itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

SEPTEMBER 2016 1st EDITION

New International memberships now available - Click Here

itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

3 A Word from the International Chair

—Shari Brunette

4 itSMFI Feature: What is ITSM Sysaid 14 itSMFI World Chapter Events

15 itSMFI Feature: Governing Value—Corporate, IT & Service Governance Peter Brooks

17 Shari Brunette nominated for Prestigious Pink Elephant IT Leader of the Year 2016

19 itSMFI Feature: How do you ensure that the outcomes from assessments are accurate and objective Paul Collins, SkillsTx.com

20 itSMFI Feature: Service Management Evolution—How are DevOps and Agile changing our world? Claire Agutter—ITSM Zone 22 itSMFI Feature: What Skills and Competencies do we need? Matthew Burrows—BMSimpact.com 24 Meet the 2016 itSMF International Board 27 itSMFI Chapter Directory

2

Food for Thought by Bruce Harvey , Company Secretary itSMF International Limited

As Service Management Professionals, is it possible that we may be flying under the radar screen?

I am constantly amazed at the depth and breadth of competencies and capabilities that Service Management Professionals appear to have and the experience that they can bring to bear on a problem or need. And the benefits that they can provide are evident across the entire delivery chain from R&D to implementation to end of lifecycle of almost every product or service that is consumed in our economies!

But I am just as amazed that it would appear that the wider market place does not know that we exist? And if they don’t know that we exist- from the customer’s perspective we don’t!

We spend a lot of time at conferences sharing our collective knowledge with each other but do we spend enough time telling the world of the value that we as Service Management Professionals can add to their enterprises whether government or private, large or small!

In a previous life, as a Business Development and Strategic Marketing Manager, the objective was to sell the sizzle and not the sausage! After 3 + years of watching over the Australian Chapter initially and more recently as the Company Secretary for the International Company, I am noticing much discussion on the frameworks that are available to support the Service Management Function (the sausage if you will) but little promotion of the “Sizzle”!

Service Managers save and improve lives through their work in the Health Sector!

Service Managers move people to work safely and on time through their work in the Transport Sector.

Service Managers protect our lives and property through their work in the Emergency Service Sector.

Service Managers provide us with water and energy through their work in the utilities Sector.

Service Managers lift our living standards through their work in the Finance Sector.

Service Managers provide opportunities for Personal Development through their work in the Education Sector.

Service Managers add enormous value in all areas of our economies – but what we don’t seem to do is the tell the world about it.

Service Managers make our world a better place!

Are Service Managers flying under the radar screen?

Best Regards ABH

Next Edition: The next edition of our e-zine is scheduled for publication on Ist December 2016.

Chapters are invited to send details of forthcoming events and any newsworthy items related to their chapters for publication. Contributors are invited to forward articles for publication by 17th November 2016 for consideration for publication.

Advertisers are also invited to consider advertising opportunities in the e-zine– Click here to view the Media Kit.

3 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

Back to school… In the US, we are starting to see signs of the turn of the season - towards the end of summer. School is around the corner. It is time to get back to learning - time to catch up with old friends and meet new ones. This is a great time to reconnect with other parts of your IT organization. Rekindle those relationships with others by reaching out to understand what is happening in each area and finding out how your ITSM Program can continue to add value for the needs of your business. Engaging your IT Colleagues Speaking of business… what is important to your business? What are the strategies, goals, and objectives that are important to your business? Have you spent time with your PMO? What are the pain points in the PMO? Can you help them provide information regarding who is requesting work from IT? Is your Catalog positioned to be able to provide a view of requested work from IT? By Business? By Service? How are the PMO Stage gates utilizing artifacts from your Service Design, Service Transition, and Service Operations capabilities? Speaking of Catalog -- have you been out to see Human Resources, Facilities, Media Services, or Finance to help them leverage already existing processes for organizing their repeatable requests? When did you last meet with your Business Relationship Managers? How have you helped them recently understand what new information is available from your process improvements? What are their customer pain points and how can areas of Service Improvement provide better insights? What's new with App-Dev? Are they moving toward DevOps and Agile methods? Do your processes support the needs of the teams? Have you looked at the end-to-end and helped identify areas to 'lean up' areas of 'muda?' What discussion have you had with Information Security? Have you had conversations about cyber-resilience and how the CMDB can help support your organization become more 'defendable'? Have you had any discussions with those parts of your organization owning assets that are not traditional IT assets

A Word from the International Chair

Shari Brunette

that sit on the production network? Your processes have tremendous value to them! With your Financial Management area? Have you had discussion with them on how Asset and Configuration Management can provide valuable input for better understanding of financial assets in IT? If you are in a chargeback organization, have you talked about how your capabilities can provide better insights into usage for better overall planning? Share your Service Management capabilities with others Service Management capabilities encompass many frameworks - it is not just about 'ITIL!' You would be surprised at how much redundancy you can find by meeting with these groups and using a simple SIPOC format to show the various interdependencies of IT processes. This also enables a conversation about where the 'sources of truth' are for the various processes and how to harmonize the many measures used in IT. This presents opportunities to 'lean' up the processes, leverage artifacts, and share key information. As a Service Management professional, your value is in being able to see over these 'silos' and across the many frameworks used in various parts of your IT organization. It's an amazing discovery! Trust me - I've done this and the discussion is often met with surprise at how well your Service Management capabilities can provide help. Now is a great time to reach out and meet with other areas in IT - showing the opportunity that IT Service Management can offer each area! What's a good way to get this started? Pick an area at a time and create your 'discovery conversation.' The result - in the form of a SIPOC, a list of sources of truth, and a discussion on key measures is often met with appreciation. You can offer the value of seeing it from the lens of the IT staff -- who feel the redundancy and complexity of these many interdependent processes! Try one area! See what it brings!

4 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

Getting to grips with IT service management (ITSM) can

be tricky, not just in terms of changing people’s mindsets

and ways of working, but also in getting to grips with

what ITSM is really all about. There’s a lot of information

out there, plus there are many terms and acronyms that

might not be as immediately understandable as they

could be.

The cynical amongst you might also argue that what

ITSM is and isn’t will depend on who is trying to use it,

ranging from: a set of processes – such as incident

management and problem management (definitions to

follow below) – through to a fundamentally different way

of delivering IT, based on services and serving the

customers of those services.

Defining ITSM

ITSM has a number of definitions, available from a variety

of sources. Let’s start with the ITIL (the ITSM best

practice framework formerly known as the IT Infrastruc-

ture Library – more on this later) definition:

“The implementation and management of quality IT

services that meet the needs of the business. IT service

management is performed by IT service providers through

an appropriate mix of people, process and information

technology. See also service management.”

