SMEXA'16
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SMEXA '16
- Published in News
SMEXA '16
Soon to be announced.
An exciting new type of conference
Stay tuned for more
Johann Botha's excellent talk on DevOps, Agile and Lean using ITIL® and COBIT
- Published in Latest Blog Posts
An Excellent Presentation - itSMFsa thanks Johann Botha and Engen
There was a large turnout for a cold evening in Cape Town. Since Engen had, very kindly, agreed to provide the premises, there were many Engen employees at the event - more than from anywhere else.
This helped direct the flow of events, so a lot more practical detail was covered than might otherwise be the case. Johann Botha's excellent and entertaining presentation was very well received and there were many questions, with an enthusiastic discussion afterwards.
This really is an important and topical subject. Johann's message was clear and well presented, but it was not all comforting. There is a lot of work to be done to adopt the ideas he presented. Mostly the most difficult sort of work - organisation and people change work.
I, myself, enjoyed the event very much, and was able to capture some of the thoughts in twitter. These give a flavour of the talk:
Johan Botha - when you see a triangle you know it won't work. Always a compromise #DevOps @itSMFSA
Johann Botha rolling a barrel up a hill, you need a wedge, or you get flattened. Baselines are wedges @itSMFSA #Agile #DevOps
Automate - but there are some decisions you don't want a machine to make - Johann Botha @itSMFSA #DevOps
Banks & Internet companies are all very active with #DevOps @itSMFSA Johann Botha
In #ITIL Development is called Release & Deployment - #ITIL likes the use of models. @itSMFSA Johann Botha #DevOos
Experience is built into models. That is why try work so well @itSMFSA #surgery #DevOps #ITIL Johann Botha
High risk changes are like that the first time, when well understood and well defined, they become low risk. #ITIL @itSMFSA #DevOps
Where can you learn about #DevOps? In the #ITIL books… Johann Botha @itSMFSA
Johann Botha: DevOps = #ITIL Change -> Release -> Configuration + Consistence + Flow #DevOps @itSMFSA
Johann Botha #DevOps is KaiZen - Continuous Improvement #ITIL @itSMFsa 改善
Johann Botha - @DevOps is not for Cowboys #ITIL @itSMFSA - what get measured gets done - Drucker
Performance must be measured differently @itSMFSA #ITIL #DecOps Johann Botha
Johann Botha's new venture #kaizen #ITIL @itSMFSA #DevOps 
For those interested in more, Johann's presentation is here:
Johann Botha's Presentation as a .pdf
Engen kindly sponsored the event by providing their premises
The Professional Service Management Framework (PSMF) - First Adopter
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CGI endorsed by ITSMF UK as the first adopter of Professional Service Management Framework
London, United Kingdom, 07 June 2016 -
CGI (TSX: GIB.A) (NYSE: GIB) is the first organisation in the UK to receive endorsement from the ITSMF UK for its ongoing commitment to professionalism in service management. The Professional Service Management Framework (PSMF) is designed to recognise excellence in performance and for organisations to demonstrate their commitment and maturity in approaching ITSM professionalism.
In preparation for the endorsement, ITSMF UK worked closely with CGI to review and assess the current skills and competencies of its members and the programmes in place to support career development. This involves a review against set of maturity criteria, including, management systems, policy and process; top management commitment; leadership accountability and responsibility; controls; evidence of (process) use; and PSMF compatibility. ITSMF UK found CGI met the standards for definition, control, consistency and rigour applied by CGI in performance management.
‘The overall finding is that CGI has a mature and robust system of performance management, established as an integral part of a well-defined organisational management framework’, said the ITSMF UK assessors in their report.
ITSMF UK CEO Barclay Rae commented, “Many congratulations to the management and team at CGI for their commitment and support to service management professionalism. We are delighted that CGI has seen the value in this initiative and look forward to a continued and successful working relationship with CGI to further develop and maintain this process”.
David Fitzpatrick, Senior Vice President of Global Infrastructure Services, CGI in the UK said; “I’m delighted CGI has been recognised as the first organisation to meet the ITSMF Professional Service Management Framework standard. We are committed to developing fulfilling careers for our members and this endorsement is a great way to demonstrate this.”
