What does 2018 hold for project managers?
Karen writes for AXELOS – looking into 2018 for project management. … read the full article.
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Book Review – Tribal Unity
Title: Tribal Unity – Getting from TEAMS to TRIBES by Creating a One Team Culture ISBN: 978-1-365-35960-6 Author: Em Campbell-Pretty Audience: I could not describe who this book is for any better than to use Em’s own words: “This book is for everyone who aspires to make their workplace a great place to work”. Karen’s …
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VeriSM™ in a VUCA World
Well, I doubt by now that there is anyone in the service management industry that has not heard about VeriSM™. If you haven’t click on this link to the official website page, this link to the official LinkedIn group or have a look at some of the conversations taking place on the Back2ITSM Facebook page …
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Does Your Service Portfolio Management Stack-Up In Today’s World?
This article has been sitting partly in draft and partly in my head for a number of weeks. The inspiration to get the job done was when my friend and esteemed colleague – Stuart Rance – had his September 2017 blog on Portfolio Management and Continual Improvement published over at Sysaid.com. It is a great …
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What Do Yellow Bikes and ITIL® Practitioner Have in Common? Absolutely Nothing Apparently!
Scan and Ride A new mobile bike sharing system is causing major problems in Melbourne, Australia. Having done a little research it appears that Melbourne is not alone. London has also experienced the same problems. The bike sharing system – oBike – unlike other bike sharing schemes – is dockless. Schemes like Melbourne Bike Share …
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Don’t Be a Statistic! Avoid the 70%!
Organisational Change Management practitioners and leaders are often heard affirming that 70% of change initiatives fail due to the lack of organisational change management (OCM). This largely quoted statistic is based on decades of so-called ‘research’ by the likes of the following: · McKinsey (2009) · Blanchard / Kotter (2008) · Miller (2002) · Beer and Nohria (2000) · Kotter …
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Doing OCM to Invoke OCM
Organisational change management (OCM) practitioners would love to work in an environment where every project incorporated OCM without even thinking about it! However, many of us work in environments where OCM is not even considered or is an afterthought. The Situation A project is fully underway and steaming ahead. The following conversations take place: Program …
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IT ISN’T THE CHANGES THAT DO YOU IN, IT’S THE TRANSITIONS!
When we think of change we often think about it like the following diagram. There is nothing wrong with this picture from a change perspective. A change will occur. What is missing from this picture in order to make the change successful and build a solid foundation for future change is the transition. As …
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Weeds, Woods, Rocks and High Ground
I recently came across a great article by Michael Jarrett for Harvard Business Review entitled ‘The 4 Types of Organizational Politics’. In the article, Jarrett describes mapping the political terrain within an organisation. The chart he creates includes four metaphoric domains: the weeds, the rocks, the high ground, and the woods. He does this to …
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Need to Influence? Ask Bob! – Part 2
Bob is Dr. Robert Cialdini. This is the second in a series of two posts about using Cialdini’s principles of influence. Cialdini, author of the groundbreaking book, Influence, and president of INFLUENCE AT WORK, is widely regarded as the “Godfather of influence” because of his years of scientific research on the psychology of influence. Cialdini’s …
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Need to Influence? Ask Bob! – Part 1.
Bob is Dr. Robert Cialdini. This is the first of two posts that explore Cialdini’s six principles of influence and how can use them to our benefit. Cialdini, author of the groundbreaking book, Influence, and president of INFLUENCE AT WORK, is widely regarded as the “Godfather of influence” because of his years of scientific research …
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Why My Telco Needs ITIL® Practitioner
My telco visit! A recent visit to my telecommunications provider to swap my iPhone 6 for an iPhone 7 was revealing to say the least. An extremely helpful young assistant, who had the patience of a saint, helped me with my transaction. It very soon became clear why his patience was a virtue given the …
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Don’t Lose Out!!
If you have opened this article, then my experiment has worked! I am leveraging something called loss aversion. I was reading about loss aversion and the endowment effect and came to the realisation that we in organisational change management or indeed anyone trying to communicate and engage to get buy-in to a change or improvement …
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Organisational Change and Project Success – Part 2
Read part 2 of my blog over at AXELOS on why OCM is needed for project success and how the guidance in ITIL Practitioner can assist. … read the full article.