Source: ITIL 2011 Glossary

ITIL also defines service management as:

“A set of specialized organizational capabilities for

providing value to customers in the form of services.”

A more customer-focused definition of ITSM was

previously listed on Wikipedia, but is now no longer

available:

“A discipline for managing information technology (IT)

systems, philosophically centered on the customer's

perspective of IT's contribution to the business. ITSM

stands in deliberate contrast to technology-centered

approaches to IT management and business interaction.”

Original source: Wikipedia

A completely different definition – and this time of

“service management applied to IT” – is from The

Universal Service Management Body of Knowledge

(USMBOK) – a series of publications and references for

professionals working in service provider organizations

that supplements existing resources, such as ITIL, on

both strategic and operational levels:

“Also termed service management thinking, service

management is a systematic method for managing the

offering, contracting and provisioning of services to

customers, at a known quality, cost and designed

experience. Service management ensures the desired

results and customer satisfaction levels are achieved cost

By Stephen Alexander

What is ITSM

SysAid

5 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

including the negative financial implications of

critical IT issues

Increased IT cost efficiency

IT and Business-Level Benefits from ITSM

Increased business alignment

Increased IT service availability

Increased visibility and understanding IT

services

The ability to better support compliance and

regulatory requirements

Don’t Assume that ITSM Will Be New

to Your Organization

Before we dive deeper into what ITSM is, it’s worth

noting that you are probably already doing some ITSM

activities – it’s just that you don’t necessarily call it

ITSM. For example, any or all of the following are ITSM

activities:

Responding to, and fixing, infrastructure,

application, or end-user IT issues – it’s incident

management

Providing new software or hardware, or access to

network resources – it’s request fulfillment

Providing “how to”-type assistance to end users –

it’s also request fulfillment

Managing changes to infrastructure and

applications in a controlled way – it’s change

management

effectively, and is a means by which the customer

experience and interaction with products, services, and

the service provider organization is designed and

managed. Service management is also a transformation

method for any organization that wishes to operate as a

service provider organization.”

Source: USMBOK

So, in layman’s terms, ITSM is about:

Customers

Services

Quality

Cost

Meeting business needs

All this goes way beyond the traditional view of

managing IT based on siloed technology domains such

as network, storage, and compute; ITSM is about

optimizing service delivery and the consumption of

those IT services.

The Generic IT and Business Benefits

from ITSM

Different information sources will list different benefits

available with ITSM. Some will relate to the IT organiza-

tion, some to the parent business, and some to both. A

few examples are:

IT Organization Benefits from ITSM

A better understanding of business requirements

Repeatable and scalable best practice-based

processes

Defined roles and responsibilities, plus

accountability

Increased IT productivity through optimal

processes and enabling technology

Increased customer perceptions of IT and IT

service delivery

Better expectation management for business

stakeholders and employees

Increased control

The ability to measure and improve IT

performance

The shortening of the incident lifecycle and

potentially the prevention of incidents before

they occur (where “incidents” are IT issues)

The proactive identification of problems (repeat

IT issues)

Business-Level Benefits from ITSM

Better IT ability to react to the business’ need for

rapid change

Increased business productivity due to better IT

service availability and performance

Reduction in the business impact of incidents,

6 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

Monitoring network, hardware, and application

availability – it’s event management

Planning for future changes based on new

technologies or changes in demand – it’s

capacity management or even demand

management

Many of your existing IT activities will map across to

ITSM.

However, the difference between your current IT

activities and formalized ITSM might be that:

Activities are inconsistently undertaken – often

only when time allows

Processes aren’t formalized and interconnected

where appropriate

Processes haven’t accommodated industry best

practice where available

Activities might be manually intensive, without

the aid of fit-for-purpose ITSM technology

So the adoption of ITSM might not always provide you

with new activities, but it should always give you good,

or best practice, advice on how to optimize your ITSM

activities.

The Origins of ITSM

Many will point to the introduction of ITIL in 1989, with

a set of best practice books, as the starting point for

ITSM. However, there was much that preceded ITIL that

could be considered ITSM – from both inside and outside

the IT community.

So ITSM and service management is older than ITIL,

although the term “IT service management” was not

commonly used pre-ITIL. Much of the early IT-based

ITSM thinking (albeit often referred to as IT operations

or similar), and support, came from technology vendors/

suppliers through the need to help their customers to use

their technology. For example, in early large-scale main-

frame environments it would be common to find

7 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

configuration management, change management,

problem management, capacity planning, availability

management, and disaster recovery used to optimize

operations.

Outside of IT, the concept of service management

was, and still is, relevant to all service providers. The

1984 book “Service Management: Strategy and Leader-

ship in the Service Business” by Richard Normann,

often referred to as one of the foundations of service-

based thinking and service management excellence, is

another source of service management, and thus

ITSM, advice.

So while ITSM owes a huge debt to ITIL, its origins

can be found in both traditional IT operations’ best

practices and the wider service provider community.

ITIL – the ITSM Best Practice Framework

ITIL is an ITSM best practice framework, formerly

known as the “IT Infrastructure Library.” It is now

considered to be the most popular source for ITSM

information and advice.

ITIL is officially described as:

“… the most widely accepted approach to IT service

management in the world. ITIL can help individuals and

organizations use IT to realize business change,

transformation, and growth.”

Source: https://www.axelos.com/itil

ITIL was built on the concepts of:

Not providing IT per se; instead provide IT-

based services that support and enable business

processes

Customers/end users consume IT as a service

rather than as IT components or IT team

outputs

IT needs to be managed as a service

ITIL 2011 contains 26 ITSM processes, however, as

with ITIL v3 and v2 before it, ITIL 2011 is designed to

be used based on what is needed – an “adopt and

adapt” approach rather than blindly trying to

introduce all of its 26 ITSM processes.

ITIL also advocates that these IT services are aligned

to the needs of the business and support its core

processes. ITIL also helps IT service providers to

understand demand, manage expectations, and ensure

that service-delivery is fit-for-purpose. ITIL’s best

practices are currently divided up between, and

detailed within, five core books:

Service Strategy – “A stage in the lifecycle of a

service. Service strategy defines the perspective,

position, plans and patterns that a service

provider needs to execute to meet an

organization’s business outcomes. Service

strategy includes the following processes: strategy

management for IT services, service portfolio

management, financial management for IT services,

demand management, and business relationship

management.”

Service Design – “A stage in the lifecycle of a

service. Service design includes the design of the

services, governing practices, processes and

policies required to realize the service provider’s

strategy and to facilitate the introduction of

services into supported environments. Service

design includes the following processes: design

coordination, service catalogue management, ser-

vice level management, availability management,

capacity management, IT service continuity

management, information security management,

and supplier management.”

