C-words
Just some C-words that pop-up in the management literature (not sure what I'm going to do with this - as yet):
Communication
Collaboration
Culture
Create / Creativity / Creating
Concept / Conceptualizing
Cost / Costing
Credit
Contract
Courageous
Caring
Change
Cycle
Collecting
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Emotional Intelligence - Part A
Emotional Intelligence - Part A
(I'll upload the slides when I can find some extra time).
S1:
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to GUT, EI, and PM, presented by Marco Cattaneo
Subtitle: Exploring the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and the Project Management Universe
This short presentation aims to give insight into the relationship between Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Project Management (PM), more specifically the role of a Project Manager.
Marco states/claims that EI is the glue that unifies (hence Grand Unifying Theory (GUT)) the Project Manager and his/her surroundings, be it Project Team, Sponsor, or any other type of stakeholder. Furthermore the idea is presented that it is indeed EI that distinguishes a good Project Manager from a bad one.
Charles River: http://www.criver.com/SiteCollectionImages/Images_255x164/rms_rat_white1_0005_lres.jpg
S2:
Plato’s phrase “All learning has an emotional base” is purely used to demonstrate the importance of emotions in everything we do as human beings. Even the PMBOK (2008) shows an increased emphasis on taking a lessons learned during a project’s life-cycle. This compared to the PMBOK’s earlier edition (2004). Often as individuals we “feel” there’s a certain amount of knowledge or skills lacking in us, and hence we search for them via training, education, libraries, the Internet, and other sources. Whether we like it or not, we are emotional beings! Trying to separate personal life from business life, is in all reality, easier said than done, and is many cases, impossible.
http://quotationsbook.com/quote/23079/
S3:
This presentation is not a presentation on Leadership, but it’s up to the audience to link the concepts of Project Management and Emotional Intelligence to Leadership. Quite a large chunk of academic literature tries to separate the traits of a manager from the traits of a leader. It’s more than likely that a manager needs a fair amount of mature emotional intelligence skills to be able to step into the role of a leader. In Marco’s opinion it is not possible to be an effective leader without a high level of EI skills.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO5m4Be0KgQ-4NRHMpQThc3HTBf2VQ40sM23b_ukdKv1ohySYcWpKUeu0TLIfWTGDBTPI6rl6l1B7C0e5hC6rkSMdCaSRvaevp80AsGm_9m5c6Mg-vVX9KpbXpMeQ-1OmjwhvekYNJZa8/s1600/Pan_Galactic_Gargle_Blaster_by_TheGrimSpectre.jpg
S4:
How many of us have send an “angry” email to one of our colleagues only to regret it, or its consequences, afterwards. Being able to manage your emotions, and sleep a night over it, before sending out that nasty email is one of the characteristics of a developed/developing emotional intelligence. Self-awareness (know thyself: strengths and weaknesses) and self-regulation (control your emotional flares) are two of the foundation pillars of emotional intelligence. More about these EI foundation pillars (also known as EI components) on some of the other slides.
If you’ve never heard of the Dilbert Principle or Peter Principle, then it’s recommended to perform a search on Google for them. Too many technically minded project team-member wizards, being highly competent in their technical jobs get promoted into managerial roles (i.e. Project Manager), only to discover they’re completely incompetent in their new role. It’s often the lack of developed and nurtured EI that makes this type of promotion a predictable disaster for so many organisations. However, all hope is not lost! EI can be taught, but it takes time (often a lot of time), full and unconditional commitment, and trust from those trying to increase their EI levels.
Interestingly, there’s only single hit on Dilbert.com when searching for cartoons that are “emotional intelligence” related. Surely, being a topic so close to what we are and who we are, one would expect dozens of hits.
The Dilbert Principle: companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to management (generally middle management), in order to limit the amount of damage they are capable of doing.
The Peter Principle: “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence", meaning that employees tend to be promoted until they reach a position at which they cannot work competently.
S5:
Here the audience is given the opportunity to type in any reason why projects fail.
The responses are collected below:
Lack of defined scope
Poor communication
Poor management
Insufficient consultation with stakeholders
Lack of interest
Not knowing what you are trying to achieve
Because sponsors have NFI how to get the best from PMs
Poor leadership
Projects fail due to poor communication
No governance
Poor stakeholder identification
You can con a sucker into agreeing a deadline, but you cannot con him into meeting it
Poor communication
Expectations not met
Lack of governance
Scope creep
People and communication
Incapable of handling politics
Lack of stakeholder support
Poor leadership skills
Lack of stakeholder management and engagement
Bad governance and planning and poor sentiments
Predefinition of outcome prior to the project actually running
Poor sponsor ownership
Projects fail because they haven’t studied properly
Insufficient understanding of the organisation
Lack of executive support
Poorly defined requirements
No relationship between PM and other processes
Lack of buy-in from participants
Bad PMs
Conflicting or non-agreed priorities
Trying to achieve too much
Reliance on 3rd party suppliers with their own timeframes
Different project managers with different methods – no governance
No control over the white space between competing projects
Hidden agendas
No benefits planning
Reliance on internal suppliers with competing priorities
Sponsor/senior stakeholders don’t understand or choose to ignore project management fundamentals
Universe out of alignment
You lose your towel
Resources not available when originally promised
People are afraid of change
Communication imbalance – miscomms and mis management of stakeholders
Wow! That’s quite a list indeed.
S6:
Yes, projects fail for many reasons, and all the answers provided by the audience are 100% justifiable and correct. In all reality a project may fail for a whole variety of reasons, and these are mostly situational, hence “it depends”. Each situation asks for its own specific management and leadership style, also known as situational management.
If Marco was asked to write a book on management, then the title would be “IT DEPENDS”, as usually this seems to be very true in management space. This also means that a manager or leader needs to be able to “sense” his/her environment and respond to it appropriately and emphatically. The moment we talk about “sensing” and “empathy” we step into the world of emotional intelligence.
S7:
Marco was hoping to see “people” pop-up a number of times as part of the audience’s answers. Indeed this was the case!
Technology does not run projects.
Processes do not run projects.
Partners and suppliers do not run projects.
It’s people that run projects, and people are highly unpredictable emotional “systems”. Understand and get yourself into the minds of ‘your’ people (project-team), and you’ll be able to bring your projects to a successful ending. Ignore your team members and think you know it all and can do it all by yourself, then better prepare yourself for some nasty surprises. In today’s cut-throat competitive and highly interconnected world we must depend on, and trust other people, whether we like it or not, whether we’re used to it or not.
S8:
Cogito ergo sum: “I think, therefore I am.”
How you Act affects how you think and feel.
How you Think affects how you act and feel.
How you Feel affects how you act and think.
Although not 100% accurate, for this presentation Behavioural development is linked to what we “do” and the mostly technical skills we demonstrate, as part of our daily job, to the outside world (e.g. accounting, marketing, IT support, etc.).
Cognitive development is linked to our IQ and tells us something how “smart” we are compared to others in the same age-group. Things like logic, reasoning and analytical skills fall within cognitive development. There are many theories about IQ, and all are merely an approximation of the truth captured in some type of model, survey or simulation tool.
Emotional development is the least known and maybe even the least appreciated in “business” world. Surely we’re not meant to be emotional in the workplace. Hold on! We’re emotional beings and can’t just separate emotions from who and what we are. Even better, those that are able to understand and control their own emotions actually perform better (more effective) in the workplace than those that don’t. Also with increased accountability (higher up in the chain-of-command) comes increased importance for the emotional component of who and what we are. Surely, strategic business and portfolio managers need a lot more ‘emotional control’ compared to project team-members who are adding performance data in their project management information system. At operational levels technical skills are a must, but these become less and less relevant at the higher management levels, where they are replaced by something else! Yes, they are… they are replaced/complemented by a whole lot of emotional intelligence.
S9:
Marco was hoping to see “communication” pop-up a number of times as part of the audience’s answers. Indeed this was the case!
We’re all born with this fantastic skill to pick up any language and use it to communicate with others. However many of us do not master the skill of “effective communication”. Lots of research shows that the majority of projects fail because of poor communication. Even in Project Management space people sometimes speak different “languages”, such as PMBOK, Prince2, Agile or Scrum. Each introduction of an additional language creates opportunity for confusion, misunderstanding, and misinterpretation.
Our language is our greatest asset, but used wrongly it’s also one of our biggest threats. Wars have started, some not even ended, because people say or misunderstand words! The importance of effective communication cannot and should not be underestimated. Communication is so much more than chucking a new policy, or code-of-conduct on the organisation's Intranet. Communication is a science, art, and process we need to understand, and if at all possible, learn to master ourselves.
S10:
Communication is science and art and process
It’s transferring:
the right message
at the right time
to the right people
in the right language
in the right format
in the right context
using the right media
getting the right feedback
It’s weird as some people seem to have a natural talent to communicate (surely it’s partly genetic) whereas others follow all communication courses and training available and just can’t get it right. According to some research those that can’t get it right are training the wrong parts of their brain (neocortex rather than limbic). Anyway, people are able to improve their communication skills and become effective communicators, but this takes time, energy, and commitment and isn’t learned in any 2-3 day course. Improving your communication skills is a never ending journey, where only you are in charge of the final destination.
S11:
So, people and communication are really significant to a project’s success rate.
It’s quite interesting to see that most older project management literature emphasises cost, schedule and performance as main project constraints (also known as the triple constraint).
As the audience and Marco agreed that people and communication are critical success factors (CSFs) for any project, then why aren’t they emphasized a lot more in today’s project management literature? It’s the people buying in to the project’s goals, it’s the people performing the work, it’s the people creating teams. The schedule and dollars are just a means for the people to get the project from start to finish, and that’s all they really are. Without people there is no project!
http://www.thesupercars.org/wp-content/gallery/bugatti-veyron/bugatti-engine.jpg
S12:
Fortunately the Project Management literature is catching up compared to earlier publications and more and more emphasis is put on the people side of the equation. Two of the nine knowledge areas that you find in the PMBOK (2008) relate to communications (project communication management) and people (project human resource management), so there’s definitely a pattern that shows a move in the right direction.
Interestingly the PMBOK (2008) does not mention “emotional intelligence” or for where that matters “social intelligence” as yet. Maybe… one day… who knows…
S13:
Okay, so what’s needed to run projects?
Basically three things:
Skills, also referred to as Act or Technical capabilities
Brains (IQ), also referred to as Think or Cognitive capabilities
Emotions (EQ), also referred to as Feel or Emotional intelligence
As mentioned before, research is indicating that the higher you move up in your organisation’s hierarchy the more important your emotional intelligence becomes. It’s not that technical skills and cognitive capabilities become unimportant, because you’ll still need those too (otherwise you wouldn’t or shouldn’t even be selected for a managerial role), they just become less important in the new role (hierarchically a step above your current role) you’re getting yourself into. Again, be constantly aware of the Dilbert Principle and the Peter Principle – these principles apply to all of us!
There are heaps of publications that have a title like “Recipe for Success” and so does one of Anthony Robbins. Notice how he mentions “Choose a role model”, that you may or may not want to substitute with “Choose the right mentor or coach”. You can only develop your emotional intelligence by example. In other words: you need other EI aware-and-competent people telling you whether or not your emotional intelligence is developing and improving in the right direction. Please note that being taught new skills by an incompetent mentor may make your skills worse, rather than improving them.
S14:
So, what is emotional intelligence?
Well, it’s actually two things. First of it means mastering your own emotions, and secondly it means mastering your relationships with others. Although the literature uses “mastering” you could also just use “managing”, “controlling”, or “real-time monitoring and adjusting”. The idea is that before you are able to manage relationships with others, you need to be able to manage your own emotions. Those that are trying to build/manage relationships with others, and are not yet in control of their own emotions are likely to fail in their efforts (or may come across as creepy, weird, or faking it).
There are heaps of tests online that you can take that will tell you something about your Emotional Intelligence, but realize many of these tests still have to prove their validity, as often they provide different outcomes under different situations. So, use them as an indicator and not as the only truth. Also understand that the results of these tests are only as truthful as the data you enter. As always, the GIGO (Garbage-In-Garbage-Out) principle applies.
S15:
This is a Harvard Business Review (HBR) statement that shows that the whole idea of EI (or EQ) created quite some shockwaves in the business world. Whereas previously managers and leaders were often selected on their high IQ, all of a sudden there was a new theory telling everyone that this is not enough, and not even the most significant attribute. Although technical skills and IQ are important to get into a managerial position (so called threshold capabilities), the real challenge starts with EI and it is EI that will differentiate a good manager from a bad one, and a good leader from a bad one.
S16:
Many articles exist on the traits of a project manager and when inspected close-up they all show quite a number of characteristics that you also find in Daniel Goleman’s ground-breaking work on emotional intelligence which goes by the same title. Since his publication (1995) the model, which originally included 5 components (as shown on the next couple of slides) has been extended by various authors and academics, and as such the model as shown on the next couple of pages shows one additional component. Again, it’s “merely” a theory trying to explain some of things that we can see happening around us. Time and effort will further enhance the theory.
S17:
The first EI component is Self-awareness. “Know Thyself” is a prerequisite for becoming confident of one’s own abilities, beliefs, strengths, weaknesses, etc. Those managers with high confidence will find it a lot easier to make decisions, but even better, their decisions will come across as more believable to their “subordinates/team” compared to those managers that lack self-esteem and confidence. In the Dutch language there’s a phrase known as “sterk in je schoenen staan”, which can be translated into “standing solid in your shoes”, which has the same meaning as “standing fierce”. People that have a good self-awareness are more likely coming across to their staff as “standing fierce”.
S18:
The second EI component is Self-regulation. Everyone has their good and bad days, and everyone would like to have an emotional explosion every once and again (it’s called venting). This is completely human and natural and nothing to be ashamed of. Unfortunately, when emotions run high, people often say or do things they may well regret for the remainder of their mortal lives (and who knows – maybe even in the afterlife). Anyway, effective managers and leaders need to be able to recognize when keeping their emotions under control is necessary for the sake of the team and/or organisation. Self-regulation also means embracing change and innovation and being aware that most people dislike change (and “dislike” is an understatement), as change brings uncertainty. Generally people love certainty and hate uncertainty. Being able to regulate yourself and recognize and confirm the benefits of change is the first step towards making others see these benefits. It’s difficult if not impossible to convince your staff of the benefits of a change, when you are in fear or doubt yourself.
