While the itSMF/HDI Fusion 2011 conference has come and gone, I thought I would share my perceptions on the state of service management in North America.
There were lots of questions about the updates in ITIL 2011, although I did not find it to be the predominant theme of the week. Leadership, organizational change management, service catalogs/ portfolios, business relationship management and metrics seemed to generate the most interest and buzz.
For the past seven years, presentations about operational processes such Incident, Change, Problem and Config were center stage. And while those processes are still critical and addressed, it is gratifying to see a bit of a paradigm shift;to more emphasis on leadership, people and relationships. Everything else is just theory.
Here are some of the underpinning messages from Fusion 2011
- Leadership is vital to service management success
- Everyone can be a leader and change agent
- People execute process – not tools or flowcharts
- We work with Human Beings, not Human Doings (Deborah Monroe)
- Attitude, Behavior and Culture (ABC) is the number one success or failure factor (Paul Wilkinson)
- Don’t hinder creativity. If you want to grow your business, grow your people (Erik Wahl)
- Be an opportunity manager, not a crisis manager (Daniel Burrus)
- Good governance is better than good technology (Glenn Leclair)
Ironically, these same messages are at the core of the ITIL 2011 update. The “new” processes are very people and relationship focused: strategy management, design coordination, transition planning and business relationship management. The Service Catalog takes on a more prominent role as the “glue” that holds the service lifecycle and business relationship together. Metrics are being gathered and analyzed for continual service improvement. Is this being driven by the challenges of managing services in the Cloud? I’m not sure, but I like the way the winds are blowing.
Are we there yet? No. But as a whole we are definitely moving up the maturity ladder. Can’t wait to see what happens in 2012.
