ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011: Waste of money or good to go?

ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011: Waste of money or good to go?

Okay, so I just paid CHF 112 for a 36 page document - surely it must be worth its value in gold.

Note: CHF 112 divided by 36 pages = CHF 3.11 per page :-) (I was hoping for PI "3.14", but wasn't that lucky!)

Let's dissect the document:

Pages i-ii contain a title page and a copyright statement. That's CHF 6.22 wasted.

Pages iii-iv are a table of contents. There goes another CHF 6.22.

Pages v-vi are a foreword - basically some gibberish and nothing really exciting. Uhm... I start to detect a CHF 6.22 trend here.

Pages vii-viii contain the introduction and is basically telling us that Deming's PDCA cycle is a really, really smart idea. Okay, so they need 2 pages for this (CHF 6.22) and I can do it in one short sentence:

"Deming's PDCA cycle really rocks big time!"

So far, I've wasted roughly CHF 30 and am none the wiser.

Oops, no wait!

Page 34 is a bibliography, sort of semi useful, but I don't really want to buy all these other standards (well, at least, not yet). It actually lists 20 other ISO standards, so better take a holiday if you intend to read them all. A very long holiday that is!

The last 2 pages (35-36) are completely blank! That's definitely CHF 6.22 down the drain. Ah well, it's good for the Swiss economy, so who cares! I certainly don't, as I'm half Swiss myself!

Okay, so once you've flicked your way past the first 8 pages, the fun really starts. Now, before we look at some of the finer details, let's sketch the big picture first.

This document has nine key sections and these together explain Part 1: Service Management System Requirements. Don't start looking for Part 2 in this document, because that's another standard known as the code of practice. Part 1 is all about what you SHALL do, part 2 (again, not this document) is all about what you SHOULD do.

Note: SMS = Service Management System

The nine sections are:

1. Scope: Who is it for, how do we use it?

2. Normative references: It roughly states: "Also read ISO/IEC 20000: Part 2".

3. Terms and definitions: It's about providing a common language and common terminology.

4. SMS General requirements: It's all about Deming's planning activities and what you need to be doing in order to get some Service Management in place. You know, the commitment, funding and policies type of stuff.

5. Design and transition of new or changed services: Okay, we can't just rush into doing things, but need to properly plan our changes.

6. Service delivery processes: Service Level Management, Service Reporting, Service Continuity and Availability Management, Budgeting and Accounting for Services, Capacity Management, and Information Security Management.

7. Relationship processes: Business Relationship Management, and Supplier Management.

8. Resolution processes: Incident and Service Request Management, and Problem Management.

9. Control processes: Configuration Management, Change Management, Release and Deployment Management.

Except a few minor changes (e.g. adding Service Request Management to a title) the standard still seems predominantly aligned with ITIL v2, and overall not much, and that's an understatement, has changed if we compare the standard to the ISO/IEC 20000-1:2005.

Alignment with other key IT Service Management Frameworks like MOF or CobiT still seem a far and distant reality, which seems weird considering the fact that both MOF and CobiT have been catching up with ITIL really, really fast, and personally I see more value in CobiT (ISACA) than I currently see coming from ITIL or ISO.

Ah well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see how the industry reacts to the new ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011 standard (which consists of about approximately 50% (19/36 pages) somewhat useful information), but personally I think it's a bit disappointing as so many other IT related subject areas could have been covered in the standard by now.

Signing off,

Nanoo... Nanoo...

PM: PMBOK, PRINCE2, Agile and Scrum

PM: PMBOK, PRINCE2, Agile and Scrum

BRM: Business Research Methods

BRM: Business Research Methods

I'll be using this blog to document my summary of the Business Research Methods subject.

Well - that's been postponed until next year for now :-(

ITSM: Articles, Literature and Websites

ITSM: Articles, Literature and Websites

I'll use this blog to list any interesting articles, literature and websites I come across.