S19:
The third EI component is Motivation. Marco believes that Dr. Spock (from the well known Star Trek series) is the ultimate example of someone who is a master in self-awareness and self-regulation, but lacks any forms of observable motivation. People like Steve Ballmer and Anthony Robbins are in Marco’s opinion better examples of people that show zeal, drive, commitment and enthusiasm. Motivation is one of the EI components that is highly contagious, and needed for project managers and leaders alike. Here’s another Dutch phrase: “na regen komt zonneschijn”, which roughly translates into “after rain, there’s always sun”. This has the meaning as “the sun is always shining behind the clouds”. Most projects follow the so called “Kubler Ross” (Google it!) change curve, which means that after some initial high expectations and optimism, things start to go down-hill, as maybe not all expectations are, or can be, met. It’s the project manager’s task to keep the spirits high, and keep pointing to that light at the end of the tunnel. Even when things go really sour, there’s always a lesson to be learned. Remember, there are no such thing as making a mistake, one can only learn and continue one’s journey.
S20:
The fourth EI component is Empathy. Whereas the first three components are all about you and your inner self, this component starts the interaction with your environment, the outside world, and the people around you. It’s here where the other three components are starting to pay off and show real value. Empathy is all about being able to put yourself into the shoes of others, and understanding why these others behave the way they do (Act), and say the things they say (Think). This is where the manager/leader sticks out his/her antennas and starts to “feel” and “sense” the environment and other people. It’s making sense of the world around you, getting the facts straight, and responding in an appropriate manner that suits the specific and unique situation. Why has a staff member, that’s normally performing really well, started to underperform? Of course you can start playing the dictator, but what if a close relative has passed away, and your staff member kept this for him/herself all of the time? This is what empathy is all about! It’s reading between the lines, listening between the lines and observing body-language and other signs to make the right decisions, and not those hasty ones. Political awareness is an interesting topic by itself. You may want to read Reframing Organizations by Bolman and Deal, because “yes” it’s a jungle out there!
S21:
The fifth EI component is Social skills. By now you should be able to see how the previous EI components all come together (converge) into socialising with others. Your self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, and empathy will allow you to communicate with your staff in the most effective way possible. Of course there’s a difference between having a good conversation with someone, and actually starting to build longer term bonds with others. What drives the other person? What goes on in the other person’s life? What’s the person’s background and culture? Well developed social skills will allow you to go to that next level, where a people (your staff, your team) become so much more than “just” another worker-bee; they become unique individuals with their own interests, passions, and stories. You never who you might need in a project you’re running in 10 years time from now. It may be that person you’re meeting today, and that “worker-bee”, who knows, may well be your boss in 5 years from now. Never underestimate the powers of Faith, Destiny and Hope.
S22:
The EI component “Group work skills” is not part of David Goleman’s orginal ground breaking work, but should make sense nonetheless. It goes one level above socialising with other people (individuals) and enters the world of teams and groups. As such, this component is definitely applicable to the world of a project manager, as a project is typically performed by a project-team. The project manager must have a “can do” and “will do” attitude working towards shared goals, even if the project has been assigned to him/her. There are still way too many project managers who believe that managing projects is equivalent to creating a project schedule, collecting performance data, and providing performance reports, whilst locking themselves in a small room surrounded by computer screens and flashing lights. Being a project manager (or any type of manager for where that matters) means being there for your team, guiding them, supporting them, resolving conflicts, and every now and then, being that shoulder to cry on. It’s about sharing the highs and lows with your team, and has hardly anything to do with entering data into some type of project management tool – that’s why we invented things like delegation, authority, roles, responsibility and accountability.
S23:
So, by now it should be clear that the higher your role in the hierarchy of a project, the more important your emotional intelligence skills are becoming. As a project manager you’re tasked with putting all the pieces together, and this includes those pieces known as “human beings”. Unfortunately those “human beings” aren’t as easy to toss around as trucks or bricks, and they need a more sensitive, emotional approach.
S24:
Things get even more interesting when you step outside the world of projects and inside the world of programs, portfolios and business strategy. Without properly developed emotional intelligence skills one can do a lot of harm at these higher organisational levels. Again, people seem to get promoted to a level of incompetence, rather than competence. Marco believes this is partly due to skills, especially the emotional intelligence one, running out of sync with the position being gently “forced” in. A more proactive approach, one that includes EI training, mentoring and coaching, is likely part to a long-term solution.
Individual planets: http://www.skinz.org/zoom.phtml?skinid=4772
Inner planets: http://makkcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Inner-Planets.png
Outer planets (gas-giants): http://makkcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Gas_planet_size_comparisons.jpg
Solar system: http://astrobioloblog.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/what-is-a-solar-system/
Milky way: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4LykseC-swYHxrrZubJygjfXGAy7Oy5mIFXjEIh_YWTWVahXCBXVAW2Rwax7KxgCcPUl9A_JMuJvrVNmm11mSCOLQbiDuFFqVbaYveT9HNnrKPmX82LBXn83MugnVunTe92N373rA_kb_/s1600/milky-way.jpg
S25:
Where quarks hold the Universe together, emotional intelligence is able to hold project management together. The higher your position in the project, program, portfolio, or business, the more energy your EI particles need to keep “things”, “emotions”, “relationships” together.
In other words: emotionally intelligence creates the grand unifying theory for projects, programs, portfolios, businesses and governments alike. It binds and holds all together. It’s the people, their communications and the way they interact that are key in this world.
http://www.pentek.com/pipeline/15_1/heart2quarks_small.jpg
S26:
So, what do you need to develop your EI?
There are hundreds-of-thousands of organisations providing one-to-five days of so called intensive communication and other type of personal development courses. Although they may give you some theory and some principles, they are really only the beginning of your journey. As human beings we didn’t learn to speak in 5 days, and for that same reason, we won’t learn to improve the way we speak in 5 days either.
Reconditioning our emotional intelligence is a life-long journey, which will have lots of bumps and holes along the road. It’s a never-ending journey of continuous improvement, fine-tuning and taking lessons learned. It will take all of your time, effort and commitment to improve, and most importantly your belief that you are able to improve. One of the most important things you’ll be needing is someone that’s setting the good example for you: a mentor, coach or role model (remember the slide with Anthony Robbin’s recipe for success?).
S27:
Just like a piano, once our emotional intelligence skills are on the right track, we need to keep fine-tuning them, as many outside factors (e.g. people demonstrating immature emotional intelligence skills) will try putting our EI piano off-tune. So, post training reinforcement is essential! Once you’ve done a course or training session on how to improve one or more of your EI skills, you need a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of practice. And someone out there needs to be telling you whether you’re on track or off track.
S28:
An effective way to improve your EI skills is by following this approach:
Know what type of EI capabilities are required for the new role.
Understand your current EI skills. SWOT them!
Take EI test XYZ to measure your EI skills
Understand what’s missing: an EI gap analysis
Map out a strategy on how to get those additional skills
Follow courses, training (on-the-job or off-the-job), otherwise (whatever works best for you)
Seek opportunities to bring your newly learned skills into practice
Use post-training reinforcement or a mentor to ensure you’re on track
Take EI test XYZ to measure your EI skills (they should have improved by now!)
Step into your new role
All of this with the support of a subject matter expert. Someone who really understands the field of EI.
Use the same EI test pre- and pro development, otherwise you’re comparing apples and pears.
S29:
Last, but not least: get a list of rules and live by them!
What many people like in the behaviour of their manager or leader is consistency. If you stick to a set of rules, and live by them, then consistency is a logical consequence. And guess what… consistency also relates to certainty, and that’s what all people like: certainty!
A set of rules you’re living by is like running an internal computer program, where the outputs are always the same, or at least predictable within set (or agreed) boundaries. Make sure you take someone into your trust (not a subordinate) who will immediately tell you when you’re breaking your own rules. The reason for getting off track most be clear, justifiable, and if at all possible communicated to staff, and going off track should be exception rather than rule.
S30:
So, with all the (new) knowledge you’ve obtained in the this presentation it should be clear that managers with a proper level of emotional intelligence will outperform manager without. Even better, many of the components related to emotional intelligence are also attributable to leadership, and hence project managers with EI skills actually become real project leaders and will be able to advance their career into any direction they choose to.
S31:
A list of references as used by Marco to put this presentation together.
http://www.towerofpower.com.au/images/articles/emotional-intelligence-cover.jpg
http://images.borders.com.au/images/bau/97808144/9780814474167/0/0/plain/emotional-intelligence-for-project-managers.jpg
S32:
Yes, emotional intelligence is an extremely exciting topic and can be linked to any type of role, including the various roles you’ll find in project and service management space. I highly recommend studying one or more subjects in this field.
Live long and prosper, Nanoo… Nanoo, and Isle-Bee-Bach,
Marco
(I'll upload the slides when I can find some extra time).
S1:
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to GUT, EI, and PM, presented by Marco Cattaneo
Subtitle: Exploring the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and the Project Management Universe
This short presentation aims to give insight into the relationship between Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Project Management (PM), more specifically the role of a Project Manager.
Marco states/claims that EI is the glue that unifies (hence Grand Unifying Theory (GUT)) the Project Manager and his/her surroundings, be it Project Team, Sponsor, or any other type of stakeholder. Furthermore the idea is presented that it is indeed EI that distinguishes a good Project Manager from a bad one.
Charles River: http://www.criver.com/SiteCollectionImages/Images_255x164/rms_rat_white1_0005_lres.jpg
S2:
Plato’s phrase “All learning has an emotional base” is purely used to demonstrate the importance of emotions in everything we do as human beings. Even the PMBOK (2008) shows an increased emphasis on taking a lessons learned during a project’s life-cycle. This compared to the PMBOK’s earlier edition (2004). Often as individuals we “feel” there’s a certain amount of knowledge or skills lacking in us, and hence we search for them via training, education, libraries, the Internet, and other sources. Whether we like it or not, we are emotional beings! Trying to separate personal life from business life, is in all reality, easier said than done, and is many cases, impossible.
http://quotationsbook.com/quote/23079/
S3:
This presentation is not a presentation on Leadership, but it’s up to the audience to link the concepts of Project Management and Emotional Intelligence to Leadership. Quite a large chunk of academic literature tries to separate the traits of a manager from the traits of a leader. It’s more than likely that a manager needs a fair amount of mature emotional intelligence skills to be able to step into the role of a leader. In Marco’s opinion it is not possible to be an effective leader without a high level of EI skills.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO5m4Be0KgQ-4NRHMpQThc3HTBf2VQ40sM23b_ukdKv1ohySYcWpKUeu0TLIfWTGDBTPI6rl6l1B7C0e5hC6rkSMdCaSRvaevp80AsGm_9m5c6Mg-vVX9KpbXpMeQ-1OmjwhvekYNJZa8/s1600/Pan_Galactic_Gargle_Blaster_by_TheGrimSpectre.jpg
S4:
How many of us have send an “angry” email to one of our colleagues only to regret it, or its consequences, afterwards. Being able to manage your emotions, and sleep a night over it, before sending out that nasty email is one of the characteristics of a developed/developing emotional intelligence. Self-awareness (know thyself: strengths and weaknesses) and self-regulation (control your emotional flares) are two of the foundation pillars of emotional intelligence. More about these EI foundation pillars (also known as EI components) on some of the other slides.
If you’ve never heard of the Dilbert Principle or Peter Principle, then it’s recommended to perform a search on Google for them. Too many technically minded project team-member wizards, being highly competent in their technical jobs get promoted into managerial roles (i.e. Project Manager), only to discover they’re completely incompetent in their new role. It’s often the lack of developed and nurtured EI that makes this type of promotion a predictable disaster for so many organisations. However, all hope is not lost! EI can be taught, but it takes time (often a lot of time), full and unconditional commitment, and trust from those trying to increase their EI levels.
Interestingly, there’s only single hit on Dilbert.com when searching for cartoons that are “emotional intelligence” related. Surely, being a topic so close to what we are and who we are, one would expect dozens of hits.
The Dilbert Principle: companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to management (generally middle management), in order to limit the amount of damage they are capable of doing.
The Peter Principle: “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence", meaning that employees tend to be promoted until they reach a position at which they cannot work competently.
S5:
Here the audience is given the opportunity to type in any reason why projects fail.
The responses are collected below:
Lack of defined scope
Poor communication
Poor management
Insufficient consultation with stakeholders
Lack of interest
Not knowing what you are trying to achieve
Because sponsors have NFI how to get the best from PMs
Poor leadership
Projects fail due to poor communication
No governance
Poor stakeholder identification
You can con a sucker into agreeing a deadline, but you cannot con him into meeting it
Poor communication
Expectations not met
Lack of governance
Scope creep
People and communication
Incapable of handling politics
Lack of stakeholder support
Poor leadership skills
Lack of stakeholder management and engagement
Bad governance and planning and poor sentiments
Predefinition of outcome prior to the project actually running
Poor sponsor ownership
Projects fail because they haven’t studied properly
Insufficient understanding of the organisation
Lack of executive support
Poorly defined requirements
No relationship between PM and other processes
Lack of buy-in from participants
Bad PMs
Conflicting or non-agreed priorities
Trying to achieve too much
Reliance on 3rd party suppliers with their own timeframes
Different project managers with different methods – no governance
No control over the white space between competing projects
Hidden agendas
No benefits planning
Reliance on internal suppliers with competing priorities
Sponsor/senior stakeholders don’t understand or choose to ignore project management fundamentals
Universe out of alignment
You lose your towel
Resources not available when originally promised
People are afraid of change
Communication imbalance – miscomms and mis management of stakeholders
Wow! That’s quite a list indeed.
S6:
Yes, projects fail for many reasons, and all the answers provided by the audience are 100% justifiable and correct. In all reality a project may fail for a whole variety of reasons, and these are mostly situational, hence “it depends”. Each situation asks for its own specific management and leadership style, also known as situational management.
If Marco was asked to write a book on management, then the title would be “IT DEPENDS”, as usually this seems to be very true in management space. This also means that a manager or leader needs to be able to “sense” his/her environment and respond to it appropriately and emphatically. The moment we talk about “sensing” and “empathy” we step into the world of emotional intelligence.
S7:
Marco was hoping to see “people” pop-up a number of times as part of the audience’s answers. Indeed this was the case!
Technology does not run projects.
Processes do not run projects.
Partners and suppliers do not run projects.
It’s people that run projects, and people are highly unpredictable emotional “systems”. Understand and get yourself into the minds of ‘your’ people (project-team), and you’ll be able to bring your projects to a successful ending. Ignore your team members and think you know it all and can do it all by yourself, then better prepare yourself for some nasty surprises. In today’s cut-throat competitive and highly interconnected world we must depend on, and trust other people, whether we like it or not, whether we’re used to it or not.
S8:
Cogito ergo sum: “I think, therefore I am.”
How you Act affects how you think and feel.
How you Think affects how you act and feel.
How you Feel affects how you act and think.
Although not 100% accurate, for this presentation Behavioural development is linked to what we “do” and the mostly technical skills we demonstrate, as part of our daily job, to the outside world (e.g. accounting, marketing, IT support, etc.).
Cognitive development is linked to our IQ and tells us something how “smart” we are compared to others in the same age-group. Things like logic, reasoning and analytical skills fall within cognitive development. There are many theories about IQ, and all are merely an approximation of the truth captured in some type of model, survey or simulation tool.
