Cloud and Service Catalog Blog

Overview of ITIL2011 by Ian Clayton. If You Don't Have $500 or Time to Read for 600 NEW Pages

ITIL 2011 update is out. And it's big. And you can't upgrade the books... so you might want to attend this webinar from Ian Clayton to get the skinny on it.

Ian is not a huge fan of ITIL so you are likely hear a critical view on it -- which is a good thing from my point of view.

From the invite see below.

On July 29, 2011 the latest edition of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) core publications are released. This FREE webinar will provide you with unbiased and expert opinion on the ITIL 2011 Edition, and will help you understand how the latest edition of ITIL fits into your Service Management plans.

---

Are you considering purchasing the ITIL books for the first time? 

Weighing whether to upgrade an existing version?  

Or perhaps interested in how best to adjust the knowledge you gained during formal ITIL education so it remains current?

Then don’t miss out on the chance to attend the one webinar designed to help you with these questions, and help you gain maximum advantage and value out of the update, protecting any existing, or planned investment you may have in these important publications.

via www.servicemanagement101.net

Cloud Computing is Not Just Outsourcing, It's Also Insourcing. Mind Just Blown.

It seems insourcing is making waves, with more companies pulling work back from outsourcers.

I have observed this as well, but it's subtler than jsut pure insourcing.

In the original wave of outsourcing, the deal was often "My mess for less." The Service Provider signed up for some ridiculous cost savings initially and then some X percentage per year in additional savings.

The problem I saw working with these type of service providers is that they had no clear idea on how to go about reducing costs. The contract left no money for innovation such as self-service portals (ahem...) so automation was out.  Some services are very nichey and didn''t lend themselves well to economies of scale. Some services required intimate knowledge of the business and the Service Provider didn't have it.

Yes, you could centralize a call center and move it to India and get some savings that way. So they did it. It's now done and over-cooked. There's no next.

The only levers left to the service provider were reduced service levels and change order the client to death. Which created havoc with the relationship. (The only time I've seen stuff thrown in an anger in a business meeting!). This led to smaller contracts and shorter durations as a way of controlling the relationship and keeping the Service Provider "motivated."

Here's a quote from a CIO.com article that illustrates these last points.

Among the reasons IT leaders cite for pulling the plug on outsourcing deals—or subsets of their contracts—are poor service quality, failure to meet business objectives, and the desired for more control over the future direction of the IT function, according to Rutchik. "Another reason is that some companies were working with more generalist outsourcing providers who had been managing areas outside their core competencies," Rutchik says. "In some cases the results were less than stellar."

via www.cio.com

But in comes cloud computing... and something interesting has happened. A new kind of "insourcing"/"outsourcing"  is on its way.

The usage of cloud computing is a form of outsourcing, right? Well yes and no, let me explain.

Using external compute and storage copacity is a form of sourcing. So yes, it is outsourcing. But because the offerings are abstracted through API's and standard models, the customer can have a much weaker, non-exclusive, arms length relationship.  Moving a workload from one cloud to another is is trivial compared to moving from one outsourcing relationship to another.

Where I'm seeing insourcing come back is because cloud and virtualization with corresponding automation significantly reduce costs below what the existing service providers can do. And automation with self-service provides a much more agile process. And agility is the premium business benefit today.

It is in the infrastructure as a service where this duality plays most starkly right now.  The customer now has both a painful, manual and expensive process with black box provider and also an agile, cost-effective processs that runs internally.  Uh? What happened?  Automation and innovation happened, which changed the economics of delivering computing services.

So that's why I think Cloud is changing the Client / Service Provider relationship.  One a service is commoditized, standardized and API'd, it becomes trivial for a customer to switch providers or to have multiple providers. And that's a change to the economics of the traditional outsourcing firms.

But Service Provider will respond, right? Yes they will.

They are all working on providing their own clouds. But they'll have to compete with pure-plays like RackSpace, Amazon, Google, Microsoft who have MUCH larger scale and they'll have to compete with new entrants like SHI, who have a clean sheet to do the datacenter right. 

So it's going to be a rapidly changing space. Stay tuned.

 

Have Fun Storming the Castle! Reading: Top Ten Trends on Mobile Internet

Mary Meeker, former analyst with Morgan Stanley and now partner at KPCB, gave this amazing presentation on the future of the internet which is mobile.