Are You Leading Change or Are Your People Leading Change?
Which one should it be? Well both are needed but we need people to lead the change if it is going to be a success. Successful change management initiatives will most likely start at the top, with a committed and aligned group of executives strongly supported by the CEO. However, every level of the organisation …
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Organisational Change and Project Success – Part 1
Read part 1 of my blog over at AXELOS on why OCM is needed for project success and how the guidance in ITIL Practitioner can assist. … read the full article.
Why You Need A Culture of Learning – Rachel McElroy
This is a guest post from Rachel McElroy – Director Social Revolution Marketing. According to latest research by Gallup employees are disengaged – 33% are disengaged and 51% are actively looking for new opportunities. Training and being involved in projects is proven to help foster a sense of belonging and commitment within teams and learning is …
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The C.U.L.T. of Digital Transformation
At the end of last year I wrote an article called ‘Digital Transformation Needs Organisational Change Management’. The article stressed the need for organisational change management (OCM) in order for digital transformation efforts to be successful. The SADA systems survey I referenced stated that 53% of surveyed participants said their biggest challenge in completing a …
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Book Review – IT Tools for the Business when the Business is IT
Title: IT Tools for the Business when the Business is IT – Selecting and Implementing IT Service Management Tools Author: Robert Falkowitz Audience: IT Service Managers, Project Managers, Architects, Strategists and anyone else within an organisation tasked with the selection of ITSM tools. Coverage: This book discusses how to successfully select and deploy an ITSM …
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Book Review – Enterprise Release Management
Title: Enterprise Release Management – Agile Delivery of a Strategic Change Portfolio ISBN: 13: 978-1-60807-168-5 Author: Louis J. Taborda Audience: This book targets different stakeholders across the ‘enterprise release lifecycle’ offering different insights to each whilst maintaining a coherent vision that aims to bring these often misaligned silos together. The audience includes business and IT …
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Book Review – Building an ITIL-based Service Management Department
Title: Building an ITIL® – based Service Management Department Author: Malcolm Fry Audience: IT Service Managers tasked with building a service management department Coverage: This book discusses how to build a well-constructed Service Management Department (SMD) by following nine steps. It discusses: the preparation needed before embarking on the project to build a SMD; how …
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Book Review – ABC of ICT
Title: ABC of ICT Author: Paul Wilkinson and Jan Schilt Audience: This publication is aimed at any ITSM professional who is looking to make their ITSM initiatives a success. It is aimed at those needing guidance on they way in which the ‘Attitude’, the ‘Behaviour’ and the ‘Culture’ within the world of ICT and all …
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Book Review – ITIL® Lite
Title: ITIL® Lite Author: Malcolm Fry Audience: This book has a wide audience – from those who are trying to decide whether to apply the guidance in ITIL V3 within their organisation to those who are actively looking to build an ITIL V3 project. The audience could include project managers, project team members, IT planners, …
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Book Review – Key Element Guides
Title: Key Element Guides Author: ITIL V3 authoring team – Office of Government Commerce (OGC) Audience: Practitioners, process owners, service managers, consultants, trainers and other service management professionals. Coverage: There are five books in the Key Element Guide suite – one for each of the core ITIL lifecycle publications. Key Element Guide Service Strategy Key …
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Book Review – The Service Catalog – A Practitioner Guide
Title: The Service Catalog – A Practitioner Guide Author: Mark O’Loughlin Audience: This book is squarely focused on the Service Catalogue practitioner – including both those that are looking to develop service catalogues for the first time and those looking to improve their current offering. Coverage: This book provides comprehensive coverage of the subject matter …
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Book Review – ITIL V3 Small Scale Implementation
Title: ITIL® V3 Small-scale Implementation Author: Sharon Taylor and Ivor Macfarlane Audience: This publication is aimed at those working in or with small and medium sized businesses (SMBs). However, as you will see from the commentary I believe that the content is also relevant and beneficial to large-scale organisations. Coverage: This book covers the entire …
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Book Review – Plus! The Standard + Case Approach
Title: PLUS! The Standard+Case Approach Author: Rob England Audience: Anyone who has anything to do with responding to situations when providing a service. Coverage: Standard + Case applies to anything that requires a response – there’s either a standard response or there isn’t. Level: Beginner – advanced. Karen’s Comment: I must admit to being sceptical …
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Book Review – Creating and Driving Service Excellence
Title: Creating and Driving Service Excellence An Executive’s Guide to IT Service Management ISBN: 978-0-11-706902-2 Author: Sharon Taylor Audience: This book is an introduction to IT service management targeted at the business executive. Coverage: This executive guide starts by describing IT service management as a business imperative. Sharon uses case studies to illustrate the return …
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Book Review – I.T. That Matters
Title: IT That Matters An Executive’s Guide to Maximising the Strategic Value From Your IT Investment ISBN: 9780117080614 Author: Dennis G. Ravenelle Audience: This book is aimed at the business executive. Coverage: This executive guide distils and serves up the eight imperatives that executives must imprint into their organizations’ cultures and execute to make the …
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Book Review – The Quantum Age of I.T.