Emotional development is the least known and maybe even the least appreciated in “business” world. Surely we’re not meant to be emotional in the workplace. Hold on! We’re emotional beings and can’t just separate emotions from who and what we are. Even better, those that are able to understand and control their own emotions actually perform better (more effective) in the workplace than those that don’t. Also with increased accountability (higher up in the chain-of-command) comes increased importance for the emotional component of who and what we are. Surely, strategic business and portfolio managers need a lot more ‘emotional control’ compared to project team-members who are adding performance data in their project management information system. At operational levels technical skills are a must, but these become less and less relevant at the higher management levels, where they are replaced by something else! Yes, they are… they are replaced/complemented by a whole lot of emotional intelligence.
S9:
Marco was hoping to see “communication” pop-up a number of times as part of the audience’s answers. Indeed this was the case!
We’re all born with this fantastic skill to pick up any language and use it to communicate with others. However many of us do not master the skill of “effective communication”. Lots of research shows that the majority of projects fail because of poor communication. Even in Project Management space people sometimes speak different “languages”, such as PMBOK, Prince2, Agile or Scrum. Each introduction of an additional language creates opportunity for confusion, misunderstanding, and misinterpretation.
Our language is our greatest asset, but used wrongly it’s also one of our biggest threats. Wars have started, some not even ended, because people say or misunderstand words! The importance of effective communication cannot and should not be underestimated. Communication is so much more than chucking a new policy, or code-of-conduct on the organisation's Intranet. Communication is a science, art, and process we need to understand, and if at all possible, learn to master ourselves.
S10:
Communication is science and art and process
It’s transferring:
the right message
at the right time
to the right people
in the right language
in the right format
in the right context
using the right media
getting the right feedback
It’s weird as some people seem to have a natural talent to communicate (surely it’s partly genetic) whereas others follow all communication courses and training available and just can’t get it right. According to some research those that can’t get it right are training the wrong parts of their brain (neocortex rather than limbic). Anyway, people are able to improve their communication skills and become effective communicators, but this takes time, energy, and commitment and isn’t learned in any 2-3 day course. Improving your communication skills is a never ending journey, where only you are in charge of the final destination.
S11:
So, people and communication are really significant to a project’s success rate.
It’s quite interesting to see that most older project management literature emphasises cost, schedule and performance as main project constraints (also known as the triple constraint).
As the audience and Marco agreed that people and communication are critical success factors (CSFs) for any project, then why aren’t they emphasized a lot more in today’s project management literature? It’s the people buying in to the project’s goals, it’s the people performing the work, it’s the people creating teams. The schedule and dollars are just a means for the people to get the project from start to finish, and that’s all they really are. Without people there is no project!
http://www.thesupercars.org/wp-content/gallery/bugatti-veyron/bugatti-engine.jpg
S12:
Fortunately the Project Management literature is catching up compared to earlier publications and more and more emphasis is put on the people side of the equation. Two of the nine knowledge areas that you find in the PMBOK (2008) relate to communications (project communication management) and people (project human resource management), so there’s definitely a pattern that shows a move in the right direction.
Interestingly the PMBOK (2008) does not mention “emotional intelligence” or for where that matters “social intelligence” as yet. Maybe… one day… who knows…
S13:
Okay, so what’s needed to run projects?
Basically three things:
Skills, also referred to as Act or Technical capabilities
Brains (IQ), also referred to as Think or Cognitive capabilities
Emotions (EQ), also referred to as Feel or Emotional intelligence
As mentioned before, research is indicating that the higher you move up in your organisation’s hierarchy the more important your emotional intelligence becomes. It’s not that technical skills and cognitive capabilities become unimportant, because you’ll still need those too (otherwise you wouldn’t or shouldn’t even be selected for a managerial role), they just become less important in the new role (hierarchically a step above your current role) you’re getting yourself into. Again, be constantly aware of the Dilbert Principle and the Peter Principle – these principles apply to all of us!
There are heaps of publications that have a title like “Recipe for Success” and so does one of Anthony Robbins. Notice how he mentions “Choose a role model”, that you may or may not want to substitute with “Choose the right mentor or coach”. You can only develop your emotional intelligence by example. In other words: you need other EI aware-and-competent people telling you whether or not your emotional intelligence is developing and improving in the right direction. Please note that being taught new skills by an incompetent mentor may make your skills worse, rather than improving them.
S14:
So, what is emotional intelligence?
Well, it’s actually two things. First of it means mastering your own emotions, and secondly it means mastering your relationships with others. Although the literature uses “mastering” you could also just use “managing”, “controlling”, or “real-time monitoring and adjusting”. The idea is that before you are able to manage relationships with others, you need to be able to manage your own emotions. Those that are trying to build/manage relationships with others, and are not yet in control of their own emotions are likely to fail in their efforts (or may come across as creepy, weird, or faking it).
There are heaps of tests online that you can take that will tell you something about your Emotional Intelligence, but realize many of these tests still have to prove their validity, as often they provide different outcomes under different situations. So, use them as an indicator and not as the only truth. Also understand that the results of these tests are only as truthful as the data you enter. As always, the GIGO (Garbage-In-Garbage-Out) principle applies.
S15:
This is a Harvard Business Review (HBR) statement that shows that the whole idea of EI (or EQ) created quite some shockwaves in the business world. Whereas previously managers and leaders were often selected on their high IQ, all of a sudden there was a new theory telling everyone that this is not enough, and not even the most significant attribute. Although technical skills and IQ are important to get into a managerial position (so called threshold capabilities), the real challenge starts with EI and it is EI that will differentiate a good manager from a bad one, and a good leader from a bad one.
S16:
Many articles exist on the traits of a project manager and when inspected close-up they all show quite a number of characteristics that you also find in Daniel Goleman’s ground-breaking work on emotional intelligence which goes by the same title. Since his publication (1995) the model, which originally included 5 components (as shown on the next couple of slides) has been extended by various authors and academics, and as such the model as shown on the next couple of pages shows one additional component. Again, it’s “merely” a theory trying to explain some of things that we can see happening around us. Time and effort will further enhance the theory.
S17:
The first EI component is Self-awareness. “Know Thyself” is a prerequisite for becoming confident of one’s own abilities, beliefs, strengths, weaknesses, etc. Those managers with high confidence will find it a lot easier to make decisions, but even better, their decisions will come across as more believable to their “subordinates/team” compared to those managers that lack self-esteem and confidence. In the Dutch language there’s a phrase known as “sterk in je schoenen staan”, which can be translated into “standing solid in your shoes”, which has the same meaning as “standing fierce”. People that have a good self-awareness are more likely coming across to their staff as “standing fierce”.
S18:
The second EI component is Self-regulation. Everyone has their good and bad days, and everyone would like to have an emotional explosion every once and again (it’s called venting). This is completely human and natural and nothing to be ashamed of. Unfortunately, when emotions run high, people often say or do things they may well regret for the remainder of their mortal lives (and who knows – maybe even in the afterlife). Anyway, effective managers and leaders need to be able to recognize when keeping their emotions under control is necessary for the sake of the team and/or organisation. Self-regulation also means embracing change and innovation and being aware that most people dislike change (and “dislike” is an understatement), as change brings uncertainty. Generally people love certainty and hate uncertainty. Being able to regulate yourself and recognize and confirm the benefits of change is the first step towards making others see these benefits. It’s difficult if not impossible to convince your staff of the benefits of a change, when you are in fear or doubt yourself.
S19:
The third EI component is Motivation. Marco believes that Dr. Spock (from the well known Star Trek series) is the ultimate example of someone who is a master in self-awareness and self-regulation, but lacks any forms of observable motivation. People like Steve Ballmer and Anthony Robbins are in Marco’s opinion better examples of people that show zeal, drive, commitment and enthusiasm. Motivation is one of the EI components that is highly contagious, and needed for project managers and leaders alike. Here’s another Dutch phrase: “na regen komt zonneschijn”, which roughly translates into “after rain, there’s always sun”. This has the meaning as “the sun is always shining behind the clouds”. Most projects follow the so called “Kubler Ross” (Google it!) change curve, which means that after some initial high expectations and optimism, things start to go down-hill, as maybe not all expectations are, or can be, met. It’s the project manager’s task to keep the spirits high, and keep pointing to that light at the end of the tunnel. Even when things go really sour, there’s always a lesson to be learned. Remember, there are no such thing as making a mistake, one can only learn and continue one’s journey.
S20:
The fourth EI component is Empathy. Whereas the first three components are all about you and your inner self, this component starts the interaction with your environment, the outside world, and the people around you. It’s here where the other three components are starting to pay off and show real value. Empathy is all about being able to put yourself into the shoes of others, and understanding why these others behave the way they do (Act), and say the things they say (Think). This is where the manager/leader sticks out his/her antennas and starts to “feel” and “sense” the environment and other people. It’s making sense of the world around you, getting the facts straight, and responding in an appropriate manner that suits the specific and unique situation. Why has a staff member, that’s normally performing really well, started to underperform? Of course you can start playing the dictator, but what if a close relative has passed away, and your staff member kept this for him/herself all of the time? This is what empathy is all about! It’s reading between the lines, listening between the lines and observing body-language and other signs to make the right decisions, and not those hasty ones. Political awareness is an interesting topic by itself. You may want to read Reframing Organizations by Bolman and Deal, because “yes” it’s a jungle out there!
S21:
The fifth EI component is Social skills. By now you should be able to see how the previous EI components all come together (converge) into socialising with others. Your self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, and empathy will allow you to communicate with your staff in the most effective way possible. Of course there’s a difference between having a good conversation with someone, and actually starting to build longer term bonds with others. What drives the other person? What goes on in the other person’s life? What’s the person’s background and culture? Well developed social skills will allow you to go to that next level, where a people (your staff, your team) become so much more than “just” another worker-bee; they become unique individuals with their own interests, passions, and stories. You never who you might need in a project you’re running in 10 years time from now. It may be that person you’re meeting today, and that “worker-bee”, who knows, may well be your boss in 5 years from now. Never underestimate the powers of Faith, Destiny and Hope.
S22:
The EI component “Group work skills” is not part of David Goleman’s orginal ground breaking work, but should make sense nonetheless. It goes one level above socialising with other people (individuals) and enters the world of teams and groups. As such, this component is definitely applicable to the world of a project manager, as a project is typically performed by a project-team. The project manager must have a “can do” and “will do” attitude working towards shared goals, even if the project has been assigned to him/her. There are still way too many project managers who believe that managing projects is equivalent to creating a project schedule, collecting performance data, and providing performance reports, whilst locking themselves in a small room surrounded by computer screens and flashing lights. Being a project manager (or any type of manager for where that matters) means being there for your team, guiding them, supporting them, resolving conflicts, and every now and then, being that shoulder to cry on. It’s about sharing the highs and lows with your team, and has hardly anything to do with entering data into some type of project management tool – that’s why we invented things like delegation, authority, roles, responsibility and accountability.
S23:
So, by now it should be clear that the higher your role in the hierarchy of a project, the more important your emotional intelligence skills are becoming. As a project manager you’re tasked with putting all the pieces together, and this includes those pieces known as “human beings”. Unfortunately those “human beings” aren’t as easy to toss around as trucks or bricks, and they need a more sensitive, emotional approach.
S24:
Things get even more interesting when you step outside the world of projects and inside the world of programs, portfolios and business strategy. Without properly developed emotional intelligence skills one can do a lot of harm at these higher organisational levels. Again, people seem to get promoted to a level of incompetence, rather than competence. Marco believes this is partly due to skills, especially the emotional intelligence one, running out of sync with the position being gently “forced” in. A more proactive approach, one that includes EI training, mentoring and coaching, is likely part to a long-term solution.
Individual planets: http://www.skinz.org/zoom.phtml?skinid=4772
Inner planets: http://makkcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Inner-Planets.png
Outer planets (gas-giants): http://makkcraft.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Gas_planet_size_comparisons.jpg
Solar system: http://astrobioloblog.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/what-is-a-solar-system/
Milky way: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4LykseC-swYHxrrZubJygjfXGAy7Oy5mIFXjEIh_YWTWVahXCBXVAW2Rwax7KxgCcPUl9A_JMuJvrVNmm11mSCOLQbiDuFFqVbaYveT9HNnrKPmX82LBXn83MugnVunTe92N373rA_kb_/s1600/milky-way.jpg
S25:
Where quarks hold the Universe together, emotional intelligence is able to hold project management together. The higher your position in the project, program, portfolio, or business, the more energy your EI particles need to keep “things”, “emotions”, “relationships” together.
In other words: emotionally intelligence creates the grand unifying theory for projects, programs, portfolios, businesses and governments alike. It binds and holds all together. It’s the people, their communications and the way they interact that are key in this world.
http://www.pentek.com/pipeline/15_1/heart2quarks_small.jpg
S26:
So, what do you need to develop your EI?
There are hundreds-of-thousands of organisations providing one-to-five days of so called intensive communication and other type of personal development courses. Although they may give you some theory and some principles, they are really only the beginning of your journey. As human beings we didn’t learn to speak in 5 days, and for that same reason, we won’t learn to improve the way we speak in 5 days either.
Reconditioning our emotional intelligence is a life-long journey, which will have lots of bumps and holes along the road. It’s a never-ending journey of continuous improvement, fine-tuning and taking lessons learned. It will take all of your time, effort and commitment to improve, and most importantly your belief that you are able to improve. One of the most important things you’ll be needing is someone that’s setting the good example for you: a mentor, coach or role model (remember the slide with Anthony Robbin’s recipe for success?).
S27:
Just like a piano, once our emotional intelligence skills are on the right track, we need to keep fine-tuning them, as many outside factors (e.g. people demonstrating immature emotional intelligence skills) will try putting our EI piano off-tune. So, post training reinforcement is essential! Once you’ve done a course or training session on how to improve one or more of your EI skills, you need a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of practice. And someone out there needs to be telling you whether you’re on track or off track.
S28:
An effective way to improve your EI skills is by following this approach:
Know what type of EI capabilities are required for the new role.
Understand your current EI skills. SWOT them!
Take EI test XYZ to measure your EI skills
Understand what’s missing: an EI gap analysis
Map out a strategy on how to get those additional skills
Follow courses, training (on-the-job or off-the-job), otherwise (whatever works best for you)
Seek opportunities to bring your newly learned skills into practice
Use post-training reinforcement or a mentor to ensure you’re on track
Take EI test XYZ to measure your EI skills (they should have improved by now!)
Step into your new role
All of this with the support of a subject matter expert. Someone who really understands the field of EI.
Use the same EI test pre- and pro development, otherwise you’re comparing apples and pears.
S29:
Last, but not least: get a list of rules and live by them!
What many people like in the behaviour of their manager or leader is consistency. If you stick to a set of rules, and live by them, then consistency is a logical consequence. And guess what… consistency also relates to certainty, and that’s what all people like: certainty!