I'm an iPhone user, iPod for my car and got my iPad in the first few days of the Crack, I mean the device, was available. So I thought it'd would be big.  But the numbers Mary quotes are STAGGERING, MIND-BLOWING. 

As she puts it, if iPods disrupted the media industry, and iPhones were adopted even faster, with all the changes that entailed, what can we expect from the MASSIVE speed of iPad adoption? See below

But it's not about a toy. It's about a new way of working, living and engaging with the world. And that has big implications for IT services.When things are ubiquotous, real-time, persona, expectations for service will change. And there will be winners and losers, new models will emerge.

All retail business will be affected, and thus all their suppliers.

Here's the whole thing. Have fun getting your mind blown!

 

Top 10 Mobile Internet Trends (Feb 2011)

View more presentations from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Are People Really Delivering Private Clouds with a Self-Service Catalog? YES. Embrace the Special Agent in You

The future arrives with a bang. First it's coming, coming, coming, then it's past and we are behind.

This week I've been talking or been in conversations where some very good news were shared.

1) A large government agency went live with their private cloud using newScale.

2) A large manufacturer told us they have close 100,000 people ordering services from their newScale catalog and they will expand it.

3) I'm requested to urgently fly out to finalize a project w/ a company that needs to go live with their cloud by February and could I be there hmm... tomorrow? (No, but I'll be there next week).

4) Meeting w/ the head for cloud of a large financial services firm (and existing customer) today to talk about their strategy plans. What's amazing is that there was no "Cloud" position a year ago. 

So there's a lot of activity, build out. We will exit 2011 with an altered landscape. 

Which brings me to this post from another a customer who is building a cloud. This is a very useful post on the personal journey of adopting a cloud operating model. This is change and that means it's alwasy fearful.  But let's listen to him....

If enterprise IT is truly going to benefit from the today’s embryonic but tomorrow’s immense value proposition of all forms of cloud, then I believe we are going to need an army of change agents, at many levels of a change-able organization to influence and drive toward the desired result.

I am under no illusion that in the coming months (or years) that automation, in the guise of the much heralded public and private cloud services, will render large parts of my current role and responsibility defunct. I am under no illusion that futile attempts to keep hold of areas of scope, sets of repeatable tasks or, for that matter, the knowledge I’ve collected over the years will render me irreplaceable.

Will I shed tears ? Yes. But they will be tears of joy.

As a not-so-Smart Guy who comes from a very deep technical infrastructure background, I already see the assembly line robots beating a path to my door in the shape of orchestrators and directors….I welcome them with open arms.

via blog.theloosecouple.com

I take three valuable insights from the post:

1. The need to be the agent of change, rather at the effect of change.
2. The need for a change-able organization.  Who hasn't hit the wall sometimes. If it happens enough times, maybe it's time to look for the door. 
3. The certainty while whole parts of IT will disappear (I agree), whole new challenges will arise that require new roles, know-how, etc.

But this requires we embrace change early, lead it, learn the good and the bad. Because cloud is happening.

Self-Service vs. Tickets: They don't want a friendly teller, they want their money.

When I talk about self-service being different than an interface to a help desk, this I mean.

via img.skitch.com

They don't want a friendly teller, they want their money.

Rocky Mountain itSMF LIG - Blog - Connect, Learn, Grow - FM (Month 6)

I did this really fun podcast for the "Connect, Learn, Grow podcast" of the ITSMF Rocky Mountain Local Interest Group. Someone had sent in a question about about cloud computing.

I'm in the last ten minute of the show. It was a good, challenging session. I mean, it's this cloud stuff just hype? Is ITIL dead? Answer: No, No. But the times they are a changing.

Rodrigo discusses The Cloud

Reality vs. The Silver Bullet

ITILista and The Cloud

The Cloud changes the Capacity Crunch

Clouderati vs. ITIListas

So even though some people think I'm anti ITIL, I'm still supporting ITMSf LIG friends. I look forward to the next one.

ITSM Weekly The Podcast (Episode 40): Clouds in my Coffee. Where We Meet the New Jobs in #ITSM #ITIL

I was a guest at ServiceSphere ITSM Weekly podcast #40. My topic was to talk cloud and ITSM. The result is pretty fun.

It's a hoot to hear! Thanks Chris, Matt and Matt.  I'll definitely be back

ITSM Weekly The Podcast (Episode 40) Cloud

Wednesday, November 10, 2010 at 8:55AM

Clouds in my Coffee

What happens when a CIO, a Service Desk Manager and an Industry Junkie Chat Weekly?!