Service Transition – “A stage in the lifecycle of a

service. Service transition ensures that new,

modified or retired services meet the expectations

of the business as documented in the service

strategy and service design stages of the lifecycle.

Service transition includes the following

processes: transition planning and support,

change management, service asset and

configuration management, release and deployment

management, service validation and testing, change

8 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

evaluation, and knowledge management.”

Service Operation – “A stage in the lifecycle of

a service. Service operation coordinates and

carries out the activities and processes required to

deliver and manage services at agreed levels to

business users and customers. Service operation

also manages the technology that is used to

deliver and support services. Service operation

includes the following processes: event manage-

ment, incident management, request fulfillment,

problem management, and access management.”

Continual Service Improvement – defined by

ITIL as “A stage in the lifecycle of a service.

Continual service improvement ensures that

services are aligned with changing business needs by

identifying and implementing improvements to IT

services that support business processes.”

All of these definitions are from the ITIL 2011 Glossary of

Terms – a useful ITSM and ITIL resource, which is

available in a number of different languages.

These five ITIL books map the entire IT service

lifecycle, from the identification of customer needs and

the drivers for IT requirements, through to the design

and implementation of the necessary IT service or

services, to the monitoring and improvement of the IT

services.

In many ways, ITIL can ultimately be considered

“documented common sense” for ITSM, and the effective

management of IT, IT services, and IT service

delivery.

The Origins of ITIL

ITIL was introduced on the back of the UK government’s

disillusionment with the way that governmental IT was

delivered in the latter half of the 1980s. The Central

Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA), now

called the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), was

tasked with developing a framework for the efficient, and

financially-responsible, use of IT resources.

ITIL was originally just a set of books. But it didn’t take

long for an ITIL ecosystem that involved consultancy,

software, training, examinations, and membership-based

ITSM organizations to appear. With such a vibrant

ecosystem, ITIL was quickly adopted (and not just in the

public sector) in Europe in the 1990s and spread

worldwide in the 2000s.

It’s also worth noting that multiple versions of ITIL have

developed over time:

2001 saw ITIL v2 emerge and the popularity of ITIL

exams surge

2007 delivered the much larger ITIL v3

2011 brought ITIL 2011, a “refresh” of ITIL v3

Amazingly, over 2 million people worldwide now have ITIL

qualifications.

Differentiating Between ITSM and ITIL

It’s not unusual for people new to ITSM and ITIL to

confuse the two words, especially when those who are not

new (to ITSM and ITIL) might use the two acronyms

interchangeably.

An easy way to differentiate between the two is to think

about horses versus animals per se, i.e. a horse is an animal,

but not all animals are horses.

So ITIL is a view on how to do ITSM, but not all ITSM is

ITIL.

For example, an organization might be happily using ITSM

to its advantage, but without the use of ITIL, for instance

where:

No formal framework or methodology is used

BiSL – the Business Information Services Library, a

framework used for information management – is

used

COBIT – ISACA’s (an independent, nonprofit, global

association engaged in the development, adoption

and use of globally accepted, industry-leading

knowledge and practices for information systems)

framework for the governance and management of

enterprise IT – is used

ISO/IEC 20000 – a service management system

standard from the International Organization for

Standardization (ISO) – is used

MOF – the Microsoft Operations Framework – is

used

Six Sigma – a quality methodology, with tools and

techniques for process improvement – is used

TOGAF – an enterprise architecture methodology

and framework – is used

USMBOK – a series of publications and references

for professionals working in service provider

organizations – is used

9 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

Alternatively, organizations might use a variety of these

frameworks, methodologies, and standards for best

results. To help support this, AXELOS – the joint venture

company responsible for ITIL – offers a number of white

papers that describe how ITIL can be used in conjunction

with other IT and ITSM frameworks, methodologies, and

standards:

ISO/IEC 20000: ITIL V3 and ISO/IEC 20000

MOF: Cross-Reference ITIL V3 and MOF 4.0

Six Sigma: Integrating Six Sigma and ITIL for con-

tinual service improvement

TOGAF: TOGAF 9 and ITIL V3 Two Frameworks

Whitepaper

ISACA has published a COBIT 5 process level mapping to

ITIL in its “COBIT 5: Enabling Processes” publication. You

can also find out more about COBIT by reading Joe the IT

Guy’s An Introduction to COBIT blog.

The ITSM Processes Detailed in ITIL

ITIL 2011 offers up 26 ITSM processes and a number of

functions such as service desk, with the 26 processes split

across the five ITIL areas (and books):

Service strategy:

1. Strategy management for IT services

2. Service portfolio management

3. Demand management

4. Financial management for IT services

5. Business relationship management

Service design:

6. Design coordination

7. Service level management

8. Service catalog management

9. Availability management

10. Capacity management

11. Supplier management

12. IT service continuity management

13. Information security management

Service transition:

14. Transition planning and support

15. Change evaluation

16. Change management

17. Release and deployment management

18. Service validation and testing

19. Service asset and configuration management

20. Knowledge management

Service operation:

21. Event management

22. Incident management

23. Request fulfillment

10 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

24. Problem management, including root cause

analysis

25. Access management

Continual service improvement:

26. Continual service improvement (CSI) – 7-step

improvement process. You can find out more about

CSI by reading The Help You Need to Adopt

Continual Service Improvement.

While there are 26 discrete ITIL processes, the reality is

that some ITSM and ITIL processes are adopted more than

others.

As with most statistics, the numbers vary by who you ask,

but in most cases, ITSM/ITIL process adoption levels tend

to be in the region of:

Incident management – circa 95%

Change management – circa 75%

Problem management – circa 60%

With the other ITIL-espoused ITSM processes having

adoption levels ranging from 10-50%

The Most Popular ITSM and ITIL

Processes Defined

Note: In this section, all definitions are from the ITIL 2011

Glossary of Terms.

The service desk is an ITSM function that employs two

ITSM processes – incident management and request

fulfillment.

Service desk – “The single point of contact between the

service provider and the users. A typical service desk

manages incidents and service requests, and also handles

communication with the users.”

The service desk should help to shorten the incident

lifecycle, i.e. to resolve incidents more swiftly, to

maximize business productivity. It should also make

better use of the potentially limited IT support and

resolution group resource; with appropriate metrics and

fit-for-purpose service desk or ITSM technology used to

support and optimize both incident management and

service request fulfillment. Ultimately improving

customer service and business colleague’s perceptions of

IT – the service desk, or IT help desk, is “the business’s

window into IT” and a big contributor to how the

internal IT organization is viewed by business peers.

Incident management – “The process responsible for

managing the lifecycle of all incidents. Incident manage-

ment ensures that normal service operation is restored as

quickly as possible and the business Impact is

minimized.”

