The demo is not accessible from the TSO home page, so use this link to go directly to the ITIL Live demo. You will see from the introduction that the content of ITIL Live is organised such that it can be accessed in 3 different ways, depending on which particular aspect of ITIL you are interested in. The 3 ways are, basically:

• via processes. The 27 processes described within ITIL v3 are mapped against the lifecycle stages, with a view of how the process operates.
• via the lifecycle stages – or at least what is referred to as Main Practice Elements (MPEs) which are the building blocks of the lifecycle stages, and describe the tasks that need to be performed, who needs to perform them, what tools might be required, etc.
• via roles. The main Service Management roles are described, along with details of where they fit within the lifecycle.

The system lets you drill down through a hierarchy of information, from lifecycle stage to process to task, then the “knowledge base” gives details of each task – work instructions, roles involved, and even templates for the documents that are generated or used by the task. However, I think it would be more useful if the process flowcharts used swim lanes so it is clear who carries out which task, and RACI charts to indicate the responsibility and accountability for each activity within a process.

The demo itself is pretty static – a few screenshots of the system, with just one or two active hyperlinks, and text boxes to instruct you where to click. There are only 4 screens in the demo, which demonstrates only one path down the hierarchy of information – so overall, it is difficult to get a real flavour of how the system will operate, or what level of detail will be contained within the knowledge base. I’m left wondering why the TSO released a “demo” with such limited functionality – admittedly it could be in order to get feedback from prospective customers at an early stage in order to guide the future development – or maybe it is to gauge whether it is worth continuing with the development at all.

TSO have not yet announced how much this service will cost – presumably it will be comparable to the licence fee for the electronic version of the ITIL v3 books. Being familiar with similar ITIL process tools such as foxPRISM, I will be very interested to see how this new service compares both on price and in functionality.

John Griffiths, Client Manager at Fox IT and itSMF Trainer of the Year 2007, looks at ITIL v3 one year on, and considers what has changed.

Everything has changed but nothing has changed. That is the mixed message coming from the classroom.

The ITIL refresh has generated a lot of differing views about the new look library. In the main, most people agree that it is an improvement, more accurately reflecting the way businesses and IT work in the modern world. There is also a consensus that the ’ideal world’ of ITIL has been repositioned closer to the ’real world’ into which people have to implement what they have learned from the classroom.

Version 3 has given managers and practitioners of Service Management a lot more to consider. In these relatively early days of version 3 it has helped to clarify some of the anomalies of previous versions while at the same time given more things that need to be considered.

Service Strategy

Service Strategy contains virtually all new material and is the cause of much diverse debate. It has been variously described as a load of mumbo jumbo theory through to an insightful and useful tool for helping to integrate the business and IT. It also introduces for the first time in the classroom a lot of material that a large number of people feel has no relevance to them. They think they have no influence or control over the strategy of either the business or IT and therefore they will never really engage in the strategy either in the workplace or the classroom. Strategy does however take on more relevance for these individuals when they realise that the other stages of the lifecycle are all about the execution of that strategy. Another defining point is the message that the strategy asks the question ’Why do we want to do something?’ before considering the question ’How do we do it?’ A long and sorry trail of projects or process implementations have failed to meet their goals by the simple failure to follow the sequence of how those two questions are asked. The Service Strategy book is likely to be a ’slow burn’ where the value and relevance of it will take a little while to embed itself into the ITIL fraternity.

“majority of version 3 training has still to be released”

Although the theme of this article is ITIL one year on, the vast majority of version 3 training has still to be released into the market. When that happens we will get a clearer view of how organisations position themselves with regard to training their staff. There has been evidence of organisations who are currently in the early days of ITIL adoption, agonising over whether they should adopt version 2 or 3. In reality it is virtually a non-issue. Any organisation taking on ITIL right now would begin with the fundamentals, all of which are incorporated in both versions. It should be viewed as a pick and mix selection of working with the next appropriate process irrespective of which version it originates from. A key point that seems to have been overlooked is that most of the ’new’ processes of version 3 were around previously, they simply were not in the ’core set’ of Service Support and Service Delivery which many people view as the sum of ITIL, overlooking publications such as Application Management or ICT Infrastructure Management.