Guest:  Rodrigo Flores, NewScale

via www.servicesphere.com

I did start my section by noting that it was the same day as Little Wayne getting out of jail - coincidence? I think not.

Don't Be The Polar Bear on the Melting Glacier of IT: Gartner Survey Reveals How the Cloud Is Changing IT Budgets

Information technology delivery models are moving from purely on-premise to a mix of cloud and on-premise.

It's a given. But like the proverbial frog in the boiling water, we don't see it coming all once (and frog legs are yummy in butter, not boiled). So I'll start to note for my ITSM readers interesting tidbits that show how fast the IT glacier is melting. Don't be a polar bear on the melting glacier of IT.

from http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitman_sllc_2009/5016305877/

This Gartner survey on budgets (via ReadWriteWeb) shows how organizations are planning or have re-allocated budgets for cloud computing.

The survey indicates that cloud computing services from external service providers are estimated to comprise 10% of the spending on external IT services. 46% of respondents with budget allocated to cloud computing said they planned to increase the use of services from external providers. And according to Bob Igou, research director at Gartner, this marks "a shift toward the 'utility' approach for noncore services and increased investment in core functionality."

More respondents expected an increase in spending for private cloud implementations for internal use (43%) than those that are for external or public use (32%). On a regional basis, Asia, Europe, North America, the Middle East and Africa spent between 40 to 50% of the cloud budget on services from external providers. Latin America was the exception, with a notably larger portion of budgets being spent on developing and implementing private cloud environments.

As the budget goes, so goes power, career and the process. But don't worry, you'll need a service catalog more than ever to effectively use cloud computing. But not a paper catalog, an actionable one.

Cloud is Reducing CIO Power? Yes. Agility & Elasticity Trumps Cost.

Good article on the changed CIO dynamics. They continue to lose power, and 30% of IT spend is done outside of IT.

The cloud will accelerate this trend. I'm seeing departments going around IT and getting on the cloud with out permission from IT. Why? "It takes too long," "Expensive."

There is some disturbing new data for the role of the CIO.  Thomas Wailgum of CIO.com says, “Given the… warning signs, it’s easy to speculate that the CIO’s role and the department’s sovereign power might be slip-sliding away.”  Half of our Diamond Digital IQ Survey respondents said that more than 30% of the dollars spent on IT is done outside of IT.  Power in any organization usually follows those who can create new revenue and value, but our survey shows that 75% of the CIO’s innovation role is internally facing.

We think these different indicators point to a weakening of the CIO role at the very time when technology is reinventing marketing, and competition more than ever before. How can they be losing power and influence at the very time that they should be gaining it?  iPhone apps are changing our expectations of mobile capability; Facebook has 400,000,000 users; Coke and Pepsi have embraced social media as a new means to get their message out; the giant Siemens is using YouTube to tell its message to doctors and technicians alike; massive data mining is creating new insight, and data visualizations making these insights more usable — and the pace of change is increasing!

via ServiceSphere

Upcoming Webinar: Using a Service Catalog to Achieve IT-Business Integration Feb 9 @ 9am #ITIL #ITSM

This webinar is coming up. My friend Troy DuMoulin from Pink Elephant are hosting a 1 hour webinar on using the service catalog for IT-Business integration.  This will be Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 9 am.

We'll have a very good interactive session this time. I want to get as many questions out there as we can!

Don't miss it!

The Service Catalog – A Strategic Tool for IT-Business Integration
Webinar Featuring Pink Elephant and newScale Experts

Attend this webinar and learn why the Service Catalog is a must-have in your strategic management tool kit.

Hear the experts from Pink Elephant and newScale – the authors of the practical guide "Defining IT Success Through The Service Catalog" – as they explain the strategic importance of a Service Catalog and how to use it to strengthen IT’s capabilities and achieve IT-business integration.

SPACL Announcement - Service Portfolio and Catalog Language. Fuses ITIL and Cloud Concepts

Today BMC Software, CA Inc., FrontRange Solutions, IBM, and newScale announced the formation of the Service Portfolio and Catalog Language (SPACL) consortium and delivery of the first draft of the SPACL specification.

This is relevant to service catalog practitioners because it establishes a formal model to document service offerings and service requests.