An incident is defined as: “An unplanned interruption to

an IT service or reduction in the quality of an IT service.

Failure of a configuration item that has not yet affected

service is also an incident – for example, failure of one

disk from a mirror set.”

You can find out more about incident management by

reading ITSM Basics: A Simple Introduction to Incident

Management and 12 Tips For Getting Started With

Incident Management.

Request fulfillment – “The process responsible for

managing the lifecycle of all service requests.”

A service request is defined as: “A formal request from a

user for something to be provided – for example, a request

for information or advice; to reset a password; or to

install a workstation for a new user.”

You can find out more about request fulfillment by

reading 5 Service Request Catalog And Self-Service Tips.

Change management – “The process responsible

for controlling the lifecycle of all changes, enabling

beneficial changes to be made with minimum

disruption to IT services.”

A change is defined as: “The addition, modification

or removal of anything that could have an effect

on IT services. The scope should include changes

to all architectures, processes, tools, metrics and

documentation, as well as changes to IT services and

other configuration items.”

The potential benefits of change management

include:

Real financial benefits – by reducing the

number of incidents and problems caused by

failed changes, and the associated adverse

business impact

11 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

Better management of changes – with

improved insight and visibility, control, and

potentially speed of change

Better cross-team collaboration – resulting in

improved change risk and impact assessment, and

better change prioritization and scheduling

You can find out more about change management by

reading What Is Change Management For? and ITSM

Wars, Episode VII: The Standard Change Awakens.

Problem management – “The process responsible for

managing the lifecycle of all problems. Problem manage-

ment proactively prevents incidents from happening and

minimizes the impact of incidents that cannot be

prevented.”

A problem is defined as: “A cause of one or more

incidents.”

Problem management identifies permanent solutions and

reduces the number of, and resolution time for, repeat

incidents.

The potential benefits of problem management include:

Less downtime and disruption to business-critical

IT services and business operations, and a

reduction in the opportunity cost of such disrup-

tions

A reduction in the cost of, and the effort invested

in, fire-fighting or resolving repeat incidents

Better use of scarce IT people resource, with

reduced expenditure on workarounds or fixes that

don’t work

You can find out more about problem management by

reading Problem Management: no problemo & Defining

Metrics for Problem Management.

Service catalog management – “The process responsible

for providing and maintaining the service catalog and for

ensuring that it is available to those who are authorized to

access it.”

A service catalog has traditionally been defined as: “A

database or structured document with information about

all live IT services, including those available for

deployment. The service catalogue is part of the service

portfolio and contains information about two types of IT

service: customer-facing services that are visible to the

business; and supporting services required by the service

provider to deliver customer-facing services.” More

recently though, the term has also been used to describe

the capability to provide an employee portal and/or

self-service capabilities to end users. This is sometimes

also referred to as a service request catalog.

The potential benefits of service catalog management

include:

An improved customer self-service capability for

request fulfillment

More efficient workflow for, and management of,

request fulfillment

The ability to link to automation capabilities for

both increased speed of provisioning and the

associated cost savings

Lightening the service desk’s service

request-based workload, allowing greater focus on

business-impacting incidents over potentially

routine service requests

You can find out more about service catalog

management by reading 5 Tips for Creating a Successful

Service Catalogue and Self-Service: The Benefits and 5

Tips for Success.

Service asset and configuration management – “The

process responsible for ensuring that the assets required

to deliver services are properly controlled, and that

accurate and reliable information about those assets is

available when and where it is needed. This information

includes details of how the assets have been configured

and the relationships between assets.”

12 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

The potential benefits from service asset and configuration

management relate to how the collected and managed data

is ultimately used, rather than from how much data has

been collected, for example: to support the incident,

change, problem, or capacity management processes. Thus,

before starting on any configuration and/or asset manage-

ment initiative, an IT organization must ensure that it fully

understands why it needs to adopt configuration manage-

ment, implement a configuration management database

(CMDB) or configuration management system (CMS), and

the data it needs to collect and manage.

You can find out more about configuration

management by reading What’s the Point of Configuration

Management? and Clearing Up the Myths of CMDB.

Knowledge management – “The process

responsible for sharing perspectives, ideas, experience and

information, and for ensuring that these are available in the

right place and at the right time. The knowledge

management process enables informed decisions, and

improves efficiency by reducing the need to rediscover

knowledge.”

As with service asset and configuration management, the

potential benefits of knowledge management are realized

from the more effective and efficient operation of other

ITSM processes – such as incident, change, problem, or

capacity management – rather than by directly using the

knowledge management process itself. After all, it’s

knowledge use (or exploitation) rather than knowledge

management that ultimately makes a difference to IT and

business operations.

You can find out more about knowledge management by

reading Knowledge Management Is Not Just About

Document Repositories.

Service level management – “The process responsible for

negotiating achievable service level agreements and

ensuring that these are met. It is responsible for ensuring

that all IT service management processes, operational level

agreements and underpinning contracts are appropriate for

the agreed service level targets. Service level management

monitors and reports on service levels, holds regular service

reviews with customers, and identifies required

improvements.”

A service level is defined as: “An agreement between an IT

service provider and a customer. A service level agreement

describes the IT service, documents service level targets, and

specifies the responsibilities of the IT service provider and

the customer. A single agreement may cover multiple IT

services or multiple customers.”

Beyond the obvious benefits of setting and managing

customer expectations through SLAs, and identifying

service improvements, service level management can also

help to ensure that IT services actually meet customer

needs and to better define the respective responsibilities

of both service consumers and providers.

You can find out more about service level management

by reading How Can You Create an SLA that Helps to

Delight Your Customers?

Financial management for IT services – “The function

and processes responsible for managing an IT service

provider’s budgeting, accounting and charging

requirements. Financial management for IT services

secures an appropriate level of funding to design, develop

and deliver services that meet the strategy of the

organization in a cost-effective manner.”

Financial management for IT services is not just about

cost cutting. While IT organizations and their parent

businesses might initially benefit from reducing costs,

the real value is in becoming more cost efficient, then

cost optimized, and then finally being able to

demonstrate business value – although these states

aren’t mutually exclusive nor a necessarily a linear

progression.

Differentiating Between IT Help

Desk and Service Desk

Similar to the potential confusion between ITSM and

ITIL, there are two other ITSM terms that can mean

different things to different people – “IT help desk” and

“service desk.”

The internal IT help desk – “the people you contact for

IT support or information” – was born in the late 1980s/

early 1990s to fix employee IT issues as they began to

have more and more access to IT in the workplace.

Interestingly, ITIL offers no definition for IT help desk,

and it is not even mentioned in the five main ITIL books.

