The IT Skeptic

How do we feel about ITIL being a commercial product?

skeptic — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:14:08 +0000

ITIL has been sold (and Prince2 - the following discussion applies just as much to all of the "Swirl" products sold). It is a commercial product. No more half-way house with OGC outsourcing publishing and accreditation: they've gone the whole hog and flogged the Swirl suite off for the corporate shilling. (First example of this in the UK Government apparently and supposedly a model for more.) How do we feel about this new situation?

The guitar; a little parable about IT technology

skeptic — Fri, 17 May 2013 23:29:17 +0000

The guitar: a little parable about how people approach IT technology.

A bulletin from the castle

skeptic — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:20:36 +0000

I wrote last week about how we are in the dark over the new joint venture between her Majesty's UK Government and Capita owning the "Swirl portfolio": ITIL, Prince2 and assorted other IP products.

A bulletin (pdf) has fluttered down from the castle wall today.

ITIL, Prince2, Capita and the Cabinet Office - in the dark

skeptic — Thu, 09 May 2013 05:27:44 +0000

Lots of people are asking what the IT Skeptic makes of the recent announcement of a joint venture between the Cabinet Office and Capita to exploit the Best Practice Library. They're asking why I haven't made any comment yet. Two reasons: (1) I was off-grid for 10 days and (2) we haven't been given any information useful enough to draw many conclusions. Clearly the behaviour I call "Castle ITIL" will continue: you will be informed when they are good and ready to announce by decree, and until then the castle gates remain firmly shut. But I have been able to glean a few things...

The UK Government reinvents ITSM

skeptic — Thu, 02 May 2013 09:14:31 +0000

How exactly does the UK Government spend time and money building a "Government Service Design Manual" targeted at builders of the Gov.uk online services that only once mentions ITIL?

And how does Gov.uk think that essential public services like passports, BD&M, benefits, justice, citizenship and tax are going to run with "Resources for service managers" that barely summarise the syllabus of an ITIL Foundations course?

DevOps ideology and dangerous over-simplification, that's how.

Improving service support for Real IT

skeptic — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 09:04:20 +0000

I think all ITSM practitioners know exactly what idealised service support looks like. It's all well and good painting these idealised dream pictures. The value comes in describing how to get there. There are certain obstacles:

What is the IT Skeptic for?

skeptic — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 21:41:26 +0000

Nothing like walking the dog on a rainy night to bring on some introspection. Why do I do this? What is the IT Skeptic's purpose? What do I hope to achieve? Make your own guess, then read on for a list of useful tools for you.

Skep Chat 2013/4/16 - talking with Pavels Gurskis

skeptic — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:26:52 +0000

Your chance to hangout with the IT Skeptic and discuss what has been on the blog lately.

Customer value

skeptic — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 08:03:27 +0000

The cult of the customer keeps popping up to annoy me. Yesterday I posted about how being customer-centric doesn't man spending all our time with the customer, about how it's important to spend most of our time inside the factory, delivering. Today I want to talk about "customer value" and how it isn't the Holy Grail of IT. We as organisations don't exist for our customers. We exist for the continuance of the organisation, Click to tweet we exist to maximise value for the organisation, whether it be commercial, public or non-profit. It's not anti-customer to realise they are not the be-all and end-all of our existence.

The goal of our activities should be to maximise value for our organisation. That value is defined by the owners and governors of the organisation not the customers.

The measurement of value is of course different for every organisation. Customer value is not one such metric. Stop foaming: let me explain.

Customer-centric

skeptic — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 21:34:12 +0000

OK I've had it with the cult of the customer. I just saw one remark too many about "it's all inward-looking". We need to be inward-looking most of the time or we're not doing our ****ing job. Let me illustrate with that favourite analogy: a water supply.

Chicken ITle, robots, and a chessboard

skeptic — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 21:27:13 +0000

Today our new blog character returns. Chicken ITle draws our attention to those who announce catastrophic consequences for IT if we don't all rush off and do something. Usually these sky-falling folk are either analysts or vendors, because both profit from fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD). But sometimes they are book authors, pumping a book.

Skep Chat 2013/04/04 - hangout with the IT Skeptic

skeptic — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 22:14:43 +0000

Here is the latest online streamed Skep Chat, an opportunity for you - dear readers - to hangout and discuss recent posts on this blog with me.

Announcing SkepCoin

skeptic — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 01:20:49 +0000

The IT Skeptic is excited to announce today an upcoming service from the IT Skeptic website: SkepCoin.

Site members will be able to buy SkepCoin currency for use on the website to buy intangible property (IP) products. Note: no products are currently available for SkepCoin purchase. Look for future announcements of opportunities to use SkepCoins.

Google Project DriveL will revolutionise online discussions and debates

skeptic — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 20:12:15 +0000

Hard on the heels of the news on Google Babble comes an inside leak of another linked secret project: Google DriveL. This super-secret "social community connector" will allow all discussion about a topic to be seen in a single thread, a "rich community experience".

Chicken ITle

skeptic — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 23:41:20 +0000

As part of my ongoing theme of Slow IT, I'm introducing a new character to the blog, Chicken ITle (how appropriate just before Easter). Chicken ITle draws our attention to those who announce catastrophic consequences for IT if we don't all rush off and do something. Usually these sky-falling folk are either analysts or vendors, because both profit from fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD).

The IT Skeptic on facebook

skeptic — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 22:38:45 +0000

Mountains crumble, continents shift, species evolve, and The IT Skeptic gets a page on facebook. Personally I prefer Google+ but for those of you who use Zuckerbook, The IT Skeptic now has his own page, and I promise to try to keep the page alive on this crumbling ruin of a social network (like, facebook is so noughties). To do that, I need you to interact please, so come friend, like, post, tag, comment, and all those things you do on a social network.

Please Like the IT Skeptic on facebook

Service desks and spontaneous user combustion

skeptic — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 23:24:56 +0000

There is much talk about users spontaneously creating their own communities for mutual technical support. This phenomenon of spontaneous user support is presented as a threat to IT. We're told that if we don't do something to engage these communities then they will render IT redundant. The absurdity of this shouldn't need explanation but apparently it does. I'll deal with that separately (I started here). Never mind the absurdity of the predicted consequences, does it ever happen?

The mad competitive scramble

skeptic — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 04:05:27 +0000

The rate of change in IT is unsustainable, and is in fact a crowd hysteria. Just because the technology is changing that fast doesn't mean we have to, or can.

A major driver for that scrabbling rush is "competition". That is an over-used trump-card that needs some close skeptical scrutiny in all the companies playing it. Tweet this

Obtaining compliance for policies, processes and procedures

skeptic — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 10:16:48 +0000

One of the great frustrations of improvement is getting people to do stuff.
From an email I wrote today responding to this question, here are some ways to get compliance - in increasing order of maturity. Tell me what you think of this model. What did I miss? What is already out there?

Where's the COBIT 5 training?

skeptic — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 20:40:50 +0000

Here we go again. COBIT 5 is hot: the industry itches to get using it. APMG is signed up to roll out the training programme. The ITIL V3 training courses faced a similar situation a few years back. The ITIL training courses (also administered by APMG) came out later than promised, much to the frustration of an industry busting to put it to work. Now we see the same thing again with COBIT 5. Rattle your dags, ISACA and APMG!