ITIL: Incident versus Problem Management

ITIL: Incident versus Problem Management

I've noticed that although ITIL has been around for more than 20 years, there's still a lot of confusion about what Incident Management is all about and how it differs from Problem Management.

I hope that the following list, which I'll keep adding to, will help you to understand and if necessary "sell" these differences. Given more time I'll start categorizing them under People, Processes, Products, and Partners (or feel free to do this for me).

Feel free to dispute any item on this list, and also feel welcome to send me more recommendations to be added to this list. It's only a start and I won't rest until I've found at least 100 differences between these two processes!

Incident Management	Problem Management
Mainly reactive	Mainly proactive
Strong focus towards business and user community	Strong focus towards IT and technology experts
Uses the Known Error Database (KEDB)	Populates the Known Error Database (KEDB)
Restores services as quickly as possible	Less emphasis on speed, more emphasis on finding real solutions
Not responsible for creating known error records	Responsible for creating known error records
Predominantly applies temporary fixes, also known as workarounds or band-aid fixes	Is all about finding more structural permanent solutions
Typically deals with single individual incidents	Performs analysis on large volumes of incidents to detect trends and/or patterns
Applies a high level of people language	Applies a high level of technical language
Has a strong relationship with SLAs	Has a strong relationship with OLAs and contracts
Processes reoccurring incidents	Eliminates reoccurring incidents
Frequency and impact of related incidents typically not taken into account when prioritizing a (new) incident	Frequency and impact of related incidents typically taken into account when prioritizing a (new) problem
Users are able to generate incidents	Users are not able to generate problems
Increases support costs due to the repetitive nature of resolving repetitive incidents without providing a structural long-term solution	Reduces support costs with resolving repetitive incidents in a structural long-term manner
incident records may be the same	problem records should be unique
The focus is short-term	The focus is long-term
Escalates incidents to other teams (still part of the incident management process) to ensure timely service restoration	Submits change requests into the change management process with proposed solutions that eliminate known errors
Does not influence the number of incidents that are reported by users	Does influence the number of incidents that are reported by users
Investigation and diagnosis are often performed in parallel	Investigation and diagnosis are often performed sequentially
An incident can be closed although it may be unclear what has caused it (the so called root cause is often unknown)	Problems cannot be closed without a clear understanding of its root cause
Major incident reviews are not mentioned as part of ITIL's incident management process flow (incident model)	Major problem reviews are mentioned as part of ITIL's problem management process flow (problem model)
Many incidents may be linked to the same problem	Many problems are typically not linked to the same incident
Not responsible for maintenance of the Known Error Database (KEDB)	Responsible for maintenance of the Known Error Database (KEDB)
Doesn't improve the overall stability of the IT infrastructure	Does improve the overall stability of the IT infrastructure
Able to boost user satisfaction short-term	Able to boost user satisfaction long-term
Process members often "static"	Process members often "dynamic"
Most effort comes from lower (and typically cheaper) level support teams	Most effort comes from higher (and typically more expensive) support teams
Incident resolution techniques are more repetitive across incidents	Problem resolution techniques are more unique for each problem
Often includes full-time roles	Often includes part-time roles
Often performed with use of internal resources	Often performed with the support of external resources
Predominantly operates at a user level	Predominantly operates at an enterprise level
Has access to many effective commercial of the shelves (COTS) incident management systems	Has access to fewer effective commercial of the shelves (COTS) problem management systems

ISO/IEC 20000 series: Writer's Blog Block :-)

Mmmm... I'm still pretty blank and busy, so I thought what the heck let's use this month's blog for a bit of an update and research on the various ISO/IEC 20000 standards, available and under development.