On the flip side, most employees still think that they are

calling the IT help desk when they have an IT issue no

matter what the corporate IT organization call its IT

support facility. The term “service desk” is probably

totally alien to employees.

The service desk is an evolution of the IT help desk,

based on ITIL and the management of IT as a service,

where:

“A typical service desk manages incidents and service

requests, and also handles communication with the

users.”

Accordingly, a service desk does more than an IT help

desk – in that it also deals with service requests – but it

is often also differentiated by the adoption of an ITIL

mindset and how the received end-user requests are

handled, e.g. with service level targets and/or a more

customer-centric approach.

13 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

The use of “service desk,” by corporate IT organizations,

over “help desk” has continued to grow – probably as ITIL

adoption has also risen – such that the 2012 HDI Practices

and Salary Report (only available to HDI members)

reported that service desk (at 32.3%) is now more

frequently used than help desk (26.6%) or any other

names for an IT support capability.

If you would like to read more on this, Joe the IT Guy has

written more on the distinction between the two terms in

his Are You An IT Help Desk Or An IT Service Desk? blog.

The Difference Between ITSM and

Gartner’s ITSSM Terminology

You might also come across another related term: IT

service support management (ITSSM). This has been

created by IT research and advisory firm Gartner to

define tools that support the most commonly adopted

ITSM, and ITIL, processes:

“IT service support management (ITSSM) tools enable IT

operations organizations, specifically infrastructure and

operations (I&O) managers, to better support the

production environment. ITSSM tools automate the tasks

and workflows associated with the management and

delivery of quality IT services to the business.”

Source: Gartner Magic Quadrant for IT Service Support

Management Tools (25 August 2014)

ITSSM tools provide support for:

Incident management

Problem management

Change management

Service asset and configuration management

Release and deployment management

Service catalog management (from the 2015

Magic Quadrant onwards)

Knowledge management

Along with many of the other ITSM solutions require-

ments such as:

Reporting and dashboards

Best practices

Integrations with other IT products.

Basically, ITSSM sits between service desk and the ITIL

-defined ITSM process set.

Creating the Business Case for ITSM

and ITIL Adoption

If you are looking to formally adopt ITSM, you might

need to create a business case for the investment in

new people, processes, and technology. But,

importantly, this shouldn’t actually be a business case

to adopt ITSM, or ITIL, but rather one to support a

business strategy or strategies such as:

Improved IT-business alignment with the

associated benefits

Greater IT responsiveness and customer service

Increased business competitive advantage

through IT enablement

Improved flexibility or agility/speed of delivery

for new/changed business and IT services

The business case should also show how ITSM and ITIL

can help to:

Improve quality through: fewer incidents and

increased availability, increased business

productivity, and improved customer experience

and access

Reduce the cost of IT provision through: reduced

IT wastage and improved efficiency

Deliver new or additional services through the

reinvestment of IT savings

Reduce risk and improve governance, to

demonstrate compliance with internal controls

and external regulations

Further Reading – Recommended

ITSM Blogs

Core ITSM – by James Finister

ITSM Transition – by Greg Sanker

Joe the IT Guy – by Joe the IT Guy

Optimal Service Management – by Stuart

Rance

ServiceDesk360

SysAid Blogs

The IT Skeptic – by Rob England

14 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

itSMF UK Conference 21-22nd Nov 2016

Click here

itSMF Slovakia Conference

8th—9th Feb 2017

Click here

itSMF USA Conference

1—4th Nov 2016

Click here

itSMF Ireland Conference

13th Oct 2016

Click here

itSMF Russia Conference

4-5th Oct 2016

Click here

itSMF Denmark Conference

26-27th Oct 2016

Click here

15 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

board to understand what value it can deliver. Business

cases are in terms of technology and ROI or other tools that

should help with investment.

The consequence of this has been for IT, finding itself

outside of the corporate governance structure, attempts to

govern itself, through IT governance, using a standard, or

framework developed for this.

The problem this creates is that IT, and, often, the board,

develops the illusion that it is being governed. IT

Governance will do many important things. It will set up a

governance framework, try to optimise value and risk, and

make sure resources are used wisely.

However, if the governance framework, the value and the

risk are not entirely governed by the corporate governing

body, it can actually produce negative value for the

organisation.

If all parts of the organisation are aligned to producing the

same value(s), then there is no problem—

this is commonly the situation with start-ups

and small companies because there is a clear sense of

purpose and communication is easier.

Unfortunately, often, this is not the case. It is difficult for a

governing body to control all parts of an organisation, so it

tends to concentrate on those parts that deliver the most

obvious value, and those parts that are easiest to control.

This means that other parts of the organisation end up not

being governed properly.

Historically, it has often been IT that has been left out.

This has largely been because IT presents itself as

technical, in technical language, making it difficult for the

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.

- Peter Drucker

Governance is accountable for providing value and effective internal control.

Effective internal control -> Corporate Value

The governing body of an organisation is accountable for all governance. It should control the network that

delivers value to its stakeholders.

If a governing body is not in full control of all parts of the organisation, if it is not governing them, then it does

not have effective internal control.

By Peter Brooks

16 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

For example, IT Governance might decide, to use a

third party service, to save the cost of resources, and to

reduce what it sees as the risk. If the value to

the Governing body depends on that service being

secure and highly available, this will be a dangerous

error.

The governing body is unable to communicate its

requirements for value to IT because they have

different assumptions and use different language.

In practice, what IT then does, when it is doing well, is

to get in touch with the business units and establish

what their requirements are. It then uses these to infer

what the values are and tries to deliver services

according to what it sees business units seem to

require.

In effect, IT is being governed by business

management.

This mis-match between the operational value

required, and the value that IT is delivering to

operations can be extreme. IT is often then seen as the

problem, causing disruption to operations. In order to

defend itself, IT uses IT governance frameworks to

prove that it is being adequately governed.

Good though these frameworks are, they cannot make

up for the disconnect from leadership, from

governance.

We see that, in this case, IT is Management is doing

things right - at least in its eyes. But.. it is not doing the

right things.

The problem has existed for a very long time. It may

not have been stated in the way it has been stated here,

but it certainly has been recognised as an impediment

to progress.

Many attempts have been made to solve it. Some have

improved matters considerably.

Unfortunately, the gap between the governing body

and IT is still, mostly, unbridged. If you go to any IT

Service Management conference, or talk to IT people

generally, you will often hear how difficult, or

impossible, they find it to communicate with ‘the

business’. Often ‘the business’ is seen as capricious,

and unaware of what it needs - which is unfair. The

management of business units know exactly what they

need to do, at any given time, to comply with the

requirements of the governing body. They are not the

governing body, though, and their job is operational

and tactical. They will know their own particular

strategy, within the corporate strategy, but not the

bigger picture, or the longer-term strategic goals -

properly, these are the business of the governing body,

that has the job to set direction for the whole

company.