A set of rules you’re living by is like running an internal computer program, where the outputs are always the same, or at least predictable within set (or agreed) boundaries. Make sure you take someone into your trust (not a subordinate) who will immediately tell you when you’re breaking your own rules. The reason for getting off track most be clear, justifiable, and if at all possible communicated to staff, and going off track should be exception rather than rule.
S30:
So, with all the (new) knowledge you’ve obtained in the this presentation it should be clear that managers with a proper level of emotional intelligence will outperform manager without. Even better, many of the components related to emotional intelligence are also attributable to leadership, and hence project managers with EI skills actually become real project leaders and will be able to advance their career into any direction they choose to.
S31:
A list of references as used by Marco to put this presentation together.
http://www.towerofpower.com.au/images/articles/emotional-intelligence-cover.jpg
http://images.borders.com.au/images/bau/97808144/9780814474167/0/0/plain/emotional-intelligence-for-project-managers.jpg
S32:
Yes, emotional intelligence is an extremely exciting topic and can be linked to any type of role, including the various roles you’ll find in project and service management space. I highly recommend studying one or more subjects in this field.
Live long and prosper, Nanoo… Nanoo, and Isle-Bee-Bach,
Marco
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
A.I. & Learning Theory
A.I. & Learning Theory
This is where I'll keep my list on A.I. and Learning Theory :-)
http://hunch.net/
http://see.stanford.edu/see/courseinfo.aspx?coll=348ca38a-3a6d-4052-937d-cb017338d7b1
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/unilearn.html
This is where I'll keep my list on A.I. and Learning Theory :-)
http://hunch.net/
http://see.stanford.edu/see/courseinfo.aspx?coll=348ca38a-3a6d-4052-937d-cb017338d7b1
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/unilearn.html
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
What it takes to be SMART!
What it takes to be SMART!
I challenge anyone to find and add more appropriate words to the SMART acronym! Personally I quite like smart as it seems almost applicable anywhere, e.g.
- Agreements
- Contracts
- Project management plans
- Strategic business plans
- Law
- Procedures
- Work instructions
- Role descriptions
- Research
- Holiday trips
S:
Specific
Significant
M:
Measurable
Monitor-able
Manageable
A:
Agreed
Achievable
Attainable
Aligned
Acceptable
Accountable
Adaptable (of course under the correct change management process)
Audience (written or constructed for the right type of audience)
Applicable
Assignable
R:
Realistic
Relevant
Respectful
Responsible
Reviewable
T:
Timely
Transparent
Truthful
Mmmmm....
And what about:
Balanced
Extensible
Again, this is a short article and I hope that with your feedback we can add some more detail to it.
Nanoo... Nanoo...
IsleBeeBach
I challenge anyone to find and add more appropriate words to the SMART acronym! Personally I quite like smart as it seems almost applicable anywhere, e.g.
- Agreements
- Contracts
- Project management plans
- Strategic business plans
- Law
- Procedures
- Work instructions
- Role descriptions
- Research
- Holiday trips
S:
Specific
Significant
M:
Measurable
Monitor-able
Manageable
A:
Agreed
Achievable
Attainable
Aligned
Acceptable
Accountable
Adaptable (of course under the correct change management process)
Audience (written or constructed for the right type of audience)
Applicable
Assignable
R:
Realistic
Relevant
Respectful
Responsible
Reviewable
T:
Timely
Transparent
Truthful
Mmmmm....
And what about:
Balanced
Extensible
Again, this is a short article and I hope that with your feedback we can add some more detail to it.
Nanoo... Nanoo...
IsleBeeBach
Friday, April 15, 2011
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...
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...
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
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 :-(
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 :-(
Friday, January 28, 2011
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.
I'll use this blog to list any interesting articles, literature and websites I come across.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
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!
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 |
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, October 29, 2010
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!
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!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
EDUCATION: Blended Intelligent Training and Education (BITE)
Blended Intelligent Training and Education (BITE)
Make sure you have at least one "Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster" (Adams, 1952) or preferable as many as possible without ending up in Lala-space (surely a very likely space that's an outcome of "elasticated string-theory" (Pratchett, 2010)), before you even consider the infinitesimal - yes extremely unlikely - possibility of reading on! For those that do: be prepared for the unexpected!
Introduction
I've thought hard and long, about 5.39124(27)x10-44 seconds (that's called Planck time for those that want to do a bit of research on this number) about reading - oops writing - this paper. I have no - I'll repeat - NO - intention to be serious in any shape or form, except for those occasions where seriousness can't be avoided, and I'll do my utmost best to avoid them for the sake of human existence and survival of our species. If you're still reading, then somehow I've caught your attention and it's time to start adding some knowledge transfer into this text, as this text is all about the art and science of transferring knowledge and skills in new and hopefully somewhat challenging and thought provoking ways. Personally I believe that education as we know it, is about to receive its biggest shakeup we've seen (or actually not seen, but should have seen) in the last century or so! Being somewhat sensitive to the many educational "omens" that seem to float in the air around me, and poke me in the back when I'm not paying enough attention to them, the signs are clear: this article wants, no even better, demands to be written.
Past: The era of lemmings!
I guess from the early 1900s until the 1950s/1960s most educational systems would submerge (feel free to read drown/suffocate) their students into a drone, military-style like system, where you would sit, pay attention, somehow absorb the materials and keep your mouth zipped. The teacher/educator/lecturer was Om (The God of all Gods) on his/her throne and "deserved" utmost respect from their loyal students (feel free to read "fear 'motivated' slaves"). Questioning the skills, knowledge and/or attitude of Om would be blasphemy, or at least a "crime" to which death was the only penalty that would lead to your salvation. Yeah, I know, I'm exaggerating just a wee bit, but I hope it's getting the message across. It wasn't all that bad, and I'm sure 'most' students survived their educational journey with quite some knowledge and skills sledge-hammered into their brains, ready to conquer the world. A large chunk of knowledge, skills and attitude transfer was uni-directional (including attributes like values, respect, rights and responsibilities) moving down from Om to its army of trustworthy followers. Surely, some type of resistance was to be nothing more than expected. The time of being a lemming, being drilled for 12 hours a day, was soon to become history, something that happened to others in the past.
Present: Chaos rules!
Future: The student decides!
Why BITE?
What is BITE?
Emotional intelligence (EQ)
ICT's critical role
From teacher to coach/mentor
Engagement is key!
Conclusion
Literature
Online references
Make sure you have at least one "Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster" (Adams, 1952) or preferable as many as possible without ending up in Lala-space (surely a very likely space that's an outcome of "elasticated string-theory" (Pratchett, 2010)), before you even consider the infinitesimal - yes extremely unlikely - possibility of reading on! For those that do: be prepared for the unexpected!
Introduction
I've thought hard and long, about 5.39124(27)x10-44 seconds (that's called Planck time for those that want to do a bit of research on this number) about reading - oops writing - this paper. I have no - I'll repeat - NO - intention to be serious in any shape or form, except for those occasions where seriousness can't be avoided, and I'll do my utmost best to avoid them for the sake of human existence and survival of our species. If you're still reading, then somehow I've caught your attention and it's time to start adding some knowledge transfer into this text, as this text is all about the art and science of transferring knowledge and skills in new and hopefully somewhat challenging and thought provoking ways. Personally I believe that education as we know it, is about to receive its biggest shakeup we've seen (or actually not seen, but should have seen) in the last century or so! Being somewhat sensitive to the many educational "omens" that seem to float in the air around me, and poke me in the back when I'm not paying enough attention to them, the signs are clear: this article wants, no even better, demands to be written.
Past: The era of lemmings!
I guess from the early 1900s until the 1950s/1960s most educational systems would submerge (feel free to read drown/suffocate) their students into a drone, military-style like system, where you would sit, pay attention, somehow absorb the materials and keep your mouth zipped. The teacher/educator/lecturer was Om (The God of all Gods) on his/her throne and "deserved" utmost respect from their loyal students (feel free to read "fear 'motivated' slaves"). Questioning the skills, knowledge and/or attitude of Om would be blasphemy, or at least a "crime" to which death was the only penalty that would lead to your salvation. Yeah, I know, I'm exaggerating just a wee bit, but I hope it's getting the message across. It wasn't all that bad, and I'm sure 'most' students survived their educational journey with quite some knowledge and skills sledge-hammered into their brains, ready to conquer the world. A large chunk of knowledge, skills and attitude transfer was uni-directional (including attributes like values, respect, rights and responsibilities) moving down from Om to its army of trustworthy followers. Surely, some type of resistance was to be nothing more than expected. The time of being a lemming, being drilled for 12 hours a day, was soon to become history, something that happened to others in the past.
Present: Chaos rules!
Future: The student decides!
Why BITE?
What is BITE?
Emotional intelligence (EQ)
ICT's critical role
From teacher to coach/mentor
Engagement is key!
Conclusion
Literature
Online references
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
ITIL: H2I - Chapter the Fifth - Parlez vous francais?
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to ITIL – EXAM Preparation Guide
Each framework, methodology and standard comes with its own peculiar language, and so does the ITIL framework. If you want to speak ITIL, then you first need to learn the language, and please believe me when I say it's not as difficult as learning Japanese when your first language happens to be English (or Dutch like mine).
I also need to say that the "common language" that the ITIL framework provides is probably one of its strongest features and to a large extend this has contributed to its enormous ongoing success and popularity. ITIL is the IT department's Esperanto, and this Esperanto is actually spoken by millions!
You can use the ITIL language when communicating with your direct peers, other internal functions, partners and suppliers and who knows maybe even other alien civilizations (yeah, I would like that). I guess many struggle to see the difference between an incident and a problem, or a problem and a known error. A common reference (or glossary of terms) is exactly what many organizations need to start communicating effectively. Ik bedoel, als ik in Nederlands ga schrijven kunnen jullie mij niet meer volgen, hence I write this text in English - a language used to communicate globally. English is not my first language, nor is ITIL, but both work really well when communicating to a specific targeted audience - like you, my loyal readers and followers.
So, where was I? Ah, yes, ITIL language! For me the ITIL language consists mainly of the various definitions, terminology and acronyms, although I seem to have the nasty habit of also adding my personal mnemonics and phrases. Many organizations are now using mnemonics like PICSAR, VRAMS and SPASMS when talking ITIL, I think that's pretty cool considering I only created them to make it easier for the students to memorize ITIL "stuff" so they could pass the ITIL Foundation exam. Phrases like "ITIL is VITAL!", "Making it better together!", and "Making a difference!" also seem to stick with most students, as they have the potential to influence the current culture and mindset. Yes, communication and language have the potential and power to change the very nature of your culture and subsequent actions.
Anyway, getting back on track, here's a list of definitions, terminology and acronyms commonly used in ITIL-speak:
You'll need to study the various definitions, terminology and acronyms as shown above when preparing for the ITIL v3 Foundation exam. The easiest way to learn about them, is to follow the set of YouTubes I've specially created for this purpose, so I don't believe it's necessary to go into full detail here. What is important is to get a good feeling of which ITIL volume/s the item relates to, and as such I hope the following paragraphs will support you in achieving this.
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAQVJIKD2yQ&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=40
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Design
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHCZG60A0JM&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=30
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Strategy, CSI
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13BGSObkPU&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=22
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oFu-3dmzU8&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=36
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCPpjCvUf7Y&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=32
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g0LvVTForo&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=33
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Design
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXbrNT0iVk8&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=28
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rMhBA2D4VU&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=34
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kwm-SlOX1A&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=39
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrVkNcS8xGs&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=42
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHSo3CDVeJM&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=41
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBEOjTJSQ80&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=46
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0OI3RvaKuc&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=47
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Design
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KTsV-Yut1M&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=27
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfl7z3jqRNs&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=44
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMngLrTFcis&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=50
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc86HkhFCbg&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=37
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Strategy
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOiP9FB4QPc&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=18
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Strategy, CSI
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRoH9tKg3ZQ&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=23
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Strategy
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RppFmg6WP_E&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=49
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Strategy, Service Design
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfsHFPYU-QI&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=20
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9Ytv72bC5o&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=35
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Design
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-zF6RURFgY&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=29
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMATi0-iGRM&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=31
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Design
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhy2VvIvBkQ&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=26
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Strategy, Service Design
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xXuhbcBUfY&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=19
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Strategy
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXRQ1kpxXn4&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=24
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WBIun4sB74&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=43
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqi3Vrlc8Rw&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=38
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Design
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwBfy5mIU7c&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=25
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN8AuF5iVNE&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=48
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: CSI
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSvbkp2zW4w&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=21
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Strategy
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKlpHIA4nhQ&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=17
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUCWD3Gqhh4&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=45
Live long and prosper
Nanoo... Nanoo...
IsleBeeBach
Each framework, methodology and standard comes with its own peculiar language, and so does the ITIL framework. If you want to speak ITIL, then you first need to learn the language, and please believe me when I say it's not as difficult as learning Japanese when your first language happens to be English (or Dutch like mine).
I also need to say that the "common language" that the ITIL framework provides is probably one of its strongest features and to a large extend this has contributed to its enormous ongoing success and popularity. ITIL is the IT department's Esperanto, and this Esperanto is actually spoken by millions!
You can use the ITIL language when communicating with your direct peers, other internal functions, partners and suppliers and who knows maybe even other alien civilizations (yeah, I would like that). I guess many struggle to see the difference between an incident and a problem, or a problem and a known error. A common reference (or glossary of terms) is exactly what many organizations need to start communicating effectively. Ik bedoel, als ik in Nederlands ga schrijven kunnen jullie mij niet meer volgen, hence I write this text in English - a language used to communicate globally. English is not my first language, nor is ITIL, but both work really well when communicating to a specific targeted audience - like you, my loyal readers and followers.
So, where was I? Ah, yes, ITIL language! For me the ITIL language consists mainly of the various definitions, terminology and acronyms, although I seem to have the nasty habit of also adding my personal mnemonics and phrases. Many organizations are now using mnemonics like PICSAR, VRAMS and SPASMS when talking ITIL, I think that's pretty cool considering I only created them to make it easier for the students to memorize ITIL "stuff" so they could pass the ITIL Foundation exam. Phrases like "ITIL is VITAL!", "Making it better together!", and "Making a difference!" also seem to stick with most students, as they have the potential to influence the current culture and mindset. Yes, communication and language have the potential and power to change the very nature of your culture and subsequent actions.