Title: The Quantum Age of IT ISBN: 978-1-84928-375-5 Author: Charles Araujo Audience: Anyone in IT Coverage: IT as we know it is dead. Forces are at work, reshaping the very fabric of the IT organization. Driven by our own history, changing perceptions of how technology should work and newfound, but very real, competition, IT organizations …
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Book Review – The Phoenix Project
Title: The Phoenix Project ISBN: 978-0988262591 Author: Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford Audience: Anyone in IT Coverage: The novel is thought of as the modern day version of The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. The novel describes the problems that almost every IT organization faces, and then shows the practices of how to solve …
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Book Review – LEAD I.T.
Title: LEAD I.T. – Moving From Technical Leader to People Leader ISBN: 978-0-9925583-0-7 Author: Sharron Spratt Audience: Anyone looking to embark on a leadership role within I.T. or already on the journey. Coverage: This book explores how you get technically brilliant people to shift their mindset to one of people leader without taking an entire …
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Book Review – The OBASHI Methodology
Title: The OBASHI Methodology ISBN: 978-0117068575 Author: Paul Wallis & Fergus Cloughley Audience: Anyone in the business including IT Coverage: OBASHI™ is a methodology that helps you get a clearer picture of how your business works. It allows you to create a visual map of the business that shows how the business works, the assets …
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Book Review – An Integrated Requirements Management Process
Title: An Integrated Requirements Management Process – Governing Cost & Risk in Business Analysis ISBN: 978-1490489162 Author: Peter Brooks Audience: Anyone working in Business Analysis, Enterprise Architecture, IT Governance and Audit, IT Service Management, Project Management and Software Engineering. Coverage: This book is intended for business analysts and service management professionals who seek to provide …
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It’s All About Being Informed – Data Visualisation
A GUEST BLOG BY PAUL COLLINS – CEO SkillsTX We need information to ‘inform’ us, specifically when making decisions. Visualised data becomes information. We are visual beings and through the eons of time are adapted to quickly converting images into decisions. “That looks dangerous, let’s run”….. So, we decided to exploit the vast amounts of …
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Making Service Management Agile
Karen writes for AXELOS – making service management agile. … read the full article.
Who Are My Change Champions?
Most discussions about organisational change management or business transition will include talk of sponsors, change agents and change champions. All are essential elements in successfully implementing and embedding change into the organisation regardless of its size or nature. I have previously written about selecting sponsors and the skills they need. In this post I would …
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New Year, New Skills?
It is estimated that over the next few years the skills shortage in IT will grow considerably especially in Cyber Security and Project Management. Companies will need to recognise and fill the gaps in staff knowledge with agility and make sure they have the necessary professional qualifications to keep up with the huge changes in …
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The Biggest BRM Challenge – Moving from Order Taker to Strategic Partner
I recently held a Karen’s Conversations with Andie Kis in which we discussed how IT could market its value to the rest of the business. During this conversation, we digressed a little and started talking about the role of the Business Relationship Manager (BRM). You can watch the video here. The BRM Role I mentioned …
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Karen Wraps Up 2016 and Takes A Look At 2017
2016 has been an interesting year with more talk about the disruption happening in both IT and IT service management. We Need OCM! There has been continued discussion around DevOps, Agile, Lean, SIAM, digital transformation and the relevance of ITIL® in these spaces. The purpose of this post is not to debate the relevance of …
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