Staff Training

A key element of implementation is training staff to be able to adapt to the new processes. It is in this area that organisations will be presented with an array of options compared to earlier training programmes. It is going to be interesting to see which routes individuals take on their journey to the ITIL Expert level. No doubt different routes will be adopted by both individuals and organisations based on their specific plans and objectives. Once they have arrived at the base camp by successfully completing the foundation course, the view up the mountain shows the summit to be somewhat higher than it used to be. There are also more paths which can be followed and the trick will be working out which path best fits an individuals aspiration and capabilities. For some people, one or two more steps into a lifecycle or capability course may be sufficient, while others will doggedly march on up to the summit, gaining credits along the way. Maybe in another year’s time we will start to see how those paths are both defined and used. When that happens we will get a better understanding of just how much thing really have changed.

The EXIN press release is at:
http://www.exin.org/content/news/refresh-itil-new-foundation-exams.aspx

The full report may be purchased from the Forrester web site:
http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,42515,00.html

Executive Summary: The IT asset management (ITAM) software market is a high-growth segment within the IT management software market — thanks to increased buyer attention and energized vendors recognizing that ITAM is a strong leadership project in new business opportunities. The “big four” vendors — BMC Software, CA, HP, and IBM — are all now equipped to compete for ITAM business, but there is also a rich seam of midtier vendors that are able to win ITAM business by being more agile and promoting a better time-to-production than the larger solutions. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is looming over this market; it will transform the market from a software business to a services one. ITAM vendors must recognize that ITAM is a business application project and that they must sell it differently than the traditional system management tools.

Their new IT Service Management Foundation examination will take a wider view of Service Management, including ITIL® versions 2 and 3, but also considering other standards and frameworks. 

The EXIN press release is at:
http://www.exin.org/content/news/refresh-itil-new-foundation-exams.aspx.

This seems likely to trigger much debate amongst Training Providers, whatever the relative merits of the various qualifications.

Software as a service (SaaS) is a software application delivery model where a software vendor develops a web-native software application and hosts and operates (either independently or through a third-party) the application for use by its customers over the Internet. Customers pay not for owning the software itself but for using it. Wikipedia 2007.

The key characteristics of SaaS software include:

• network-based access to, and management of, commercially available (i.e., not custom) software
• activities that are managed from central locations rather than at each customer’s site, enabling customers to access applications remotely via the Web
• application delivery that typically is closer to a one-to-many model (single instance, multi-tenant architecture) than to a one-to-one model, including architecture, pricing, partnering, and management characteristics

Examples:

• Salesforce.com (CRM)
• Service-now.com (ITSM)
• GoToMeeting.com (Net Conference)
• Employease.com (Self Service HR)
• Google.com (Search)

Why adopt SaaS?

Several important changes to the way we work have made this rapid acceptance possible.

• Everyone owns or has access to a computer
• Computing itself has become a commodity, even a utility
• Applications are becoming standardised
• Parametric applications are now usable
• The specialised SaaS provider can target a global market
• Web systems are reliable enough
• Security (SSL and VPN) is sufficiently well trusted and transparent
• Availability of enablement technology (Net 2.0)
• Wide Area Networks’ bandwidth has grown dramatically

What does SaaS mean in reality?

• No hardware to procure
• No software to license and install
• No maintenance charges
• No major internal support costs
• No long implementation project
• Enterprise functionality for the SMB
• SMB prices for the Enterprise
• Rapid return on investment
• Lower total cost of ownership

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) Software Division has some white papers with more information about SaaS.

A host of improvements are planned this upgrade, including enhancements to Service Catalog, Knowledge Management and Administration capabilities such as:

• More flexible Service Catalog checkout and delivery forms
• Improved functionality for catalog approval tasks
• Outbound SMS messaging support
• Optional advanced submission workflow
• Control personalization

One of the benefits of Service-now.com is that upgrades require no effort from the customer.

There is more information about the July 5th upgrade in the Service-now.com wiki.

This 49 page document (in Microsoft® Word format) is a little unwieldy; a slightly more user-friendly web-base version is available.