Anyway, getting back on track, here's a list of definitions, terminology and acronyms commonly used in ITIL-speak:
- Alert
- Availability
- Business Case
- Change types
- Configuration Item (CI)
- Configuration Management System
- Contract
- Definitive Media Library (DML)
- Event
- Impact, Urgency and Priority
- Incident
- Known Error
- Known Error Data Base (KEDB)
- Operational Level Agreement (OLA)
- Problem
- Release policy
- Release Unit
- Resources, Capabilities and Assets
- Risk
- Service Assets
- Service Catalog
- Service Change
- Service Design Package
- Service Knowledge Management System (SKMS)
- Service Level Agreement (SLA)
- Service Portfolio
- Service Provider
- Service Request
- Seven R’s of Change Management
- Supplier
- The role of communication in Service Operation
- The role of IT Governance across the Service Lifecycle
- Utility and Warranty
- Workaround
You'll need to study the various definitions, terminology and acronyms as shown above when preparing for the ITIL v3 Foundation exam. The easiest way to learn about them, is to follow the set of YouTubes I've specially created for this purpose, so I don't believe it's necessary to go into full detail here. What is important is to get a good feeling of which ITIL volume/s the item relates to, and as such I hope the following paragraphs will support you in achieving this.
Alert
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAQVJIKD2yQ&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=40
Availability
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Design
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHCZG60A0JM&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=30
Business Case
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Strategy, CSI
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13BGSObkPU&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=22
Change types
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oFu-3dmzU8&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=36
Configuration Item (CI)
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCPpjCvUf7Y&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=32
Configuration Management System
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g0LvVTForo&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=33
Contract
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Design
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXbrNT0iVk8&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=28
Definitive Media Library (DML)
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rMhBA2D4VU&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=34
Event
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kwm-SlOX1A&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=39
Impact, Urgency and Priority
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrVkNcS8xGs&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=42
Incident
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHSo3CDVeJM&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=41
Known Error
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBEOjTJSQ80&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=46
Known Error Data Base (KEDB)
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0OI3RvaKuc&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=47
Operational Level Agreement (OLA)
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Design
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KTsV-Yut1M&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=27
Problem
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfl7z3jqRNs&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=44
Release policy
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMngLrTFcis&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=50
Release Unit
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc86HkhFCbg&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=37
Resources, Capabilities and Assets
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Strategy
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOiP9FB4QPc&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=18
Risk
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Strategy, CSI
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRoH9tKg3ZQ&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=23
Service Assets
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Strategy
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RppFmg6WP_E&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=49
Service Catalog
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Strategy, Service Design
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfsHFPYU-QI&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=20
Service Change
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9Ytv72bC5o&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=35
Service Design Package
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Design
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-zF6RURFgY&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=29
Service Knowledge Management System (SKMS)
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMATi0-iGRM&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=31
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Design
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhy2VvIvBkQ&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=26
Service Portfolio
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Strategy, Service Design
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xXuhbcBUfY&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=19
Service Provider
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Strategy
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXRQ1kpxXn4&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=24
Service Request
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WBIun4sB74&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=43
Seven R’s of Change Management
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Transition
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqi3Vrlc8Rw&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=38
Supplier
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Design
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwBfy5mIU7c&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=25
The role of communication in Service Operation
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN8AuF5iVNE&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=48
The role of IT Governance across the Service Lifecycle
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: CSI
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSvbkp2zW4w&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=21
Utility and Warranty
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Strategy
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKlpHIA4nhQ&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=17
Workaround
Predominantly covered in the following ITIL volume/s: Service Operation
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUCWD3Gqhh4&p=017C0B75EE2FA714&index=45
Live long and prosper
Nanoo... Nanoo...
IsleBeeBach
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
CHANGE MANAGEMENT: Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll
Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll (SDRR)
When reality becomes somewhat unreal
Well, for what it's worth, I just couldn't come up with an original title, so I went for one that has a higher likelihood of actually attracting some "not-your-average-day-management-article-browsing" readers. I would love to write a real essay on sex, drugs and rock and roll, and one-day I probably will, but not right now. No, this time I feel it's appropriate to highlight change management as part of project management. What is change management? Why do we need it? What's the approach that PMBOK and PRINCE2, as leading project management frameworks, take towards managing change so ultimately project chaos can be avoided or at least reduced to acceptable levels? So I sincerely apologize for altering your reality and not meeting your expectations by discussing SDRR to a level that suits your immediate needs. Please bear with me and things may yet turn out to be more exciting than the eye reveals, or actually your mind reveals, at first glance.
When reality is described by a single word
For some people everyday reality seems to consist of work-eat-sleep-and-multiply, and 'no' I won't go into any specific sequence of aforementioned activities, but believe that drugs and rock n roll may have either a stimulating or inhibiting effect on one or more of these reality-creating components. I told you I would try to keep it a bit exciting, as I would like to meet at least some of your expectations that were set by this article's oh-so promising and inviting title! For many other people, especially those involved in running, managing or supporting projects, everyday reality may well be described by a single word, which is 'CHAOS', utter and complete chaos! I bet some of you are showing the first glimpse of a smile on their face, and are thinking "Yeah - I know where this going!" Come on, it all started so well... New - really cool leading edge - project... lots of commitment, involvement and excitement... lots of promises being made... great schedule... abundance of resources... fantastic team... nice budget... it all seems too good to be true.
When reality starts to sink in
Yeah, we've all been there and we've all gone through the same pain and pleasure of running projects. Initially everything runs according to project management plan, but then these peculiar messages start to penetrate your shield of near project management perfection, such as:
Don't you love it when a plan comes together (Hannibal, The A-Team), and don't you hate it when it doesn't? Well, speaking from experience, when working in project management space better straighten your expectations starting right now: Murphy's law (when things can go wrong - they will go wrong) ensures that project management plans never come together, unless you actively stay right on top of them for 200% of the time!
When Murphy takes over your reality
There are at least two important factors that make Murphy's reality a very real and tangible one. I'm not saying they are the only two factors, but I have all reason to believe they are in the top-5 and they won't be giving away their position any time soon. I believe the first factor to be communication related and the second one to be scope related, although I ultimately believe that scope issues (we're going to talk about scope-creep in more detail) can be avoided by investing enough energy and time in the way we communicate.
Now before I start divulging my communication and scope related secrets and humble opinion, I feel it's appropriate to give you a bit of an idea where and if these topics are covered within the two leading project management frameworks: PMI's PMBOK and OGC's PRINCE2. Although some claim these frameworks are as different as chalk and cheese, I don't share this opinion and actually feel they're quite similar on the inside although they appear to be quite different on the outside. Both frameworks use the concept of a project (management) life-cycle that reflects the project's "natural" evolution.
When different realities turn out to be quite similar
PMI's PMBOK presents 5 so called process groups, which are:
OGC's PRINCE2 presents 7 individual processes, which are:
Surely you're able to pick up the similarities between these two very "different" approaches. Both frameworks also refer to a number of concepts that are important to our understanding of project management. Whereas PMI's PMBOK refers to so called knowledge areas, OGC's PRINCE2 prefers using the terminology themes.
PMBOK's nine knowledge areas:
PRINCE2's seven themes:
I guess however you twist and turn this they do seem quite similar to me, and are even in perfect balance when taking the somewhat unscientific (and that's an understatement) approach of 'dumping' these items on both sides of the scales (5+9 versus 7+7). Yeah, go weird, just add a third framework of 14 items and 3x14 = 42, which as always is the answer to life, the Universe and everything else (read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams). Where did I get stuck in this text... Oh... yes... communication and scope!
WORK IN PROGRESS - SHOULD BE FINISHED SOON :-)
Live long and prosper
Nanoo... Nanoo...
IsleBeeBach
When reality becomes somewhat unreal
Well, for what it's worth, I just couldn't come up with an original title, so I went for one that has a higher likelihood of actually attracting some "not-your-average-day-management-article-browsing" readers. I would love to write a real essay on sex, drugs and rock and roll, and one-day I probably will, but not right now. No, this time I feel it's appropriate to highlight change management as part of project management. What is change management? Why do we need it? What's the approach that PMBOK and PRINCE2, as leading project management frameworks, take towards managing change so ultimately project chaos can be avoided or at least reduced to acceptable levels? So I sincerely apologize for altering your reality and not meeting your expectations by discussing SDRR to a level that suits your immediate needs. Please bear with me and things may yet turn out to be more exciting than the eye reveals, or actually your mind reveals, at first glance.
When reality is described by a single word
For some people everyday reality seems to consist of work-eat-sleep-and-multiply, and 'no' I won't go into any specific sequence of aforementioned activities, but believe that drugs and rock n roll may have either a stimulating or inhibiting effect on one or more of these reality-creating components. I told you I would try to keep it a bit exciting, as I would like to meet at least some of your expectations that were set by this article's oh-so promising and inviting title! For many other people, especially those involved in running, managing or supporting projects, everyday reality may well be described by a single word, which is 'CHAOS', utter and complete chaos! I bet some of you are showing the first glimpse of a smile on their face, and are thinking "Yeah - I know where this going!" Come on, it all started so well... New - really cool leading edge - project... lots of commitment, involvement and excitement... lots of promises being made... great schedule... abundance of resources... fantastic team... nice budget... it all seems too good to be true.
When reality starts to sink in
Yeah, we've all been there and we've all gone through the same pain and pleasure of running projects. Initially everything runs according to project management plan, but then these peculiar messages start to penetrate your shield of near project management perfection, such as:
- Could we move that wall here, rather than having it over there?
- Someone decided to start painting two weeks ahead of schedule!
- The customer approved this extension yesterday? Why didn't anyone inform me?
- What do you mean our key architect just changed jobs?
- When did management decide to cut the budget by 20%?
- No, I can't have this test finished by tomorrow and I don't care that you're behind on your own schedule! Just let me do my work!
- Who decided to use a different supplier? Their components don't have the quality we need to finish this job according to the customer's requirements.
- Why are we three weeks behind schedule and $50,000 over budget? Doesn't anyone here keep anything under control anymore?
- Who decided the team could do overtime? This means we're going to blow our budget bigtime!
- What do you mean the customer decided to delay payments until March?
Don't you love it when a plan comes together (Hannibal, The A-Team), and don't you hate it when it doesn't? Well, speaking from experience, when working in project management space better straighten your expectations starting right now: Murphy's law (when things can go wrong - they will go wrong) ensures that project management plans never come together, unless you actively stay right on top of them for 200% of the time!
When Murphy takes over your reality
There are at least two important factors that make Murphy's reality a very real and tangible one. I'm not saying they are the only two factors, but I have all reason to believe they are in the top-5 and they won't be giving away their position any time soon. I believe the first factor to be communication related and the second one to be scope related, although I ultimately believe that scope issues (we're going to talk about scope-creep in more detail) can be avoided by investing enough energy and time in the way we communicate.
Now before I start divulging my communication and scope related secrets and humble opinion, I feel it's appropriate to give you a bit of an idea where and if these topics are covered within the two leading project management frameworks: PMI's PMBOK and OGC's PRINCE2. Although some claim these frameworks are as different as chalk and cheese, I don't share this opinion and actually feel they're quite similar on the inside although they appear to be quite different on the outside. Both frameworks use the concept of a project (management) life-cycle that reflects the project's "natural" evolution.
When different realities turn out to be quite similar
PMI's PMBOK presents 5 so called process groups, which are:
- Initiating process group
- Planning process group
- Executing process group
- Monitoring and controlling process group
- Closing process group
OGC's PRINCE2 presents 7 individual processes, which are:
- Starting up a project
- Directing a project
- Initiating a project
- Controlling a stage
- Managing product delivery
- Managing a stage boundary
- Closing a project
Surely you're able to pick up the similarities between these two very "different" approaches. Both frameworks also refer to a number of concepts that are important to our understanding of project management. Whereas PMI's PMBOK refers to so called knowledge areas, OGC's PRINCE2 prefers using the terminology themes.
PMBOK's nine knowledge areas:
- Project integration management
- Project scope management
- Project time management
- Project cost management
- Project quality management
- Project human resources management
- Project communications management
- Project risk management
- Project procurement management
PRINCE2's seven themes:
- Business case
- Organization
- Quality
- Plans
- Risk
- Change
- Progress
I guess however you twist and turn this they do seem quite similar to me, and are even in perfect balance when taking the somewhat unscientific (and that's an understatement) approach of 'dumping' these items on both sides of the scales (5+9 versus 7+7). Yeah, go weird, just add a third framework of 14 items and 3x14 = 42, which as always is the answer to life, the Universe and everything else (read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams). Where did I get stuck in this text... Oh... yes... communication and scope!
WORK IN PROGRESS - SHOULD BE FINISHED SOON :-)
Live long and prosper
Nanoo... Nanoo...
IsleBeeBach
Friday, June 4, 2010
ITIL: H2I - Chapter the Fourth - When Squares Become Circles
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to ITIL – EXAM Preparation Guide
Introducing the Service Lifecycle Model
Probably one of the biggest changes made to the ITIL library when comparing it to previous versions is the introduction of the service life-cycle concept. Where earlier versions seemed to be a bit of a service management hotchpotch – this version, labeled ITIL v3 is clearly more structured and guides the reader from service strategy all the way 'down' to service operation, and clearly emphasizes the importance of continual service improvement.
The five volumes that make up the Service Lifecycle are:
As with everything else in our world, things have a beginning and most often also some sort of ending. Where and when ITIL will end (if it ever does) is only known to those with the gift of foresight, but when and where it started is crystal clear. We’ll have to go back to the late 80s, and more precisely we’ll have to go to the United Kingdom to a place called Norfolk.
It all started with the CCTA – the Central Computing and Telecommunications Agency – collecting and publishing “best practices” on how to setup and manage IT environments. The first set of publications was released late 80s and had more than 40 volumes in it. This first set worked pretty well for IT environments as they were used in the late 80s: “mainframes and dumb terminals”. With the rise of the 90s “best practices” in IT started to change and they changed dramatically. PCs, LANs, WANs, distributed computing, the almighty Internet, even mightier e-commerce and outsourcing were new phenomena that just didn’t (to most people) exist in the 80s. In other words, there were many valid reasons to rewrite the ITIL publications as written in the late 80s, and to release a new set of volumes in the late 90s. This new set consisted of 9 loosely connected volumes. With the change from ITIL v1 (late 80s: 40+ volumes) to ITIL v2 (late 90s: 9 volumes) CCTA decided to change their name into OGC: The Office of Government Commerce.
Office of Government Commerce: http://www.ogc.gov.uk
By now, ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) had gained a lot of popularity and was known and used by many public and private organizations around the world to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of delivering services to their customers. The ITIL v2 model was basically a big square (rectangle) depicting the nine (9) volumes in various states of overlap and synergy. An interesting fact remains that most ITIL courses were constructed around only 2 of the 9 volumes from the ITIL v2 set, hence its full potential was never fully utilized or understood.
When Squares:
The story continues in much the same way when we’re extending the time line from late 90s to late 00s (2007). Because of changes business models, changing technologies, and changing “best practices” ITIL needed to be rewritten again, hence ITIL v3 was born. This time the set only contains 5 core volumes (the ITIL core set), but the main difference compared to the previous two ITIL versions is that ITIL v3 no longer consists of loosely connected volumes, but of tightly connected volumes. It’s almost impossible to read any of the 5 books in isolation, because it’s really just one book cut in 5 digestible pieces – well at least that’s my opinion. I guess OGC cannot sell ITIL as one volume, otherwise it would hardly be a library anymore!