What's available at this moment:

ISO/IEC 20000-1:2005 ITSM -- Part 1: Specification (16 pages)
ISO/IEC 20000-2:2005 ITSM -- Part 2: Code of practice (34 pages)

Australian equivalents:

AS ISO/IEC 20000.1-2007 ITSM - Specification
AS ISO/IEC 20000.2-2007 ITSM - Code of practice

More ISO standards:

ISO/IEC TR 20000-3:2009 ITSM -- Part 3: Guidance on scope definition and applicability of ISO/IEC 20000-1 (32 pages)

ISO/IEC TR 20000-4:2010 ITSM -- Part 4: Process reference model (30 pages) "Just released (25/11/2010)!"

ISO/IEC TR 20000-5:2010 ITSM -- Part 5: Exemplar implementation plan for ISO/IEC 20000-1 (38 pages)

All standards are available as downloadable PDFs and cost between CHF 86.00 and CHF 124.00.

It seems unlikely that the new -1, -2, -3, -4, and -5 standards will be adopted by Standards Australia. After all, adding AS to the existing ISO standards doesn't really impact a lot on the contents if these contents stay untouched.

What's in development at this moment:

ISO/IEC FDIS 20000-1:YYYY ITSM -- Part 1: Service management system requirements (26 pages)

ISO/IEC FCD 20000-2:YYYY ITSM -- Part 2: Guidance on the application of service management systems

My question to ISO on when the new ISO/IEC 20000-1 and ISO/IEC 20000-2 standards will be released received the following response:

"We don’t have an exact date. Probably at the beginning of the 2nd quarter 2011.
To be notified of any change in the stage code of standards and other deliverables, you can subscribe to the RSS Feed: http://www.iso.org/iso/rss_feeds"

Other remarks relating to the 20000-X series of standards:

Withdrawn standards (20000 series): None
Project deleted (last 12 months) (20000 series): None

IT Governance standard (okay, I know, it's not a 20000 one!):

Another interesting standard is ISO/IEC 38500:2008 (Corporate governance of information technology). Good reading, but don't expect the world as yet - it's only 15 pages, but it does include some likable models!

Acronyms:

AS, Australian Standard
DIS, Draft International Standard
FCD, Final Committee Draft
FDIS, Final Draft International Standard
IEC, International Electrotechnical Commission
ISO, International Organization for Standardization
ITSM, Information Technology Service Management
JTC, Joint Technical Committee
TC, Technical Committee
TR, Technical Report
TS, Technical Specification

Interesting websites:

http://www.iec.ch
http://www.iso.org
http://www.itil-officialsite.com
http://www.itsmfi.org

More specifically:

http://www.iso.org/iso/standards_development/processes_and_procedures.htm
http://www.iso.org/iso/standards_development/processes_and_procedures/how_are_standards_developed.htm
http://www.iso.org/iso/standards_development/processes_and_procedures/stages_description.htm
http://www.iso.org/iso/standards_development/processes_and_procedures/stages_description/stages_table.htm
Etc.

PMI: Writer's Blog Block :-)

Writer's Blog Block :-)

I just noticed that PMI's Project Management has:

5 process groups
9 knowledge areas
42 processes
206 inputs
179 tools & techniques
132 outputs

That’s a whopping 573 items to know for the CAPM/PMP exam! This number is excluding definitions, terminology and acronyms.

I just noticed that PMI's Program Management has:

5 process groups
12 knowledge areas
57 processes
273 inputs
255 tools & techniques
187 outputs

That’s a whopping 789 items to know for the PgMP exam! This number is excluding definitions, terminology and acronyms.

I just noticed that PMI's Portfolio Management has:

2 process groups
2 knowledge areas
14 processes
58 inputs
48 tools & techniques
40 outputs

That’s a whopping 164 items to know for the "undefined" exam! This number is excluding definitions, terminology and acronyms.

Yeah - why not total the whole thing!

12 process groups
23 knowledge areas
113 processes
537 inputs
482 tools & techniques
359 outputs

That’s a whopping 1526 items to know for the key PMI exams on project, program and portfolio level! This number is excluding definitions, terminology and acronyms.

My unscientific and nonacademic conclusion is: Don't become a program manager LOL!