ITIL V3 and small business

ITIL for small business could be called BILL: the Business Infrastructure Library of Least practice
http://www.itskeptic.org/node/1114
Feature of small businessWhat the small business needs and doesn't need from ITIL V3


What ITIL Can Do for Small Businesses
http://technology.inc.com/managing/articles/200708/ITIL.html
Best practices for a five-person IT shop
Cohesive infrastructure can lead to savings

Implementing ITIL will help your business run better.
http://stephengordon.org/#home
As a rule of thumb a low cost, high impact entry to ITIL for small business is
* Incident Management
* Event Management
* Change Management
* Problem Management
* Configuration management
* Release management

Differences between ITIL v2 and ITIL v3

Basically the key difference is on how the core disciplines are structured. In v2, the core disciplines were focused on:

• Service Support
• Service Delivery

In v3, the core disciplines are divided into:

• Service Strategy
• Service Design
• Service Transition
• Service Operation
• Continual Service Improvement

It looks like the new version sort of adds a tail and an end to ITIL. If in v2, it’s all about supporting and delivering, what we can see in v3 is starting of with a service, designing the service to support the strategy, transitioning the service, operating it and eventually having continual service improvements.
The v2 processes were operational while the new processes focuses on continual service improvement through a well thought off strategy.
Although it looks as if there were major changes made to ITIL v2, it is only true from the bigger picture’s perspective. The key processes such as Availability Management, Capacity Management, Service Continuity Management and some others have no changes to it.
So the point of this post is to let you know that:

• If your organization does not have any IT processes in place, you can start to look at adopting ITIL v3.
• If your organization is already implementing ITIL v2, don’t worry, you need not reimplement the whole thing all over again. As the ITIL manager, you just need to be aware of what’s new and how you can go about adding the new disciplines. For all you know, you may already have a strategy all along but it just wasn’t highlighted in v2.

There you go, the key differences between ITIL v2 and ITIL v3.

from: http://www.wareprise.com/2009/03/25/differences-between-itil-v2-and-itil-v3/

ITIL trainning service provider - Datajar

Datajar:
http://www.datajar.com.au/index.php

Datajar Services

Datajar offers a number of consulting and training services with the focus on IT Service Management.

For more details about our individual services click on the menu links on the right.
Our services include:

• On-line ITIL training
• ITIL Consulting
• Linux and Open Source solutions
• "Green IT" solutions
• Business Process Analysis and Design
• Custom software development (ITSM Focused)

Incident Management Mind Map

Copy from "doctor" blog:
http://itservicemngmt.blogspot.com/2007/05/incident-management-mind-map.html

Incident Management Mind Map

Service Desk Quick Facts

Copy from "Doctor" blog:
http://itservicemngmt.blogspot.com/2007/05/service-desk-quick-facts.html

I will continue with a series of quick facts of ITSM disciplines here.A Service Desk is a primary IT capability called for in ITSM as defined by the ITIL. It is intended to provide a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) to meet the communications needs of both Users and IT and to satisfy both Customer and IT Provider objectives.

Objectives

• Providing a SPOC for customers
• Facilitating the restoration of normal operational service with minimal business impact on the customer within agreed SLA levels and business priorities

It is also a focal point for reporting Incidents (disruptions or potential disruptions in service availability or quality) and for users making Service Requests (routine requests for services). The Service Desk handles incidents and service requests, as well as providing an interface to users for other ITSM activities such as:

• Incident Management
• Problem Management
• Change Management
• Configuration Management
• Change Management
• Release Management
• Service Level Management
• Availability Management
• Capacity Management
• Financial Management
• IT Service Continuity Management
• Security Management

Activities

• Receiving calls, first-line customer liaison
• Recording and tracking incidents and complaints
• Keeping customers informed on request status and progress
• Making an initial assessment of requests, attempting to resolve them or refer them to someone who can
• Monitoring and escalation procedures relative to the appropriate SLA Identifying problems
• Closing incidents and confirmation with the customers
• Coordinating second and third line support
• Highlighting Customer education & training needsCritical success factors

To introduce and maintain a successful Service Desk, it is essential that:

• Business needs are understood
• Customer requirements are understood
• Investment is made in training for Customers, support teams and Service Desk staff
  Service objectives, goals and deliverables are clearly defined
• Service levels are practical, agreed, and regularly reviewed
• The benefits are accepted by the business

Benefits

• Improves customer perception and satisfaction
• A prime deliverer of Customer satisfaction with IT
• A Single point of contact allowing improved accessability
• Requests solved faster and better
• Improved teamwork and communication
• Facilitation of proactive approach
• Reduced business impact of failures
• Improved control and management of infrastructure
• IT resources beter utilised
• Increased business productivity
• Provides meaningful management information

Service Desk

Service Desk

Here is where the Service Support business starts and ends. At least from end users perspective. Customer problems and needs should be streamlined here and all feedback should come from here.

Other Service Support disciplines (Problem, Change, Release, Configuration Management) are PROCESSES, and Service Desk is a FUNCTION. Since Service Desk acts as a Single Point Of Contact (SPOC) for customers, and most of the time other disciplines are initiated from SD, it is rightfully the first SS discipline defined in the Blue book.

Support organizations have a Service Desk. Sometimes they call it differently, but it performs basic ITIL SD processes, so it is a SD. Sometimes people call it SD, and in reality it is a simple HelpDesk or even just a Call Centre.

The difference?