Become Circles:
It's also interesting to note that when ITIL v2 was rewritten, the new version was labeled ITIL v3 Refresh. Unfortunately there are so many typos and inconsistencies in the ITIL v3 Refresh version, that it's currently been 'rewritten' again. The new version is labeled ITIL v3 Refresh Refresh - I wonder why it's not simply called ITIL v3.1 (like CobiT 4.1). Why make things really simple if you can make them really complex and confusing! I believe that adoption rate of any framework is directly related to its simplicity, but then again, who am I?
The Service Lifecycle
The Service Lifecycle is quite an ingenious model, and makes absolute sense. Before you start to do anything you need strategy, direction, focus and yeah - some money too (Service Strategy). What type of services are we going to provide, and do we have the resources and capability to provide them? How do we transform our IT assets into added value to the business?
If we all agree what type of services we want to deliver, then the next step is to ensure the infrastructure will be capable to deliver against the requirements as identified in the strategy. In other words we need to design (and plan for) (Service Design) our new or changed services. We need to plan for capacity, availability, information security, and service continuity (disaster recovery management).
Once we’ve established how we’re going to deliver the new or changed services, and we’ve ensured all capability can be catered for (people, processes, products, and partners), it’s time to handover to that part of the organization who will manage the transition from the “old” infrastructure to the “new” infrastructure (Service Transition). It’s the service transition processes and functions that will manage the full-blown change related processes (and its associated functions), such as Change Management, Service Asset and Configuration Management, and Release and Deployment Management.
Service transition will also need to plan for the handover from project environment to operational/production/live environment. Once the new or changed service is implemented and live it needs maintenance and ongoing support. The operational processes, like Incident Management, Problem Management, and the function Service Desk provide just this type of support (Service Operation).
Many organizations work with the phrase: “If it ain’t broken don’t fix it!” ITIL uses a different type of phrase: “If it ain’t broken, can we still improve it, without breaking it, and doing so in a cost-effective way?” The second phrase is likely to put you in a more competitive advantage, where you’re continuously improving, and your competitor isn’t. In other words, we need to create a culture and structure that supports continual service improvement (Continual Service Improvement). We need to implement and run a continual service improvement process that keeps us on the tip of our toes at all times! All processes, functions and roles in all ITIL books should be open minded towards improving whatever they’re already doing.
ALICE: Our famous hotel chain “Constellation Hotels” is bombarded with questions from their customers who would like to book their accommodation online. Currently bookings can only be made via telephone, fax, or hotel reception (walk-in-facility). How would you progress through the various stages of the Service Lifecycle to add/upgrade services to the current environment? Who is doing what, and why?
Service Lifecycle Structure
The structure of the core five volumes is in the form of a (service) lifecycle. It is iterative and multidimensional (well, that’s what it says in the book). Sounds pretty groovy: multidimensional! The core provides structure, stability and strength to Service Management capabilities with durable principles, methods and tools. The guidance can be adapted and adopted by all organizations, small and large, public and private, commercial and not-for-profit.
The ITIL core consists of the following five publications:
Service Lifecycle Components
The ITIL Library consists of the following components:
ITIL's key online web resources can be found here: http://www.itil-officialsite.com
Service Strategy
Service Strategy Goals:
Service Strategy Objectives:
Service Strategy Business Value:
Service Design
Service Design Goals:
Service Design Objectives:
Service Design Business Value:
Service Transition
Service Transition Goals:
Service Transition Objectives:
Service Transition Business Value:
Service Operation
Service Operation Goals:
Service Operation Objectives:
Service Operation Business Value:
Each stage in the ITIL Service Lifecycle provides value to business.
Continual Service Improvement
Continual Service Improvement Goals:
Continual Service Improvement Objectives:
Continual Service Improvement Business Value:
Live long and prosper
Nanoo... Nanoo...
IsleBeeBach
ITIL ® is a Registered Trade Mark, and a Registered Community Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Introducing the Service Lifecycle Model
Probably one of the biggest changes made to the ITIL library when comparing it to previous versions is the introduction of the service life-cycle concept. Where earlier versions seemed to be a bit of a service management hotchpotch – this version, labeled ITIL v3 is clearly more structured and guides the reader from service strategy all the way 'down' to service operation, and clearly emphasizes the importance of continual service improvement.
The five volumes that make up the Service Lifecycle are:
- Service Strategy
- Service Design
- Service Transition
- Service Operation
- Continual Service Improvement
As with everything else in our world, things have a beginning and most often also some sort of ending. Where and when ITIL will end (if it ever does) is only known to those with the gift of foresight, but when and where it started is crystal clear. We’ll have to go back to the late 80s, and more precisely we’ll have to go to the United Kingdom to a place called Norfolk.
It all started with the CCTA – the Central Computing and Telecommunications Agency – collecting and publishing “best practices” on how to setup and manage IT environments. The first set of publications was released late 80s and had more than 40 volumes in it. This first set worked pretty well for IT environments as they were used in the late 80s: “mainframes and dumb terminals”. With the rise of the 90s “best practices” in IT started to change and they changed dramatically. PCs, LANs, WANs, distributed computing, the almighty Internet, even mightier e-commerce and outsourcing were new phenomena that just didn’t (to most people) exist in the 80s. In other words, there were many valid reasons to rewrite the ITIL publications as written in the late 80s, and to release a new set of volumes in the late 90s. This new set consisted of 9 loosely connected volumes. With the change from ITIL v1 (late 80s: 40+ volumes) to ITIL v2 (late 90s: 9 volumes) CCTA decided to change their name into OGC: The Office of Government Commerce.
Office of Government Commerce: http://www.ogc.gov.uk
By now, ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) had gained a lot of popularity and was known and used by many public and private organizations around the world to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of delivering services to their customers. The ITIL v2 model was basically a big square (rectangle) depicting the nine (9) volumes in various states of overlap and synergy. An interesting fact remains that most ITIL courses were constructed around only 2 of the 9 volumes from the ITIL v2 set, hence its full potential was never fully utilized or understood.
When Squares:
The story continues in much the same way when we’re extending the time line from late 90s to late 00s (2007). Because of changes business models, changing technologies, and changing “best practices” ITIL needed to be rewritten again, hence ITIL v3 was born. This time the set only contains 5 core volumes (the ITIL core set), but the main difference compared to the previous two ITIL versions is that ITIL v3 no longer consists of loosely connected volumes, but of tightly connected volumes. It’s almost impossible to read any of the 5 books in isolation, because it’s really just one book cut in 5 digestible pieces – well at least that’s my opinion. I guess OGC cannot sell ITIL as one volume, otherwise it would hardly be a library anymore!
Become Circles:
It's also interesting to note that when ITIL v2 was rewritten, the new version was labeled ITIL v3 Refresh. Unfortunately there are so many typos and inconsistencies in the ITIL v3 Refresh version, that it's currently been 'rewritten' again. The new version is labeled ITIL v3 Refresh Refresh - I wonder why it's not simply called ITIL v3.1 (like CobiT 4.1). Why make things really simple if you can make them really complex and confusing! I believe that adoption rate of any framework is directly related to its simplicity, but then again, who am I?
The Service Lifecycle
The Service Lifecycle is quite an ingenious model, and makes absolute sense. Before you start to do anything you need strategy, direction, focus and yeah - some money too (Service Strategy). What type of services are we going to provide, and do we have the resources and capability to provide them? How do we transform our IT assets into added value to the business?
If we all agree what type of services we want to deliver, then the next step is to ensure the infrastructure will be capable to deliver against the requirements as identified in the strategy. In other words we need to design (and plan for) (Service Design) our new or changed services. We need to plan for capacity, availability, information security, and service continuity (disaster recovery management).
Once we’ve established how we’re going to deliver the new or changed services, and we’ve ensured all capability can be catered for (people, processes, products, and partners), it’s time to handover to that part of the organization who will manage the transition from the “old” infrastructure to the “new” infrastructure (Service Transition). It’s the service transition processes and functions that will manage the full-blown change related processes (and its associated functions), such as Change Management, Service Asset and Configuration Management, and Release and Deployment Management.
Service transition will also need to plan for the handover from project environment to operational/production/live environment. Once the new or changed service is implemented and live it needs maintenance and ongoing support. The operational processes, like Incident Management, Problem Management, and the function Service Desk provide just this type of support (Service Operation).
Many organizations work with the phrase: “If it ain’t broken don’t fix it!” ITIL uses a different type of phrase: “If it ain’t broken, can we still improve it, without breaking it, and doing so in a cost-effective way?” The second phrase is likely to put you in a more competitive advantage, where you’re continuously improving, and your competitor isn’t. In other words, we need to create a culture and structure that supports continual service improvement (Continual Service Improvement). We need to implement and run a continual service improvement process that keeps us on the tip of our toes at all times! All processes, functions and roles in all ITIL books should be open minded towards improving whatever they’re already doing.
ALICE: Our famous hotel chain “Constellation Hotels” is bombarded with questions from their customers who would like to book their accommodation online. Currently bookings can only be made via telephone, fax, or hotel reception (walk-in-facility). How would you progress through the various stages of the Service Lifecycle to add/upgrade services to the current environment? Who is doing what, and why?
Service Lifecycle Structure
The structure of the core five volumes is in the form of a (service) lifecycle. It is iterative and multidimensional (well, that’s what it says in the book). Sounds pretty groovy: multidimensional! The core provides structure, stability and strength to Service Management capabilities with durable principles, methods and tools. The guidance can be adapted and adopted by all organizations, small and large, public and private, commercial and not-for-profit.
The ITIL core consists of the following five publications:
- Service Strategy (most left picture below),
- Service Design,
- Service Transition,
- Service Operation, and
- Continual Service Improvement (most right picture below).
Service Lifecycle Components
The ITIL Library consists of the following components:
- The ITIL core – best practice guidance applicable to all types of organisations who provide services to a business.
- The ITIL complementary guidance – a complementary set of publications with guidance specific to industry sectors, organisation types, operating models and technology architectures.
- The online web resources.
ITIL's key online web resources can be found here: http://www.itil-officialsite.com
Service Strategy
Service Strategy Goals:
- To support the organisation in transforming service management into a strategic asset.
- To provide a clear insight into the relationships between various services, systems, processes, business models, strategies, and objectives.
Service Strategy Objectives:
- What services should we offer, why and to whom?
- Surely we don't want to look like our competitors, so how are we going to differentiate ourselves?
- At when moment in time will the customers perceive our services as to be valuable to their business?
- How do we capture and grow this value?
- What type of business case do we need to prepare for this specific investment?
- How can finance support us to have insight into the costs of delivering services?
- How are we going to define quality? How do we measure it?
- Which of the alternatives is the very best given our specific situation?
- How do resource the services (buy, make, rent, outsource, etc.)
- How do we keep everyone happy (resolve conflicting demands for resources)?
Service Strategy Business Value:
- We actually know what we're going to do
- We know the best order in which to do these things
- We understand the costs and risks of what we're going to do
- We'll make sure we're ready to deliver when push comes to shove
- We'll be different and unique in the things we're doing
- We make sure that the business noses and IT noses point in the same direction (business and IT alignment)
Service Design
Service Design Goals:
- To design new or changed services for introduction into the live environment. Taking into consideration the impact on the overall service, management systems and tools, architectures, technology, service Management processes, measurements and metrics.
Service Design Objectives:
- To ensure that new or changed service is consistent with all other services.
- To ensure that technology architectures and management systems are consistent with the new or changed service.
- To ensure that processes, roles, responsibilities and skills have the capability to operate, support and maintain the new or changed service.
- To ensure that existing measurement methods can provide the required metrics on the new or changed service.
Service Design Business Value:
- Reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
- Improved quality of service
- Improved consistency of service
- Easier implementation of new or changed services
- Improved service alignment
- More effective service performance
- Improved IT governance
- More effective Service Management and IT processes
- Improved information and decision-making
Service Transition
Service Transition Goals:
- To assist organisations seeking to plan and manage service changes and to deploy service releases into the production environment successfully.
Service Transition Objectives:
- To plan and manage change related resources
- To minimise unpredicted impact
- To increase satisfaction amongst all staff
- To increase proper use of the services
- To provide plans that align customer and business change projects with the Service Transition plans
Service Transition Business Value:
- Improved cost, timing, resource and risk estimation
- More successful change
- Change easier to adopt and follow
- Reuse of assets across projects and services
- Reduced delays from unexpected clashes/dependencies
- Reduced effort spent managing test/pilot environments
- Improved expectation setting
- Increased confidence
- Maintainable and cost-effective services
Service Operation
Service Operation Goals:
- To coordinate and carry out the activities and processes required to deliver and manage services at agreed levels to business users and customers.
- Service Operation is also responsible for the ongoing management of the technology that is used to deliver and support services.
Service Operation Objectives:
- Day-to-day operation of processes:
- Conduct
- Control
- Manage
- Systemically:
- Monitor performance
- Assess metrics
- Gather data
Service Operation Business Value:
Each stage in the ITIL Service Lifecycle provides value to business.
- Service value is modeled in Service Strategy.
- Cost of the service is designed, predicted and validated in Service Design and Service Transition.
- Measures for optimization are identified in Continual Service Improvement.
- Service Operation is where these plans, designs and optimizations are executed and measured.
- From a customer viewpoint, Service Operation is where actual value is seen.
Continual Service Improvement
Continual Service Improvement Goals:
- To continually align and realign IT services to the changing business needs by identifying and implementing improvements to IT services that support business processes.
To continually look for ways to improve process effectiveness, efficiency as well as cost effectiveness.
Continual Service Improvement Objectives:
- Review, analyze and make recommendations on improvement opportunities
- Review, analyze and make recommendations on Service Level Achievement results
- Identify and implement individual activities to improve
- Improve cost effectiveness of delivering services without sacrificing customer satisfaction
- Ensure applicable quality management methods are used
Continual Service Improvement Business Value:
- Tangible:
- Improvements
- Benefits
- ROI (Return on Investment)
- VOI (Value on Investment)
- Intangible:
- Increased organizational competency
- Integration between people and processes
- Reduction of redundancy increases business throughput
- Minimized lost opportunities
- Assured regulatory compliance that will minimize costs and reduce risk
- Ability to react to change rapidly
Live long and prosper
Nanoo... Nanoo...