CGI’s award winning team has also been recognised for both 5-Star Service Desk Certification from the Service Desk Institute (SDI) and Transformation Project of the Year at the DataCenterDynamics EMEA Awards
ITSMF UK is the membership association for IT Service Management professionals. For details of the PSMF please see www.itsmf.co.uk/psmf
Wikipedia project
- Published in Latest Blog Posts
Appeal for help
It's not a good time to start, I know, but the new year is, and it's not far away. I also shouldn't be thinking of new projects when my plate is already too full.
Still, I think this needs to be done. If anybody is interesting in helping me, so it's a team effort, I think it would be done as a much better job, and it'd be less work for everybody.
What's the problem?
Wikipedia. Well, there's nothing wrong with wikipedia itself, but the articles on wikipedia that cover the sort of things we discuss here are a mess. I think this is a pity.
I'd like to put together a team, to start work tidying up all the relevant articles on wikipedia.
The aim is not to abuse any copyrighted information, nor to replace, or compete with, any published guidance.
It would be good, though, to be able to include information from other initiatives, such as IT4IT and the ASM to the mix - as well as having good articles on recent areas of interest, such as SIAM.
How would we do it?
Once we have a team, we'd, together, agree priorities. We'd then produce a short-term, medium-term, and long-term plan of what needs to be done.
The short-term aim would be to remove out-of-date material, improve current citations, and provide some coherent linkage through categories.
The medium term aim would be to have a good set of articles that would help introduce somebody to the field, but, also, be a reliable source of information for a practitioner to look up details.
Caution
This is not an advertising initiative. Wikipedia is not there as an advertising medium. It's there to inform. So articles need to be objective, and independent, as far as possible.
Are you interested in helping?
If so, wonderful! Even if you haven't much time, just a few minutes a day, of well-directed work, can make a bit difference.
Please contact me at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
SMEXA '15 Speakers & Presentations
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8:30-8:45 |
Welcoming address (Pieter Roos - itSMFsa chair) |
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8:45-9:30 |
1. The impact of digital on service governance (Manti Grobler – EY) |
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Business is becoming increasingly digital, responding to the capibilities of smart machines, the Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing and social media. At the same time, organisations are embracing the digital workplace with flexibility around how employees work. IT organisations are required to rethink the way they have operated for some time in order to exploit the opportunities and respond to the challenges of the new world we are facing. |
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9:35-10:20 |
2. The new style of IT and how it shapes business (Kevin Leslie – HP) | The #BigData Service Desk. Speakers – (Kevin Leslie HP and Charl Joubert University of Pretoria) |
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Kevin Leslie brings a unique perspective to the ITSM business . It should be seen as a business not an academic exercise. Up to 2008 Kevin had leadership roles in HR, ERP, CRM, Marketing Automation, PPM and eBusiness platform vendors such as Oracle , SAP, Aprimo and Mercury. Since 2008 Kevin has had various EMEA leadership roles at HP Software that has always included ITSM. He has worked with the largest customers such as Russian Railways (1 million employees) to SMB customers with 5 user help desks. He has consistently brought a business focus to ITSM, allied to a customer dedication, and a passion for innovation.