Part of the difficulty is historic. The main decision

making tool used by governing bodies, is the business

case. The business case is judged against its

contribution to the business dynamics, and these are

reported from the general ledger. Unfortunately, many

of the activities that take place in IT, and much of the

equipment used in IT, does not make itself visible in

the general ledger. Instead of seeing what value IT

delivers to the organisation, the board sees a cost

centre, and that causes loss of value to other,

productive, parts of the business.

To be fair, it is not only IT that is in this position.

Many other business units have had their own

struggles to establish the value of their contribution to

corporate value. Manufacturing and Retail have used

metaphors like the ‘supply chain’ to make this value

evident.

IT Service Management has tried to resolve the issue

by using the service metaphor. ITIL does an excellent

job of providing the guidance necessary to design,

build and supply services to an organisation.

Unfortunately, it is often seen, as in its name, as

‘management’ - a tool, not for governance, but for

operational management.

Which leads to the solution:

The solution is to take the existing work, such as that

found in ITIL, Cobit, Togaf, MoV, MoR, Business

Analysis, and build it into a governance framework.

17 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

The above diagram shows the Service Portfolio, that

contains all services in the organisation (not ‘IT Services’ -

Enterprise Services). The governing body defines the value

required for these services and the policy and controls by

service. Management, including IT management, is

integrated within the service portfolio, delivering value

according to the requirements of each service.

The board sees all services in terms of the corporate value

they deliver, against the cost of the service - making it

much easier to see the value networks than when using

reports from the general ledger.

This allows for a much more agile organisation, as

decisions can be made according to particular services,

with the board able to see the potential value immediately.

IT Governance is now integrated with the

rest of operational governance, through the service

portfolio, thus it is able to do its job properly.

References:

Adopting Service Governance: Governing Portfolio Value

for Sound Corporate Citizenship

Sep 3, 2015 by Peter Brooks, published by: TSO and Axelos

ISBN 9780113314652

An Integrated Requirements Management Process:

Governing cost & risk in business analysis

Jul 13, 2013 by Peter Brooks ISBN: 978-1490489162

Collaborative Consulting

April 30, 2014 by Peter Brooks published by TSO ISBN

9780113313914

ITIL® Service Lifecycle Publication Suite

published by: TSO and Axelos ISBN: 9780113313235

Management of Risk Guidance for Practitioners

published by: TSO and Axelos ISBN: 9780113312740

Management of Value (MoV®)

published by: TSO and Axelos ISBN: 9780113312764

Shari Brunette nominated for

Prestigious Pink Elephant IT

Leader of the Year 2016

ITSMF International Limited Chair Shari

Brunette was honoured to have been

nominated for the prestigious Pink Elephant IT

Leader of the Year 2016 Award.

Nominated for her work in bringing the Axelos

partnering Agreement to fruition, Shari’s

nomination reflected her ability to co-ordinate

21 chapters present at the CLC in Madrid in

June 2014 and some 15 or so Chapters not

able to be present and to negotiate an

outcome acceptable to most by remote

control (teleconferences etc.) which proved to

be no easy task.

Although Shari was not the eventual winner,

her nomination is testament to her passion

and commitment to ITSMF International and

the Forum. Without Shari’s leadership and

involvement (as a volunteer I might add) the

Partnering Agreement with AXELOS would

never have become reality.

Congratulations Shari – you have done ITSMF

International Limited proud in receiving this

nomination.

Click Here for more information

Shari Brunette & Peter Hepworth

18 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

19 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

By Paul Collins, SkillsTx.com

Sounds like a simple question with an obvious answer: “Ensure everyone completes the same

surveys, use the same calculations for each result, and surely accuracy and objectivity will follow”

Unfortunately, the answer is not that obvious, or that simple. Researchers and academics under-

stand it takes a lot more to be able to fully rely on their results. They therefore invest a lot of time

and effort in creating a ‘research instrument’.

However, having said that, there are practical steps that, if followed, will

improve the quality of the outcomes.

Step One, the Survey:

Structure the questions very carefully.

Remove ambiguity by reducing the use of words such as ‘and’.

Ensure respondents have been suitably briefed regarding the

objectives of the assessment and where possible, include guidance

and instructions within the surveys.

Include answer options with an ‘opt-out’ and graduated

options such as ‘I do not understand the question’ and ‘I fully

perform this task’ or ‘I partially perform this task’.

Opt-out answers can be used for quality control to improve question

wording.

Build-in question branching where appropriate based on the

responses to previous questions. This improves efficiency and

reduces unnecessary effort and time to complete.

Provide accurate time estimates and progress monitoring that will

allow the participant to schedule the surveys within their working

day.

Finally, consider the education value of the questions. It is often

possible to include education content such as examples and

explanations of technical terminology.

Step Two, targeting:

Within every organization there are a broad range of perspectives.

To name a few, these can be related to aspects such as:

Hierarchy

Location

Experience and/or knowledge

Length of service

Take them into account when authoring the surveys.

Ensure you understand the target participants and as far as possible,

make the questions relevant to the audience.

For example, you might use acronyms and more technical

language if the surveys are appropriate for an expert group. If you

construct long and descriptive questions for an expert audience, they

will be frustrated by reading unnecessary content.

However, the opposite would be the case for a non-expert group,

where an educational approach would be more suitable.

Step Three, validate and/or triangulate:

While following the two previous steps will certainly help generate an accurate

result, variances will occur and you need to cater for the real possibility that

some surveys will be answered without sufficient due attention or time.

Therefore, a detailed analysis of the recorded responses using an

outlier approach is a useful method for identifying the

self-assessments that should be considered for validation.

The use of triangulation can also identify unreliable results.

Triangulation includes the equivalent of a 360° survey that enables you

to compare the self-assessment against 360° responses, and then

analysing the results for dissonance. If significant variance is identified,

then those self-assessments should be considered for a detailed

validation.

Validation can include:

Searching for evidence or observation and then adjusting the

result accordingly, whilst retaining a copy of the original responses

for future analysis and decision making.

Following these three steps, and retaining all recorded responses, will provide a

much richer dataset with varying levels of accuracy that can be used for more

granular and informed decision making.

20 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

When I started my service management career, ITIL version 2 was king and we

didn’t really question ‘how’ we did service management. The companies I was

working at were busy trying to get change management in place, improve their

service desk and decide how much configuration management they really

needed.

The arrival of ITIL version 3 felt at the time like a huge disruption. Service

management people started to look outside of operations, and to understand

how true service management governs the entire service lifecycle.