• Call Centre's primary function is to handle large volume of calls, and hence the name. These calls can be outgoing (we sell something - telesales of commodities or simple products) or incoming, with prospect or customers inquiries and feedback. Main tools used here are some CRM or a good contact management with CTI and case tracking, e-mail, fax integration and an electronic catalogue.
• Help Desk mainly resolves a large number of Incidents from a known, probably large customer pool. Incidents and enquiries are usually simple, since they are constricted to a technology niche of a supported product (cell phones, telecommunications...), so the typical employee of a HD is briefly educated, given an issue tracking tool and a simple knowledge base, and maybe a couple of taps on his shoulder. Help Desk operation is a stressful business, and life expectancy of the operator is 6 months to 2 years. After that all his savings go to his therapist.
• Service Desk shares some features with the former two, since all three entities are interfaces of service business to the customer, and they are most responsible for the customer satisfaction. They use the same or similar technology.But SD's perspective is much broader, and encompasses all disciplines of Service Support and Service Delivery.

SD Primary function is to handle incidents and problems, but it also receives RFCs, deals with service and maintenance contracts, SW licenses, Configuration Management, and contributes to all five disciplines of Service Delivery.

What is the typical situation of support without SD?

Nicely put, customers perceive you as a disorganized untrustworthy bunch of nerds

• Changes to your IT infrastructure are uncoordinated and disorganized, and most of them cause bursts of incidents
• Your main job is to put out these fires that come out of nowhere
• Most of the problems occur in a repetitive manner You over-depend on your best engineers, who are most competent to resolve incidents initiated by their irresponsible unauthorized changes
• Support resources are undermanaged, while some people can behave like on vacation, others work their head off, and no one can be sure who is who
• Poor feedback to customers (this should be about their satisfaction, remember?)
• Poor feedback to management - without reports, their function is meaningless, and your job is at stake
• Evidently, implementation of SD will change these drawbacks into advantages, dramatically rising customer satisfaction, i.e. retention.

OK, What basically does Service Desk do?

I will briefly mention key activities here:

• receiving calls, first-line Customer liaison.
• recording and tracking Incidents and complaints - first line operators key task is proper classification of an incident.
• keeping Customers informed on request status and progress - every communication, even an automatic one, strongly influences customer satisfaction level. Structured, uniform automatic notifications reassures the customer that an organized business entity is taking care of his problem.
• making an initial assessment of requests, attempting to resolve them or refer them to someone who can, based on agreed service levels.
• monitoring and escalation procedures relative to the appropriate SLA .
• managing the request life-cycle, including closure and verification - a request should not be closed before a customer verifies it.
• communicating planned and short-term changes of service levels to Customers.
• coordinating second-line and third-party support groups.
• providing management information and recommendations for service improvement - crucial task that takes a lot of SD manager's time is keeping the management happy and improving the vertical visibility of SD efforts.
• identifying Problems highlighting Customer training and education needs
• closing Incidents and confirmation with the Customer - an incident should not be closed before a customer verifies it.
• contributing to Problem identification.

Key point of modern SD is common with all quality control standards: puts things into perspective, and customer satisfaction into focus. Highly skilled IT people tend to behave like spoiled children, self centered and often distracted by technology features, computer games, inadequate sexual performances... Implementing standards, policies and procedures sets them back on track and reminds them where the food comes from. Also, ServiceDesk methodology relieves 2nd and 3rd level engineers (expensive ones) from the stress by removing frequent interrupts of customers requests. Work comes to them adequately prioritized and categorized and they can perform it in an organized way.

If you plan to implement a SD, a lot of useful advice can be found in ITIL Service Support book. Buy it. Read it. Certify your people. Do not overdo it, but ensure that all the key people are acquainted with the stuff and speak the same language, this will raise the collective state of mind in your organization.

ITIL is a framework, not a methodology. It is fairly descriptive (good for learning), and it doesn't prescript every little detail of work. When you plan SD implementation, there will be a lot of vague and undefined issues, and ITIL should be referred to during plan phase brainstorming to silence that loud category of people that like to speak about things they don't know much of.

"Those that have something to say, say nothing because those who have nothing to say, have to say something."

One of the key points in SD implementation is technology. What IT product will you choose for SD automation? Your current needs, if you are in pre-firefighting phase, may blur your real future needs. That's why ITIL education is good. Warns you of the problems that will arise when you get rid of your pathetic little initial pains.

Choose the tool that will ensure you GROWTH. Select a well known vendor and implement his functionality modules as you move forward. Do not choose a cheap solution that will choke you in the future. At some point, either you will have to choose a new, expensive solution and get fired for that, or you will get fired in the first place and someone new taking your place will select a high-end solution. In both cases you lost a lot of the money for your company and people will spit on every mention of your name.

Even if you follow this safe recommended path, there is a chance that you will make a bad decision. For example, ask all the former Peregrine customers ;-)

If your company core business is not development, DO NOT build a solution yourself. Period.

I have to say some more about existing solutions later, and this should suffice for this post.
If this all looks like too much, you can always consider outsourcing the SD. There are criteria mentioned in ITIL about an outsourcing decision, consider them. Sometimes renting of an apartment is better then buying it. Rarely, though.

Originally from:

http://itservicemngmt.blogspot.com/2007/05/service-desk.html

Knowledge management tools

Cmap tools, Knowledge modelting kit
http://cmap.ihmc.us/conceptmap.html

Personal Brain 5
http://www.thebrain.com
Simply type in your ideas. Drag and drop files and web pages. Any idea can be linked to anything else. Using your digital Brain is like cruising through a Web of your thinking. See new relationships. Discover connections. Go from the big picture of everything to a specific detail in seconds.

Freemind
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map) software written in Java. The recent development has hopefully turned it into high productivity tool. We are proud that the operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster than that of MindManager because of one-click "fold / unfold" and "follow link" operations