Reflections on Fusion 2011

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.

The Importance of Leadership Skills

I recently led the first launch of our newest workshop, ITSM Leadership Skills.  This course was developed in collaboration with PeopleTek, a well respected and recognized executive coaching provider.

The ITSM Leadership Skills workshop addresses the softer skills that are critical success factors for continual service improvement.  Unfortunately, until now these skills were mostly overlooked in the service management classroom.

Topics covered in this workshop include

• Identifying and leveraging strengths
• Vision, Mission, Goals and Measures
• Planning projects
• Managing change
• Enhancing communication
• Managing conflict

Several of the attendees in our first session commented that they had prior experience with many of these topics.  They were grateful for the opportunity to be reminded of their importance while gaining new perspectives and appraoches for being a great leader.   It's so easy to get lost in the mechanics of designing new processes and services; it's just as easy to overlook the human factor.

PeopleTek promotes the belief that everyone is a leader. I agree.  Their definition of a leader supports that view:  To take people where they have not been and would not go on their own.  

Ask yourself:  Who are you leading today and where are you taking them?

Top CIO Priorities for 2011

Gartner recently released the results of a worldwide survey on Top 10 Business and Technology Priorities in 2011. It’s gratifying to see that IT management is number 4 on the CIO list. It’s equally gratifying to see that growth is number 1 on the business priorities list; along with continued vigilance with regard to costs and operational efficiencies.

Press Release: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1526414

Short Video: http://www.gartner.com/technology/cio/cioagenda.jsp

One of the interesting points made in the article is that despite the downturn in the economy, many companies continued their research and development efforts in recent years, they just haven’t been implementing the results of those efforts. What this means for IT organizations is that the next several years will feature rapid change that requires a strong foundation in IT management. As an example, the study indicates that while 3 percent of CIOs currently have the majority of IT running in the cloud or on SaaS technologies, over the next four years CIOs expect this number to increase to 43 percent.

The article goes on to say that to support this growth, CIOs must reimagine IT and lead it through a process of “creative destruction.” This includes redefining the central elements of IT such as its cost structure, people and processes. The article also states that two issues that stand in the way of supporting enterprise growth are: benefits realization (the achievement of business benefits) and IT skills. Skills are an issue because CIOs rely on bringing skills in from the outside whenever they need to get work done.

Looking for more priorities and predications? The following references a number of additional articles you may find interesting. http://careerisover.com/2010/12/12-best-articles-on-cio-business-and-technology-priorities-for-2011/