IsleBeeBach
ITIL ® is a Registered Trade Mark, and a Registered Community Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
IT GOVERNANCE: Battle of Giants
Battle of Giants
Preface
Yeah, it’s time for yet another article. I’ve just consumed my daily doses of caffeine and somewhere in the background the wonderful harp music of Andreas Vollenweider is doing its magic. Magic, a curious thing – I wonder how that applies to something like service management (and “yes” I’m still dropping the IT). Can magic be found in frameworks, standards and methods? I believe the answer to be positive; it all depends on how one observes the world. I ‘recently’ stumbled upon (which is also a fantastic tool: stumble upon) the world of IT governance (feel free to drop the IT again), and jeepers creepers I felt like walking into Ali Babi’s cave filled with unspeakable treasures. Join me; enter the cave and who knows we might even find some magic lamps.
Introduction
The reason this article is called “Battle of Giants” is twofold. Firstly it sounds pretty groovy and hopefully visualises battles like the ones you find in “Return of the King” where the good guys are fighting the bad guys with enormous battle-axes, lances, and catapults. Secondly, because I’m thinking a bloody battle between the following giants: OGC and ISACA/PMI. Yeah, call me weird and join the crowd. For those that still don’t have a clue: OGC owns ITIL and Prince2, ISACA owns CobiT and Val IT, and PMI owns PMBOK. OGC is based in the UK, and both ISACA and PMI are based in the US. Did I just see you raise your eyebrows, or at least one, like Mr. Spock?
Yes, Father, I have sinned, as I no longer believe ITIL and Prince2 are the only truth, and feel tempted to join these other religions called ISACA and PMI, as they have more structure and seem to make a Hell lot of more sense as frameworks. Please guide me, for I have lost my way and need your advice.
Well, in this article we won’t be assessing all these frameworks, but will be focusing on ISACA’s cave of treasures. Surely, I need to give myself some space for sequels, prequels, and those that fall somewhere in between (the sneaquels, as they seem to sneak in between episodes).
ISACA’s Cave of Credits
I used to be a member of the itSMF for many years, but recently decided to swap my membership to some other organisations including ISACA and PMI. Sure, the itSMF can claim until the end of time that they’re not fully ITIL and OGC aligned, but “hey presto” they’re doing a lot of ITIL, seem to backup a lot of OGC and aren’t really doing so much of the other stuff, and hence I felt it was necessary to step into the dark side’s territory and explore some new forces firsthand. To be honest I’m glad I did and not a moment too soon!
Admitted both ISACA’s and PMI’s websites are pretty crappy, although ISACA is about to launch their revamped website. They’re both ugly ducklings from the outside, but it’s funny because once you’re on the inside you get immediate access to all the prices, and the ugly duckling turns into a beautiful swan (like the lake Geneva (CH) swans). It’s like looking at a Citroën 2CV (deux chevaux) with a Ferrari engine under the bonnet. Everything you can’t find with (or would expect to come from) the itSMF or OGC you can find with ISACA and PMI and most importantly at a reasonable and affordable price, meaning you don’t have to pay ridiculous amounts like £5,000 per annum for something that’s basically all based on using your common sense and a teaspoon of yin-yang and logic. ISACA and PMI are not offering crappy 2-page newsletters (sorry itSMF) that are filled with advertisements of overpriced consultancy agencies and delivering-no-quality-whatsoever training organisations, but are offering real journals (magazines) with articles that provide sincere value and are actually interesting reading material too. I’m sure itSMF will become aware of this article at some time any maybe it will open their eyes, and maybe, just maybe, they will follow ISACA/PMI’s example and start publishing a real IT Service Management Journal without all those crappy advertisements. Ah well, it’s just a lone ranger’s thought! It’s funny as it’s all about providing value to customers – or isn’t it?
So, should you become a member of ISACA (IT Governance) and PMI (Project Management Institute)? I believe you should, and rather sooner than later, and hey I don’t have anything to gain by saying this, and merely am trying to share my experience with you my loyal readers out there.
Entering the Cave
ISACA offers a number of accessibility options to their materials. The easiest one is to hop on their website (http://www.isaca.org), register for absolutely zilch, nada, nothing and immediately get access to a number of their most important publications being CobiT v4.1 and Val IT 2nd edition – this is known as “basic subscriber” membership. The CobiT v4.1 and Val IT 2nd edition documents become available as downloadable PDFs, and it feels like downloading ITIL v3 for free. If you don’t like ITIL’s somewhat unorganised structure, then you’ll be most happily surprised with ISACA’s documents. I can safely and confidently say that CobiT v4.1 has exactly 34 processes that allow you to put more control and governance in place in those areas of IT where it is most needed. If you ask me how many processes ITIL v3 has, then honestly I can’t give you a clear answer, and that doesn’t make any sense as I’m allowed to call myself an ITIL v3 Expert, which at that moment seems to lose a lot of its intrinsic value. So, to make a long story short, there are heaps of ISACA resources available to those who take a couple of minutes filling out a form with their name and address, and Bob will be your uncle in no time at all.
ISACA also offers a “baseline” access model, which means you don’t’ even have to fill out a form and still get access to some documents, including CobiT v4.1. I guess for those taking the effort of typing in ISACA’s full URL in a browser, filling out a simple form to become a “basic subscriber” is probably valuable considering all the extras you get access to. For me, personally, I wouldn’t even consider the “baseline” access model, unless you don’t want your full name in their database, but in that case you probably shouldn’t be working in IT al all. Surely you’re aware that Big Brother is watching your every step.
So, at the lowest level we’ve got “baseline” access (casual website visitor), the next level up is known as “basic subscriber” access (filling out a form with your name), and the most complete type of access is granted when you become a “full subscriber” (paying an annual subscription fee). As a full subscriber you’ll get access to the full ISACA cave, except one small crevice that’s labelled “CobiT Online”, but by the time you decide to become a full member you’ll most likely also tick this box.
Here’s a small list you get access to when you become a “full subscriber”:
The list of files that can be downloaded just goes on, and on, and on. I can’t tell you how surprised I was when I compared this to “all” the resources made available by organisations like the itSMF and OGC, which is literally close to nothing – even if you’re a paying member. Ah well, one lesson learned for me; don’t judge on organisation by its appearances (website) only.
Exploring the Cave
Funny isn’t it – you walk into a cave, holding your flickering torch high in front of you, expecting to find nothing, as this is what happened to me on countless explorations before, and all of a sudden you start to see the shimmering reflections of rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds. Where do I start, and how much weight (treasures) can I carry, or am I allowed to carry with me?
Well, we’ll start by mentioning that ISACA and ITGI (IT Governance Institute) have a lot in common (and that’s a grand understatement) as they’re both about IT governance which is defined by them as:
“IT governance is the responsibility of executives and the board of directors, and consists of the leadership, organisational structures and processes that the enterprise’s IT sustains and extends the organisation’s strategies and objectives.”
You start wondering why all these organisations come up with these wonderfully artificially constructed sentences that in all reality no-one uses. They probably have a secret well hidden room where people (nope, I don’t want to go into stereotypes right now) spent most of their lives creating cryptic definitions, so we have something to decipher. I guess what I’m reading between the lines is this:
“IT Governance means that people need to be held accountable and responsible for their actions, need to understand why they are doing (IT) things the way they are doing them, and foremost keep doing the right (IT) things (now and in the future).”
Did that help? Probably not! Yeah, I’m laughing out loud! So, it’s roughly about ensuring that the right people are doing the right things for the right seasons (typically creating some type of value to the business) and whilst doing so managing risks adequately. No, it’s not always about minimising risks, because not all risks are negative, and some residual risk may well be accepted by the business. Some risks represent opportunities and can be extremely positive. Come on, those Google guys took some risk leaving University a bit too early, but no one is blaming or pointing the finger at them now!
Okay, I think we’re going a bit off track here and that’s something you don’t want to do when you’re wandering through the “IT governance” cave, as this cave is all about putting control in place, so you know exactly where you are and where you’re heading towards at every single moment in time. IT governance is the set of “minimum” internal and external rules, standards, policies, and guidelines you apply to the management of your IT (yeah, that too). IT is getting incredibly significant and business critical to an ever increasing number of organisations around this tiny blue planet, and without the right set of controls in place it will be virtually impossible to reap the full benefits of IT and its supporting infrastructure. Worse, without proper controls in place, IT may actually damage the business beyond repair, which reminds me of a list of credit-card numbers that was publicly published on the Internet not so long ago.
The Val IT Crevasse
It’s funny as many of ISACA’s resources seem to be in orbit (at least in my opinion) around CobiT, whereas maybe, just maybe, they should actually be in orbit around Val IT. I guess orbit and CobiT seem more related, in characters only, than orbit and Val IT. Nope, that can’t be right and it isn’t hence some things are about to get changed bit time (see Area 51).
Val IT is all about creating, monitoring and optimising value from IT investments with an acceptable level of risk. Val IT sets good practices for the ends: “This is what we need to achieve as a business – if we don’t then we’re in deep sh#@”! Well, please tell me, are we doing the right things and are we reaping the needed and expected benefits? Again, this is Val IT space! Its whole focus is aimed at strategic management levels so strategic value can be harvested.
Val IT covers three key domains:
Val IT is also about ensuring that any governance as applied to IT (wherever, whenever, whoever) is properly aligned with the broader Enterprise governance of IT (wherever, whenever, whoever). Val IT’s focus is on selecting and driving the right programmes that create value to the business. It provides three domains (see above), 22 processes and a whopping 69 management practices to help management get on their way and hit the ground running. Personally I absolutely adore this framework as it tells me exactly what needs to done in order to be able to answer the following two key questions:
This framework doesn’t leave any ambiguity as where and how to start unlike the ITIL framework. Yeah, this needs to be said: ISACA answers the “what needs to be done!” question, whereas frameworks like ITIL, MOF and their brethren are more about filling in some of the “how to do” things. As such ISACA’s Val IT framework needs to be visualised as sitting on top of these other frameworks (and driving them), and I believe it makes sense to look at Val IT and CobiT before looking at frameworks like ITIL and MOF. We need to understand what needs to be controlled and protected, before we start to run around like headless chickens controlling and protecting the wrong stuff!
Figure 1 - Val IT and CobiT
The CobiT Crevasse
So, yeah, most of ISACA’s documents and resources seem to be in orbit around CobiT (I somehow seem to like using these two words close together: “CobiT Orbit”). So, what’s this CobiT thing all about? It’s probably easiest when you compare CobiT to Val IT. Whereas Val IT revolves around “strategy” and “value”, CobiT revolves around “architecture” and “delivery”. So basically CobiT sits one level below Val IT, and frameworks like ITIL and MOF are positioned below CobiT. I know, ITIL is trying to raise the bar into strategic spheres, but it’s not there as yet, and the current ITIL v3 volume “Service Strategy” needs a major rewrite before it even comes close to Val IT’s potential.
CobiT is basically about putting program results (as selected by Val IT) into the live environment so they (read the individual projects) start to deliver value and keep delivering value.
CobiT covers four key domains:
CobiT’s focus is twofold, but can be summarised as providing a business focus (linking business goals to IT goals) and process focus (being able to plan, build, run and monitor IT). CobiT fulfils the business need for assurance about the value of IT, the management of IT-related risks and increased requirements for control over information. Please realise that value, risk and control constitute the very core of IT governance.
CobiT provides four domains (see above), 34 processes and a whopping 210 control objectives. Please notice the subtle difference in terminology used here: Val IT refers to management practices, whereas CobiT refers to control objectives. In all reality both tell you what needs to be done, or reading between the lines: “get your lazy bum of the chair and start to take some action!”
CobiT rocks, as it tells me exactly what needs to done in order to be able to answer the following two key questions:
It’s not easy, not easy at all, to write a final paragraph on this section that covers CobiT, as it merely provides you with a glimpse of its enormous potential.
Ask yourself the following questions:
After studying CobiT and Val IT for some time now, I’ve come to the conclusion that CobiT can actively assist you in answering the above mentioned questions, and that’s just scraping the tip of the iceberg!
Area 51
Anyone that knows me a little bit, knows I’m a huge fan of anything science fiction, and hence my interest for Area 51. Come on, who wouldn’t want to meet some three-headed green aliens, or an alien like Alf (I’m sure Alf’s producer didn’t like cats very much)? ISACA is a bit like Area 51, and those caves of Ali Baba, with all its treasures about to be unearthed. Oh, and yes, there’s another reason why I’ve called this section Area 51. At this moment of writing ISACA has announced that it will start working on the next release of CobiT – my guess is that it’s going to be called CobiT v5.0 (or ValCobiT v5.0). As CobiT v4.0 quickly got an update to CobiT v4.1, I assume the same will happen to CobiT v5.0, and voila we’ve landed in Area 5.1. It’s my understanding that the merger of CobiT and Val IT into one integrated framework will be a key feature of this new release. Maybe it’s time to apply some SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) principles to frameworks, and make them more flexible, modular and extensible. I recommend anyone to keep a close eye on the movements of this update, as with some of the how-s answered, this framework has all potential to make the gap with its competing brethren a lot wider, and you’d better make sure you’re on the right side!
Epilogue
The positive effects of my daily doses of caffeine are slowly but surely diminishing, so now is as good a time as ever to leave Area 51 and Ali Baba’s caves behind us. I hope some of my passion for CobiT and Val IT has come across to you. I believe these two frameworks have an enormous potential as yet undiscovered by many boards and senior executives who not unlike most other lemmings follow the ITIL scent. Make sure you understand and use the full potential of all these available frameworks. To those senior executives who may be reading this article I recommend having a look at the “CobiT Related Publications - Board Briefing on IT Governance, 2nd Edition” document as downloadable PDF from ISACA’s website. May the force be with you, and CobiT guard you on your path to extreme success and happiness.
Glossary of Terms
References
http://www.itgi.org
http://www.isaca.org
http://www.itsmfi.org
http://www.pmi.org
Live long and prosper
Nanoo... Nanoo...
IsleBeeBach
Preface
Yeah, it’s time for yet another article. I’ve just consumed my daily doses of caffeine and somewhere in the background the wonderful harp music of Andreas Vollenweider is doing its magic. Magic, a curious thing – I wonder how that applies to something like service management (and “yes” I’m still dropping the IT). Can magic be found in frameworks, standards and methods? I believe the answer to be positive; it all depends on how one observes the world. I ‘recently’ stumbled upon (which is also a fantastic tool: stumble upon) the world of IT governance (feel free to drop the IT again), and jeepers creepers I felt like walking into Ali Babi’s cave filled with unspeakable treasures. Join me; enter the cave and who knows we might even find some magic lamps.
Introduction
The reason this article is called “Battle of Giants” is twofold. Firstly it sounds pretty groovy and hopefully visualises battles like the ones you find in “Return of the King” where the good guys are fighting the bad guys with enormous battle-axes, lances, and catapults. Secondly, because I’m thinking a bloody battle between the following giants: OGC and ISACA/PMI. Yeah, call me weird and join the crowd. For those that still don’t have a clue: OGC owns ITIL and Prince2, ISACA owns CobiT and Val IT, and PMI owns PMBOK. OGC is based in the UK, and both ISACA and PMI are based in the US. Did I just see you raise your eyebrows, or at least one, like Mr. Spock?