I recommend you check it out at the SPACL website.  You will find a great white paper and draft of the SPACL spec.  Here's an excerpt of the press release.

The SPACL consortium is a collaboration of companies that have joined to develop a vendor-neutral open standard definition for Service Catalog offerings, and for exchanging service requests between Service Catalog systems. These definitions are key to enable service request operations between IT consumers, internal IT organizations, and external service providers – including cloud computing providers.

The SPACL specification provides a clear set of XML-based schema definitions, content and data structures so that IT organizations and service providers can succeed at implementing and exchanging Service Catalog and Service Portfolio definitions. SPACL is designed to be extensible so that customers and vendors can add new elements and attributes while maintaining interoperability.

The SPACL Consortium is actively working to build:

• * An open definition of Service Offerings and Service Requests that is vendor- and tool-agnostic. The goal is to provide sufficient rigor to guide service definition, with a clear set of content and data structures.
  
• A definitional model so Service Catalog development is decoupled from operations, allowing services to be defined independently of how they will be used operationally. This will simplify Service Catalog projects and enrich the usability of the catalog.

• A rigorous, normative schema that enables automated exchange of definitions. For example, this schema would enable self-service for IT services ordered within an enterprise and provisioned by an external cloud computing provider. It would also facilitate shared service definitions between Service Catalog, CMDB, provisioning, finance, HR, billing, project portfolio management, and other systems.

via www.spacl.info

A Quick Start to Defining the ITIL Service Catalog Webinar #ITIL #ITSM

Are you struggling with the question: “What’s a service?” Is it hard to get people to agree to a definition?  Need I ask? :)

Trying to document all your service definitions in a Word document or Excel spreadsheet? Don’t have the infrastructure to publish your catalog cost-effectively?

If this is the case, then you are normal; most people are struggling with that situation.

This upcoming newScale webinar will be very helpful to your effort.  The topics covered include:

1. Defining your IT services using ITIL v3 best practices;
2. Publishing standard service definitions within IT and for your customers;
3. Showcasing and promoting what IT does for the business;
4. Updating your services as needs change over time.

You can sign up for free here:

Topic: A Quick Start For Your Service Catalog

Date: Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Time: 9:00 am PT / 12:00 noon ET

Duration: 1 hour

Click here to convert the Webinar time to your local time zone

I understand there will be a surprise announcement that Tuesday, but I can't talk about it until then!

Great Discussions Worth Revisiting. ITIL and other Service Catalogs

Here's a summary of recent, really good conversations from our catalog community.

Start with...

Does anyone have a GARTNER or FORRESTER article showing the ROI for implementing a Service Catalog? Which lead to a good discussion of ROI.

Btw, Gartner just published something new on the topic "IT Service Portfolio Management and IT Service Catalog Tools" By: Debra Curtis; Kris Brittain as part of their 2009 hype cycle for it operations.

Followed by....

An agreement that internal IT signs with one of their (internal) business customers about the delivery of a service - is that a "service level agreement" or rather a "service agreement"? Which lead to our IT skeptic to comment.

I'm a vocal critic of certain aspects of ITIL, but the overwhelming benefit it has delivered to us is a standardised language for IT. It would be great if we all stuck to it. I was getting distressed as i read this thread :) but happily we brought it home in the end and finally arrived at the standard meaning of SLA, OLA and UC. Thanks! ....

And Including Business Analysis, Project Management and similar services within a catalog.
Which elicited a very thoughtful response from Stephen
.

I too find that clients like to compare deliverables from internal services to those they can get from outside an organization. I have addressed that fact rationally by demanding that an external organization's deliverables be clearly defined and service "quality" objectively assessed. ...

Great Discussions Worth Revisiting. ITIL and other Service Catalogs

Here's a summary of recent, really good conversations from our catalog community.

Start with...

Does anyone have a GARTNER or FORRESTER article showing the ROI for implementing a Service Catalog? Which lead to a good discussion of ROI.

Btw, Gartner just published something new on the topic "IT Service Portfolio Management and IT Service Catalog Tools" By: Debra Curtis; Kris Brittain as part of their 2009 hype cycle for it operations.

Followed by....

An agreement that internal IT signs with one of their (internal) business customers about the delivery of a service - is that a "service level agreement" or rather a "service agreement"? Which lead to our IT skeptic to comment.