Fast-forward a few years, and ITIL version 3 looks like a minor event compared

to the current state of ITSM. DevOps, Agile, Lean, SIAM, IT4IT – there are so

many new things bursting on to the scene. As service management

professionals, what are we to do?

Keep learning

Anyone who thinks they know everything there is to know about ITSM is very

mistaken. The first step I would recommend for any ITSM professional is to start

learning. There are whole communities out there blogging and meeting up to

look at how IT needs to change – get involved!

I’ve been attending the Leeds DevOps and Sheffield DevOps in the UK. The

sense of community and passion is just as strong as it is in the ITSM world and

I’ve picked up some fantastic ideas learning from the presenters and attendees.

As with any IT method, framework or standard, the key is to pick the bits that

work for you. Some companies are repeating past mistakes by going ‘full

DevOps’ with new job titles all round and a complete re-organisation. Think

instead about how you can add some value to your existing structure and

where you can make rapid improvements.

Go beyond ‘build’ and ‘run’

One of the key ideas behind DevOps is getting dev and ops to work more closely

together – the clue is in the name. In traditional IT organisations, there is a

clearly defined ‘build’ phase where developers create the service, and then

a ‘run’ phase where operations take over. The quality of the handover and

the time constraints applied to the dev team will dictate the quality of the

live service.

Adopting a more agile mindset, we can move beyond build

and run. Applications go live, but then they are worked on and improved

incrementally. Dev are more involved with supporting what they’ve built,

and ops play a key role in providing feedback to the dev teams about what

can be improved.

Hack your processes

Developers run hackathons, getting groups of people together to build

working products that can be used to get feedback and prove a concept.

ITSM can apply the same thinking to processes. Got a change management

process that isn’t really working anymore? Get all the stakeholders

together in a room, and start to hack. Look for small improvements, test

concepts and build relationships – you will be amazed at the results.

The future is now

This is one of the most exciting times to be working service management

and as practitioners we have a chance to try new things and deliver value.

Let’s go!

About the author

Claire Agutter is the lead tutor of ITSM Zone, an

organisation that specialises in best practice

e-learning. Courses include ITIL, PRINCE2, BRM

Professional, Certified Agile Service Manager and the

DevOps Foundation.

21 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

Tore Johansen Retires

Tore was on the Norwegian board as treasurer and spent 2 years on the AXELOS Working Group, but recently decided to retire from both positions.

He remains on board of the Mid-Norway LIG where he has served since 2006.

Tore also was the ‘scout’ for itSMF Norway participating in numerous itSMF events, especially US, UK and the other Scandinavian countries.

As a result of this engagement Tore became a well-known identity and established a prominent social media profile.

itSMF Singapore

Introducing the New Executive Council

& Committee 2016/2017

22 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

We've talked for years about it not being all about technology. Many seem

to have a love/hate relationship when it comes to process - some saying

that we don't want more process. The merits, opportunities and challenges

of cloud, digital, big data, dev/ops, agile, IoT, SIAM, standards, frameworks,

and many other topics are all hotly debated. The subjects of people,

knowledge, skills and competencies also contain many areas for potential

disagreement. The latest versions of most of the international standards

that we deal with, including ISO/IEC 20000 (for Service Management), ISO/

IEC 27001 (Information Security), and ISO 9001 (Quality Management) have

been aligned, and extend their focus on people and their skills/

competencies.

Recently I witnessed a disagreement between two experts over

whether there is or isn't a skills shortage in our industry. The part that inter-

ested me was that they were able to have a disagreement because neither

of them "knew" the answer. I was able to get them to agree on something,

that we need an answer to the following questions:

What skills do we have?

What skills do we need?

The planning of any journey requires confirmation of the destination as

well as the starting point, and the answers to these questions are critical to

establish the starting point and the destination of the next leg of our skills

and competencies journey, both at an individual and an organisational

level. However, when I ask professionals at all levels around the world,

hardly anyone is confident they can answer either of these questions.

What help is available?

SFIA, the Skills Framework for the Information Age, has become the

globally accepted common language for skills in the digital world. It

provides descriptions of skills and responsibilities for professionals in and

around information and communications technology.

SFIA is used in nearly 200 countries and is growing fast. It enables

individuals to easily assess current skills and levels, identify skill goals and

plan professional development, and match skills to roles and jobs.

SFIA Version 6, released in 2015, contains 97 skills, each described at one or

more of 7 levels of responsibility. To aid navigation, SFIA structures the

skills into 6 categories, each with a number of sub-categories. It also

describes 7 generic levels of responsibility, in terms of Autonomy,

Influence, Complexity, and Business Skills.

One of the areas that has grown since the publication of V5, and is

therefore reflected in V6, is the area of cybersecurity. SFIA V5 contained

three core skills for security professionals: Information assurance,

Information security and security administration. All of these were updated

in V6, including adding a level 7 description for Information security and

level 1 and 2 descriptions for Security administration.

SFIA V5 also contained 10 skills which specifically included the word

‘security.’ Investigation identified another 22 SFIA skills which were

regularly used to describe the roles of security professionals and were

needed for security capabilities, but didn’t include the word ‘security’

anywhere. Apart from demonstrating the limitations of using word search

to identify relevant skills—which sadly many users resort to—it

highlighted how much coverage SFIA already had for this area.

Security references were specifically added to Solution architecture,

Systems development management, Programming/software

development, and Testing.

Digital forensics (DGFS), and Penetration testing (PENT) were also

added to the skills list in V6.

SFIA works well with the various cybersecurity frameworks and

information security standards. However, it covers a much wider

scope, defining skills needed across the complete digital

information and communications technology landscape.

With regard to digital forensics, cybersecurity and information

security, SFIA is being used to help quantify and close the skill/

capability gaps, providing a consistent model for all (ICT)

professions.

It’s not just about determining the headcount gap regarding

the number of cybersecurity professionals, but it assists

in understanding how organisations can build their own

cybersecurity capability.

By understanding the unique skills required, organisations can

determine if the gaps are in knowledge, role design and/or

professional skills. It helps determine who needs upskilling, which

roles may require a redesign, and identifying relevant training,

mentoring, knowledge transfer and other development activities.

Of course, security is just one of the many ICT elements covered in

SFIA. Organisations and governments around the world use SFIA in a

multitude of different ways, from defining role profiles and job

descriptions to recruitment and procurement. SFIA is also utilized in

talent and skills management to quickly identify an individual’s skills,

the skills they may be lacking, and recommendations for further

education and training.

What to do next

In simple terms, use SFIA to do a baseline assessment to confirm

what skills your individuals have, and provide a rolled up view of

these for the organisation. We can help you to complete this in a

matter of only a few weeks, and with relatively modest cost. There

are always reasons not to do something, but I'd argue that none of us

can afford not to know the answer to these basic questions, and we

should just get on with it.