- OGC, ITIL and Prince2
- ISACA, CobiT and Val IT
- PMI, PMBOK
Yes, Father, I have sinned, as I no longer believe ITIL and Prince2 are the only truth, and feel tempted to join these other religions called ISACA and PMI, as they have more structure and seem to make a Hell lot of more sense as frameworks. Please guide me, for I have lost my way and need your advice.
Well, in this article we won’t be assessing all these frameworks, but will be focusing on ISACA’s cave of treasures. Surely, I need to give myself some space for sequels, prequels, and those that fall somewhere in between (the sneaquels, as they seem to sneak in between episodes).
ISACA’s Cave of Credits
I used to be a member of the itSMF for many years, but recently decided to swap my membership to some other organisations including ISACA and PMI. Sure, the itSMF can claim until the end of time that they’re not fully ITIL and OGC aligned, but “hey presto” they’re doing a lot of ITIL, seem to backup a lot of OGC and aren’t really doing so much of the other stuff, and hence I felt it was necessary to step into the dark side’s territory and explore some new forces firsthand. To be honest I’m glad I did and not a moment too soon!
Admitted both ISACA’s and PMI’s websites are pretty crappy, although ISACA is about to launch their revamped website. They’re both ugly ducklings from the outside, but it’s funny because once you’re on the inside you get immediate access to all the prices, and the ugly duckling turns into a beautiful swan (like the lake Geneva (CH) swans). It’s like looking at a Citroën 2CV (deux chevaux) with a Ferrari engine under the bonnet. Everything you can’t find with (or would expect to come from) the itSMF or OGC you can find with ISACA and PMI and most importantly at a reasonable and affordable price, meaning you don’t have to pay ridiculous amounts like £5,000 per annum for something that’s basically all based on using your common sense and a teaspoon of yin-yang and logic. ISACA and PMI are not offering crappy 2-page newsletters (sorry itSMF) that are filled with advertisements of overpriced consultancy agencies and delivering-no-quality-whatsoever training organisations, but are offering real journals (magazines) with articles that provide sincere value and are actually interesting reading material too. I’m sure itSMF will become aware of this article at some time any maybe it will open their eyes, and maybe, just maybe, they will follow ISACA/PMI’s example and start publishing a real IT Service Management Journal without all those crappy advertisements. Ah well, it’s just a lone ranger’s thought! It’s funny as it’s all about providing value to customers – or isn’t it?
So, should you become a member of ISACA (IT Governance) and PMI (Project Management Institute)? I believe you should, and rather sooner than later, and hey I don’t have anything to gain by saying this, and merely am trying to share my experience with you my loyal readers out there.
Entering the Cave
ISACA offers a number of accessibility options to their materials. The easiest one is to hop on their website (http://www.isaca.org), register for absolutely zilch, nada, nothing and immediately get access to a number of their most important publications being CobiT v4.1 and Val IT 2nd edition – this is known as “basic subscriber” membership. The CobiT v4.1 and Val IT 2nd edition documents become available as downloadable PDFs, and it feels like downloading ITIL v3 for free. If you don’t like ITIL’s somewhat unorganised structure, then you’ll be most happily surprised with ISACA’s documents. I can safely and confidently say that CobiT v4.1 has exactly 34 processes that allow you to put more control and governance in place in those areas of IT where it is most needed. If you ask me how many processes ITIL v3 has, then honestly I can’t give you a clear answer, and that doesn’t make any sense as I’m allowed to call myself an ITIL v3 Expert, which at that moment seems to lose a lot of its intrinsic value. So, to make a long story short, there are heaps of ISACA resources available to those who take a couple of minutes filling out a form with their name and address, and Bob will be your uncle in no time at all.
ISACA also offers a “baseline” access model, which means you don’t’ even have to fill out a form and still get access to some documents, including CobiT v4.1. I guess for those taking the effort of typing in ISACA’s full URL in a browser, filling out a simple form to become a “basic subscriber” is probably valuable considering all the extras you get access to. For me, personally, I wouldn’t even consider the “baseline” access model, unless you don’t want your full name in their database, but in that case you probably shouldn’t be working in IT al all. Surely you’re aware that Big Brother is watching your every step.
So, at the lowest level we’ve got “baseline” access (casual website visitor), the next level up is known as “basic subscriber” access (filling out a form with your name), and the most complete type of access is granted when you become a “full subscriber” (paying an annual subscription fee). As a full subscriber you’ll get access to the full ISACA cave, except one small crevice that’s labelled “CobiT Online”, but by the time you decide to become a full member you’ll most likely also tick this box.
Here’s a small list you get access to when you become a “full subscriber”:
- invitations to local seminars, conferences, and chapters
- ISACA Journal (magazine both mailed to you, but also available electronically)
- benchmarking capability
- browse CobiT, including Control Practices and Quickstart entries
- download all PDFs
- CobiT Quickstart
- CobiT v4.1
- CobiT toolset (slides, maturity assessments, the works!)
- CobiT Mappings
- Search and create MyCobiT
- Val IT 2nd edition
- Board Briefing on IT Governance
- IT Governance Implementation Guide
- IT Assurance Guide
- Access the discussion area
The list of files that can be downloaded just goes on, and on, and on. I can’t tell you how surprised I was when I compared this to “all” the resources made available by organisations like the itSMF and OGC, which is literally close to nothing – even if you’re a paying member. Ah well, one lesson learned for me; don’t judge on organisation by its appearances (website) only.
Exploring the Cave
Funny isn’t it – you walk into a cave, holding your flickering torch high in front of you, expecting to find nothing, as this is what happened to me on countless explorations before, and all of a sudden you start to see the shimmering reflections of rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds. Where do I start, and how much weight (treasures) can I carry, or am I allowed to carry with me?
Well, we’ll start by mentioning that ISACA and ITGI (IT Governance Institute) have a lot in common (and that’s a grand understatement) as they’re both about IT governance which is defined by them as:
“IT governance is the responsibility of executives and the board of directors, and consists of the leadership, organisational structures and processes that the enterprise’s IT sustains and extends the organisation’s strategies and objectives.”
You start wondering why all these organisations come up with these wonderfully artificially constructed sentences that in all reality no-one uses. They probably have a secret well hidden room where people (nope, I don’t want to go into stereotypes right now) spent most of their lives creating cryptic definitions, so we have something to decipher. I guess what I’m reading between the lines is this:
“IT Governance means that people need to be held accountable and responsible for their actions, need to understand why they are doing (IT) things the way they are doing them, and foremost keep doing the right (IT) things (now and in the future).”
Did that help? Probably not! Yeah, I’m laughing out loud! So, it’s roughly about ensuring that the right people are doing the right things for the right seasons (typically creating some type of value to the business) and whilst doing so managing risks adequately. No, it’s not always about minimising risks, because not all risks are negative, and some residual risk may well be accepted by the business. Some risks represent opportunities and can be extremely positive. Come on, those Google guys took some risk leaving University a bit too early, but no one is blaming or pointing the finger at them now!
Okay, I think we’re going a bit off track here and that’s something you don’t want to do when you’re wandering through the “IT governance” cave, as this cave is all about putting control in place, so you know exactly where you are and where you’re heading towards at every single moment in time. IT governance is the set of “minimum” internal and external rules, standards, policies, and guidelines you apply to the management of your IT (yeah, that too). IT is getting incredibly significant and business critical to an ever increasing number of organisations around this tiny blue planet, and without the right set of controls in place it will be virtually impossible to reap the full benefits of IT and its supporting infrastructure. Worse, without proper controls in place, IT may actually damage the business beyond repair, which reminds me of a list of credit-card numbers that was publicly published on the Internet not so long ago.
The Val IT Crevasse
It’s funny as many of ISACA’s resources seem to be in orbit (at least in my opinion) around CobiT, whereas maybe, just maybe, they should actually be in orbit around Val IT. I guess orbit and CobiT seem more related, in characters only, than orbit and Val IT. Nope, that can’t be right and it isn’t hence some things are about to get changed bit time (see Area 51).
Val IT is all about creating, monitoring and optimising value from IT investments with an acceptable level of risk. Val IT sets good practices for the ends: “This is what we need to achieve as a business – if we don’t then we’re in deep sh#@”! Well, please tell me, are we doing the right things and are we reaping the needed and expected benefits? Again, this is Val IT space! Its whole focus is aimed at strategic management levels so strategic value can be harvested.
Val IT covers three key domains:
- Value Governance [VG] (embeds the governance framework into the organisation)
- Portfolio Management [PM] (ensures the right programmes are selected to be added to the portfolio of products and services)
- Investment Management [IM] (ensures that selected programmes are funded, implemented and able to provide bang-for-the-buck)
Val IT is also about ensuring that any governance as applied to IT (wherever, whenever, whoever) is properly aligned with the broader Enterprise governance of IT (wherever, whenever, whoever). Val IT’s focus is on selecting and driving the right programmes that create value to the business. It provides three domains (see above), 22 processes and a whopping 69 management practices to help management get on their way and hit the ground running. Personally I absolutely adore this framework as it tells me exactly what needs to done in order to be able to answer the following two key questions:
- Are we doing the right things?
- Are we getting the benefits?
This framework doesn’t leave any ambiguity as where and how to start unlike the ITIL framework. Yeah, this needs to be said: ISACA answers the “what needs to be done!” question, whereas frameworks like ITIL, MOF and their brethren are more about filling in some of the “how to do” things. As such ISACA’s Val IT framework needs to be visualised as sitting on top of these other frameworks (and driving them), and I believe it makes sense to look at Val IT and CobiT before looking at frameworks like ITIL and MOF. We need to understand what needs to be controlled and protected, before we start to run around like headless chickens controlling and protecting the wrong stuff!
Figure 1 - Val IT and CobiT
The CobiT Crevasse
So, yeah, most of ISACA’s documents and resources seem to be in orbit around CobiT (I somehow seem to like using these two words close together: “CobiT Orbit”). So, what’s this CobiT thing all about? It’s probably easiest when you compare CobiT to Val IT. Whereas Val IT revolves around “strategy” and “value”, CobiT revolves around “architecture” and “delivery”. So basically CobiT sits one level below Val IT, and frameworks like ITIL and MOF are positioned below CobiT. I know, ITIL is trying to raise the bar into strategic spheres, but it’s not there as yet, and the current ITIL v3 volume “Service Strategy” needs a major rewrite before it even comes close to Val IT’s potential.
CobiT is basically about putting program results (as selected by Val IT) into the live environment so they (read the individual projects) start to deliver value and keep delivering value.
CobiT covers four key domains:
- Plan and Organise [PO] (Ensuring IT contributes to the achievement of business objectives by planning and organising the right solutions/projects)
- Acquire and Implement [AI] (Identifying, implementing and integrating solutions/projects)
- Deliver and Support [DS] (Delivering and supporting IT services)
- Monitor and Evaluate [ME] (Managing and monitoring performance, compliance and governance)
CobiT’s focus is twofold, but can be summarised as providing a business focus (linking business goals to IT goals) and process focus (being able to plan, build, run and monitor IT). CobiT fulfils the business need for assurance about the value of IT, the management of IT-related risks and increased requirements for control over information. Please realise that value, risk and control constitute the very core of IT governance.
CobiT provides four domains (see above), 34 processes and a whopping 210 control objectives. Please notice the subtle difference in terminology used here: Val IT refers to management practices, whereas CobiT refers to control objectives. In all reality both tell you what needs to be done, or reading between the lines: “get your lazy bum of the chair and start to take some action!”
CobiT rocks, as it tells me exactly what needs to done in order to be able to answer the following two key questions:
- Are we doing them (the right things) the right way?
- Are we getting them (the right things) done well?
It’s not easy, not easy at all, to write a final paragraph on this section that covers CobiT, as it merely provides you with a glimpse of its enormous potential.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Do I really understand where I can gain optimal value from IT?
- Do I understand the financial impact and the risks that are inherently associated with IT changes?
- Am I able to deliver and support IT to a level that satisfies the business?
- Am I able to measure how, where and when IT adds value to the business and business strategy?
- Do I know how our business performs compared to similar organisations in my industry, and is that performance good enough?
After studying CobiT and Val IT for some time now, I’ve come to the conclusion that CobiT can actively assist you in answering the above mentioned questions, and that’s just scraping the tip of the iceberg!
Area 51
Anyone that knows me a little bit, knows I’m a huge fan of anything science fiction, and hence my interest for Area 51. Come on, who wouldn’t want to meet some three-headed green aliens, or an alien like Alf (I’m sure Alf’s producer didn’t like cats very much)? ISACA is a bit like Area 51, and those caves of Ali Baba, with all its treasures about to be unearthed. Oh, and yes, there’s another reason why I’ve called this section Area 51. At this moment of writing ISACA has announced that it will start working on the next release of CobiT – my guess is that it’s going to be called CobiT v5.0 (or ValCobiT v5.0). As CobiT v4.0 quickly got an update to CobiT v4.1, I assume the same will happen to CobiT v5.0, and voila we’ve landed in Area 5.1. It’s my understanding that the merger of CobiT and Val IT into one integrated framework will be a key feature of this new release. Maybe it’s time to apply some SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) principles to frameworks, and make them more flexible, modular and extensible. I recommend anyone to keep a close eye on the movements of this update, as with some of the how-s answered, this framework has all potential to make the gap with its competing brethren a lot wider, and you’d better make sure you’re on the right side!
Epilogue
The positive effects of my daily doses of caffeine are slowly but surely diminishing, so now is as good a time as ever to leave Area 51 and Ali Baba’s caves behind us. I hope some of my passion for CobiT and Val IT has come across to you. I believe these two frameworks have an enormous potential as yet undiscovered by many boards and senior executives who not unlike most other lemmings follow the ITIL scent. Make sure you understand and use the full potential of all these available frameworks. To those senior executives who may be reading this article I recommend having a look at the “CobiT Related Publications - Board Briefing on IT Governance, 2nd Edition” document as downloadable PDF from ISACA’s website. May the force be with you, and CobiT guard you on your path to extreme success and happiness.
Glossary of Terms
| OGC | Office of Government Commerce |
| PMI | Project Management Institute |
| PMBOK | Project Management Body Of Knowledge |
| PRINCE2 | PRojects IN Controlled Environments 2 |
| ITIL | Information Technology Infrastructure Library |
| VAL IT | Enterprise Value Governance of IT Investments |
| MOF | Microsoft Operations Framework |
| ITGI | Information Technology Governance Institute |
| CobiT | Control Objectives for Information and related Technology |
References
http://www.itgi.org
http://www.isaca.org
http://www.itsmfi.org
http://www.pmi.org
Live long and prosper
Nanoo... Nanoo...
IsleBeeBach
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