Gershon report, as are many efficiency drivers.

I reckon we should promote the financial benefits of sustainability…..and use it as a means to our ends!

Cheers,
Diahnne Berthold

Nicolas

BernieR

Doggy

Nicolas

Garretot

Here’s ten that I would add off the top of my head

1.) Interpreting ITIL publications word for word as opposed to applying them to the business situation
2.) Assuming that process ownership is *always* a full time position and not a duty
3.) Confusing the role of Service Delivery Management and Business Relationship management
4.) Trying to implement ITSM improvement “in my team” and not across the organisation
5.) Believing that there is one correct way to build a services catalogue
6.) Believing that ITSM process go-live directly equals business value created
7.) Assuming that colleagues with no ITIL certification have no good service management ideas
8.) Not having a plan or roadmap
9.) Not including BAU resources in process improvement
10.) Assuming that training is all that is required to enact cultural change

43. Telling people that you’re “aligning IT with the business”. You only align things that are separate. IT is PART of the business (that being said, 23,26,31,32 are spot on)

44. Not thinking about IT from a portfolio perspective (projects, investment …)

45. Not offering additional services to the business – without being asked. Know your customer.

I just wanted to help get this rolling. Who can help us with the other 84?

thinking an asset register is a service catalogue
thinking an asset register is a CMDB
Saying “but that’s not what it says in the ITIL book”

There are2 streams of CSR activities: inhouse CSR that concerns matters of integrating social/environmental/economic balaance in management decisions, human rights legislation and risks management, and philanthrophy giving that includes engaging with communities in volunteering and sustainable giving to help develop communities and the environments for intergeneration liveability – the later we dont do too well and need partnerships with firms specialising in community engagement and non-profit project management. The challenge with CSR is going beyond being a self regulatory cost driver to a profit making activity and the lack of open/agreed standards in performance measures. Fortunately, our Australian universities are doing a lot of good business and ICT research in innovating CSR products / services and a few good models are being prototyped for commercialisation.

For ICT, CSR also means showing visbility in socially / environmentally responsible procurement & consumption of ICT products/services, integrating CSR governance & product requirements in software development / enhancement projects, delivering the organisational capacity to accomodate a diversity and evolving global sustainability reporting standards, etc. Enterprise architecturally, CSR is a new requirement or an emerging new layer in EA models.

Great to see that CSR is now being made aware among ICT communities.

Chan Cheah
Planet Give

Worker

[url=http://www.lub4life.com/]Socco[/url]

Nicolas