The #BigData Service Desk is delivering business metrics unheard of with legacy service desk tools . Charl Joubert has been at the forefront of applying innovation at the University of Pretoria. This session will share: · The OOTB use cases that have transformed both on-premise and Cloud based service desks. · The business impact · The best practice adoption |
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10:25-11:10 |
3. Professional services – are we professional enough? (Nigel Mercer – APMG) |
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In a world where professional service providers are increasingly required to assist their clients in navigating the changing technology landscape, skills need to keep up if we are going to meet such demands. Relying on qualifications that were relevant a few years ago to keep us going, is not longer good enough. |
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11:15-11:45 |
Morning tea |
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11:50-12:35 |
4. Introduction to service governance (Peter Brooks – itSMFsa board member) |
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Peter recently published his latest book, titled 'Adopting Service Governance'. Peter will demystify the term and introduce practical suggestions on how service governance practices could best be established |
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12:40-13:00 |
5. Roles, responsibilities and competencies for major incident management (Adriaan du Plessis – Thinking Dimensions) |
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Successful major incident management can often be described as chaos countered by wisdom. Organisations that fail to prepare for major incidents could end up having to deal with uncontrolled chaos. You will realise the value of preparation when next your roles, responsibilities and competencies are tested and stand up to the challenge. |
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13:00-14:00 |
Lunch |
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14:00-14:20 |
6. The cost of poor service governance (Marina le Roux - Pink Elephant) |
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Failing to invest in service governance could result in some unforeseen negative business impact. This session focuses on the challenges, tools and techniques to proactively establish and maintain effective service governance practices. |
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14:25-14:45 |
7. Integration is key in Service Governance (Ed Carbutt - Marval) |
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Will the efforts to succeed in Service Governance result in the same challenges as those experienced over the years with many ITIL adoptions and COBIT implementations? This session focuses on the importance of integrating people, processes and technology, and how these contribute to increased business value and effective governance. |
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14:45-15:15 |
8. Too much or too little (Johann Botha – Get-IT-Right) |
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As valuable as service governance might be, undue bureaucracy stifles service delivery and raises costs. Finding the balance between regulatory compliance and sound governance on the one hand, and the cost of governance, is becoming a fine art. |
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15:15-15:45 |
After noon tea |
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15:45-16:45 |
Panel discussion - chaired by Peter Brooks |
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16:50-17:00 |
Closing address - Peter Brooks |
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17:00-18:30 |
Drinks and post-conference networking |
DATE: 23 September 2015
VENUE: EY, 102 Rivonia Road, situated conveniently across the Gauteng station
RSVP: Click here to register
Experiences at the itSMF Canada Conference in Toronto
- Published in Latest Blog Posts
I've just spent two days attending the itSMF Canada annual conference in Toronto. I enjoyed visiting Toronto, and Canada, for the first time, and the weather has been excellent.
The Conference has also been excellent. The organisation started many months ago and it certainly has paid off. There have been about 200 people attending the conference - interestingly, a fairly large majority from other countries - a delegation from the Netherlands, people from chapters in Ireland, the UK, the USA, Turkey, and, of course, me, from South Africa. The discussion between sessions have, as usual, been extremely useful.
Some excellent speakers have been engaged, I've tweeted during the sessions, so details can be found of specific presentations on twitter under #itsmf2013 or my account @fustbariclation.
Actually the twitter hashtag is an interesting question. There wasn't one in the conference documentation and we only got one on the first day, mid-morning, when somebody on twitter asked the itSMF Canada tweeter for one - I think that conferences, in future, would be wise to advertise their twitter hashtag a few weeks before the conference - it's a really good way to get to know who is going and to pick up last minute recommendations or issues.
The streams were extremely well organised - not just the topics, BYOD, Cloud and Social Media were the three streams and they are hot topics that generated very interesting presentations and discussions. The order of speakers within the streams was also very cleverly arranged, so that each speaker followed the previous one logically, often following on the ideas that the previous speaker had highlighted as important. This gave an impressive continuity to the day.
It was good to have many influential members of the itSMF community there. Sharon Taylor gave an interesting talk on how to influence your customers - helping them to 'become the customers you want them to be'. There was a very entertaining session on the experience of developing and marketing a game called 'Things' - I was lucky enough to get a free copy of the game and I'll look forward to playing it with friends at home.
One of the later talks was by John Deland, a director of itSMF International on the future of priSM. It's clear that he's engaged very effectively with the team, reorganising it and making it more efficient and effective. There are good plans to make the programme more coslty effective, both by modifying the cost model and by improving the value delivered. I've got great hopes that this will resurrect priSM.
It was good to meet up with the team from the Netherlands and see how far their social media solution 'Coconut' has developed over the past few years. I'm going to be putting together a video with Jose Stijntjes in Amsterdam to make the power of the solution visible to non-Dutch speakers. I think it might be a good solution to priSM reducing its administrative costs - John Deland is interested in the idea. It may also be a valuable hub for other chapters.
It was good to chat to so many people, some, like Lindsay Parker, director of itSMF Canada, who was involved in so much of the preparation behind the successful conference - a great team altogether. I had tremendous help from Maureen Llewellyn, and Tina Hutchinson in particular.
It was very satisfying to see the huge enthusiasm and interest for the Integrated Requirements Process. I'm hoping that there will be some follow-up - we're meaning to have a google+ hangout to discuss the book in a couple of weeks. Anybody interested in joining the discussion can connect with the google+ circle here:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/113833482795521214932
The conference is just wrapping up now, and I'll be on my way to Amsterdam.
