The Ascent

This webinar was originally delivered December 06, 2011

It’s been 7 days since I left Fusion 11 in Washington DC and I am nearly caught up on everything or should I say, on everything that I will catch up on. Today I posted the Incident Escalation Cost Calculator which was received by everyone in my session Wednesday morning as well as I could have hoped. I also was asked for a Change Impact Cost Calculator so…I guess I have more work to do now.  I look forward to getting feedback from everyone who uses these free utilities so they can grow and mature into vital tools for everyone. Did I mention it’s free?

The conference was once again a special event where we could spend some quality time with friends and catch up on vendor products and services. This year in particular, it was great to have the HDI crowd amongst our itSMF USA brethren. It really added a new dimension and perspective to what we do. I met some new folks that I hope to eventually call friends. They came from all over the US, United Kingdom, Australia and my newest service management friends Ariel & Gonzalo from InvGate, a service management software product company based Argentina.

One of the highlights for me was without question the #SISLunch on Tuesday. For those unfamiliar with what #SISLunch is, it is an effort I took on for the conference, as a follow-up to Glenn’s blog post, to bring together thought leaders in the Configuration Management space to discuss where we as an industry should take the future of CMDB. The reason it was the highlight of course was the simple fact that surrounding yourself with world class brain power and focusing on your area of specialty is not something that you can pull off very often. Being at the table with the likes of Gene Kim, Charles Betz, Glenn O’Donnell, Ivanka Menken was amazing and inspiring. In addition to these great individuals, others who also provided great input were Ariel Gesto, Gonzalo Sainz Trapaga, Thorsten Manthey, Wayne Hartzler and John Shireling (I apologize if I missed anyone). Thank you all for participating and helping us take the first step towards the future CMDB. Be on the lookout for #SISLunch gatherings and the vehicle that Glenn & I will make available for all of us to use as our central discussion area.

A quick recap of the lunch notes is below as well as some background information that set the basis for the #SISLunch. If you were not at the #SISLunch but would like to get involved in future discussions, please contact me and I will be sure to bring you into the discussion.

• What is #SISLunch?  #SISLunch is the Twitter hashtag used during the Fusion 11 conference to communicate with everyone interested in the lunch meeting. For now, I intend to continue to use this hashtag so as to reach out to people more broadly.
• What does SIS stand for? SIS stands for Service Information System. It is an acronym that resulted from research and feedback gathered by Glenn O’Donnell after his blog posting regarding “New CMDB”.
• Is #SISlunch vendor specific? NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT!! The intention is to be technology and vendor agnostic. Ideally, we will be able to move the vendors to adopt the vision so as to enable corporations to more easily deploy a Configuration Management solution.

#SISLunch Notes:

• Using “C” in the name representing “Configuration” is not accurate because the solution is much more than just about the “configuration” of devices and/or software.
• SKMS already has too much baggage so we can’t use that as a replacement name for CMDB.
• What are the real pain points that we are trying to solve?
• Can we really move forward with the general concept while people still have a hard time defining and can’t come to agreement on what the definition of a service is? Is it sufficient to say that a Service is simply an “arbitrary logical construct”?
• We need to design the structure in a way that it captures the “language of the community”.
• If we replace “C” with “S” should we call things “Service Items” instead of “Configuration Items”?
• While discussing what the data subjects might/should be, we began to look into the concept of using a Bill of Materials sort of parallel to help frame the ideas. Also brought up along this line was to use Bill of Resources instead. The thought behind using this “manufacturing” parallel was that IT manufactures “transactions”.

So, keep an eye out for the next #SISLunch event coming to a virtual forum near you. Follow me on Twitter @CarlosCasanova and create a Twitter stream for #SISLunch to stay up to speed on the coming events.

K2 Solutions Group, Inc. – Providence, RI  (www.k2sg.com) is proud to announce a partnership with Macanta Consulting  – business and service management experts.

The partnership allows K2 Solutions Group, Inc. to deliver the eco-ITSM service developed by Macanta (www.eco-itsm.com.au). The eco-ITSM service is a world first and assists organizations in addressing the increasing demand and pressure for more sustainable IT through their service management processes. It not only supports the need for IT to address the needs of the organization’s corporate social responsibility but also helps to reduce cost, reduce risk, increase productivity and improve competitive advantage.

Carlos Casanova, President, K2 Solutions Group said: “I am thrilled to leverage the proven eco-ITSM assessment vehicle from Macanta Consulting to further deliver on my corporate mission of transforming data into actionable information. The ability to offer my clients sustainable IT assessments and services as part of a Configuration Management System (CMS) solution to improve the enterprises’ overall operational efficiency is simply tremendous and exciting.”

Breed Lewis, Director at Macanta, said: “We are very excited to have this partnership with K2 – a company who understands ITSM and it’s potential to address the environmental challenges of the 21^st century”.

Macanta Consulting was formed in 2009 and their aim is to provide organizations with a unique range of services based on their vast experience and knowledge.  The result is a powerful combination of talent that can give organizations the ability to make their business efficient, effective and moreover successful.

K2 Solutions Group, Inc. (www.k2sg.com) specializes in the transformation of data into actionable information by leveraging the implementation and efficient operation of Configuration Management Systems (CMS). It delivers its services to clients in Financial Services, Consumer Goods, Airlines and Federal Government.

For more information on K2 Solutions Group, Inc.  eco-ITSM please contact Carlos Casanova at Carlos.Casanova@k2sg.com . You can also follow Mr. Casanova on Twitter at @CarlosCasanova or his Green IT Twitter account @GreenITOps

K2 Solutions Group founder ( Carlos Casanova ) has been selected to present on the Executive Track at the September 25-28 itSMF USA / HDI Service Management ( http://www.servicemanagementfusion.com ) conference in Washington DC. The session will be on Wednesday September 28th at 9am.

Session abstract:
Configuration Management is arguably one of the most feared and avoided process areas of ITIL. The difficulty to quantify its worth or bottom line savings makes it difficult for Executive Management to sign off on it without fully understanding or appreciating what Configuration Management truly is. Configuration Management is a vital component for organizations hoping to achieve the goals of improving performance, driving down costs and being more proactive in enabling the business.

I’m sure that the “finger pointing” blame-game approach for determining responsibility dates back well into prehistoric times. Battles between Harry B. Barbarian and Charlie Q. Savage were likely fought because neither would accept blame for a poorly tied rope or poisoned arrows that did not kill the prey quickly enough.

It is not hard envisioning both Harry and Charlie blaming the other for the failed hunt. Their discussions and arguments centered likely on how the other didn’t do their part well enough, neither aware of or acknowledging the fact that both their tribes would go without food for another day. Neither of them focusing on the reality that only with both a properly tied rope and an aggressive enough poison, will they succeed in the mission they set out to accomplish; a mission that was nothing more than a simple food delivery service.

Read the full article at:

http://www.cioupdate.com/insights/article.php/3928436/Curing-the-Caveman-Mentality.htm#