By Matthew Burrows, BSMimpact.com

23 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

itSMF New Zealand farewells

Tristan Boot

itSMF New Zealand would like to thank Tristan for his time and effort over the past 9 years working for itSMF, 8 years of those as President.

We have lost a valuable member of the team.

Success for itSMF New Zealand itSMFnz ran a joint conference this year with 12 other IT organisations in NZ with over 750 attendees. Many of these sessions had over 50% participants in non-Service Management roles attend.

Our Partners were: itSMFnz – IT Service Management Forum NZ

Institute of IT Professionals (IITPNZ)

CITRENZ – Body for computing departments in Tertiary sector

NZ TECH – Voice of NZ Technology sector

NZ Rise – NZ owned Digital Technology business

HINZ – Health Informatics NZ

Agile Day – Agile Software TUANZ – Telecommunications Users Associations

InternetNZ

TPN – Test Professional Network

PMI NZ – Project Management Institute NZ

NZOSS – NZ Open Source Community

We would like to thank all our overseas and local presenters who took the time to join us.

Our next itSMFnz conference is from 26-28 June 2017 in Wellington.

The “Excellence in IT Service Management” was won by Brent Logan from Canterbury District Health Board – IT Services. We would like congratulate the finalists, MYOB NZ and Christchurch City Council IT Services.

itSMF New Zealand Conference Photo Gallery

24 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

Meet the 2016 itSMFI Board

Kathryn joined the International Executive Board in January

2015 and has been involved in the Australian Chapter for 10

years, starting in 2004. Kathryn has held many positions in the

Australian Chapter including, a member of the South Australian

committee for 10 years and most recently Chairman of the Australian

National Board recently handing this over to Brad Busch after 4 years in

the role.

Kathryn is the Founder of “LeapSheep”, a company that specialises in

Leadership, Collaboration and Networks, to help businesses to build and

scale their capability leading to accelerated growth. She left the corporate

world after 25 years working in the Service Delivery space for Westpac,

IBM, EDS, Hewlett Packard, South Australian Water Corporation and Origin

Energy.

Kathryn can be contacted on kathryn.heaton@itsmfi.org

Kathryn Heaton—Vice Chair

Shari Brunette—Chair

Shari is a Sr. Consultant at Aeritae Consulting Group,

located in St. Paul, MN, USA. She is an experienced consultant who

works with companies in the areas of Organizational Leadership and

Transformation, Strategic Planning, IT Service Management, and

Emerging Leadership Programs. She frequently works with Sr.

Leadership in the development of IT Strategy, Roadmaps, and the

assessment of Enterprise Programs.

Having worked in the IT industry for over 30 years, she has experience in

Applications Management, Portfolio and Program Management, Service

Ownership and Operations, Vendor Management, and Global Enterprise

Process implementations.

Shari Can be contacted on shari.brunette@itsmfi.org

25 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

Ulf Myrberg - Director of Qualifications, Certifications, Standards & Communication

Ulf has been a member of itSMF for about 15 years. For the past 8

years he has served as a member of the board of directors of the

Swedish chapter. He was also one of the founders of the chapter. He has been

a member of IPESC and IQaC/IQC since the committees started and has until

recently been a member of the Editorial Advisory Taskforce.

Ulf can be contacted on ulf.myrberg@itsmfi.org

Vinay Jain—Director

Vinay is an IT Professional with close to 20 years rich experience with well

known organisations. Adept at managing & leading teams for running successful

Technology Support Process Operations; experience of developing and

enhancing procedures, service standards for business excellence.

An enterprising leader with the ability to train and motivate cross-cultural teams in

optimising their performance levels.

Vinay can be contacted on vinay.jain@itsmfi.org

Michael Imhoff Nielsen—Director

Michael is working as ITSM consultant at Microsoft with a focus on cli-ent relations, process design, assessment and education.

In addition he is:

Chair of the itSMF Denmark board accountable for strategy, governance and the publications committee.

Member of the itSMF International Executive Board.

Chair of the itSMF International AXELOS Working Group.

Accredited ITIL Expert CPD

Accredited ITIL instructor by EXIN

ITIL Auditor at EXIN

His specialities includes: ITSM, ITIL, ISO/IEC 20000, COBIT, MOF, Governance of IT, Organizational Change Management.

Michael can be contacted on michael.imhoff@itsmfi.org

26 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

Over a successful career providing consultancy and training to small

and medium sized organisations and in multiple management appointments,

Bruce has developed extensive experience in corporate governance, enterprise

and operational risk management, strategic development, sales and marketing,

financial management and administration.

Bruce is a qualified Civil Engineer and Municipal Building Surveyor and holds a

Certificate in Co-operative Management and a Masters in Applied Finance. He is

also a graduate of Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Bruce can be contacted on bruce.harvey@itsmfi.org

Michelle Crawford

—General Administration

Michelle commenced her role as the International Administration Officer

in July 2014, when Australia was successful in bidding for the

Administrative Contract.

Michele commenced her employment with itSMF Australia in 2011 and

continues as the Admin Officer for this chapter.

Michelle has enjoyed a long career in office administration and has many years

of experience in a variety of different sectors, including manufacturing, mining,

tourism & electrical.

Michelle can be contacted on michelle.crawford@itsmf.org.au

Sheryl Kingsley

—Marketing Administration

Sheryl assists the eight Australian State and Territory Branches with their 36

Seminars each year. She has many years experience in Executive Assistant

and Administration Manager roles across numerous industries. Sheryl also

maintains the Australian & International websites.

Sheryl can be contacted at sheryl.kingsley@itsmf.org.au

itSMF International Administration Support

Bruce Harvey—Company Secretary

27 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016

itSMF International Chapters

For more information for the Chapters below CLICK HERE

AUSTRALIA

AUSTRIA

ALGERIA

ARGENTINA

BELGIUM

BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA

BRAZIL

BULGARIA

CANADA

CHILE

CHINA

COLUMBIA

COSTA RICA

CROATIA

CYPRUS

CZECH-REPULIC

DENMARK

ESTONIA

FINLAND

FRANCE

GERMANY

GREECE

GULF

HUNGARY

HONG KONG

ICELAND

INDIA

IRELAND

ITALY

JAPAN

KENYA

KOREA

LATVIA

LICHTENSTEIN

LITHUANIA

LUXEMBOURG

MACEDONIA

MALAYSIA

MALTA

MEXICO

MONACO

MONTENEGRO

MOROCCO

NETHERLANDS

NEW ZEALAND

NORWAY

NIGERIA

PHILLLIPINES

PORTUGAL

POLAND

ROMANIA

RUSSIA

SERBIA

SIERRA LEONE

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