I'm a vocal critic of certain aspects of ITIL, but the overwhelming benefit it has delivered to us is a standardised language for IT. It would be great if we all stuck to it. I was getting distressed as i read this thread :) but happily we brought it home in the end and finally arrived at the standard meaning of SLA, OLA and UC. Thanks! ....

And Including Business Analysis, Project Management and similar services within a catalog.
Which elicited a very thoughtful response from Stephen
.

I too find that clients like to compare deliverables from internal services to those they can get from outside an organization. I have addressed that fact rationally by demanding that an external organization's deliverables be clearly defined and service "quality" objectively assessed. ...

Great Discussions Worth Revisiting. ITIL and other Service Catalogs

Here's a summary of recent, really good conversations from our catalog community.

Start with...

Does anyone have a GARTNER or FORRESTER article showing the ROI for implementing a Service Catalog? Which lead to a good discussion of ROI.

Btw, Gartner just published something new on the topic "IT Service Portfolio Management and IT Service Catalog Tools" By: Debra Curtis; Kris Brittain as part of their 2009 hype cycle for it operations.

Followed by....

An agreement that internal IT signs with one of their (internal) business customers about the delivery of a service - is that a "service level agreement" or rather a "service agreement"? Which lead to our IT skeptic to comment.

I'm a vocal critic of certain aspects of ITIL, but the overwhelming benefit it has delivered to us is a standardised language for IT. It would be great if we all stuck to it. I was getting distressed as i read this thread :) but happily we brought it home in the end and finally arrived at the standard meaning of SLA, OLA and UC. Thanks! ....

And Including Business Analysis, Project Management and similar services within a catalog.
Which elicited a very thoughtful response from Stephen
.

I too find that clients like to compare deliverables from internal services to those they can get from outside an organization. I have addressed that fact rationally by demanding that an external organization's deliverables be clearly defined and service "quality" objectively assessed. ...

World Exclusive Interview - Blog - ServiceSphere

World Exclusive Interview - Blog - ServiceSphere.

The IT Skeptic sits down with ServiceSphere to talk, rant and inform on IT Service Management!

World Exclusive Interview - Blog - ServiceSphere

World Exclusive Interview - Blog - ServiceSphere.

The IT Skeptic sits down with ServiceSphere to talk, rant and inform on IT Service Management!

World Exclusive Interview - Blog - ServiceSphere

World Exclusive Interview - Blog - ServiceSphere.

The IT Skeptic sits down with ServiceSphere to talk, rant and inform on IT Service Management!

SF Business Tech Examiner: IT service catalogs—IT’s hidden secret

Even my local evening paper is now following service catalogues and name checking me. How cool is that? 

SF Business Tech Examiner: IT service catalogs—IT’s hidden secret.
What are IT service catalogs? A service catalog is simply defined as a list of services or products that an organization provides to its customers. In a sense, service catalogs are an ordering system that supplement the IT Help Desk or Service Center. They allow customers to directly interface with the various products and services that your IT organization offers. They do so without requiring your customer to call a support person for help in finding and ordering the services and products that you offer.'

SF Business Tech Examiner: IT service catalogs—IT’s hidden secret

Even my local evening paper is now following service catalogues and name checking me. How cool is that? 

SF Business Tech Examiner: IT service catalogs—IT’s hidden secret.
What are IT service catalogs? A service catalog is simply defined as a list of services or products that an organization provides to its customers. In a sense, service catalogs are an ordering system that supplement the IT Help Desk or Service Center. They allow customers to directly interface with the various products and services that your IT organization offers. They do so without requiring your customer to call a support person for help in finding and ordering the services and products that you offer.'

SF Business Tech Examiner: IT service catalogs—IT’s hidden secret

Even my local evening paper is now following service catalogues and name checking me. How cool is that? 

SF Business Tech Examiner: IT service catalogs—IT’s hidden secret.
What are IT service catalogs? A service catalog is simply defined as a list of services or products that an organization provides to its customers. In a sense, service catalogs are an ordering system that supplement the IT Help Desk or Service Center. They allow customers to directly interface with the various products and services that your IT organization offers. They do so without requiring your customer to call a support person for help in finding and ordering the services and products that you offer.'

New blog and community

Today I'm launching a new blog dedicated to the intersection of cloud computing, ITSM, and IT business strategy.

As I've written before, I think virtualization and cloud are a sea change for the IT infrastructure groups. And therefore a big opportunity and threat for IT groups, ITIL practitioners and how IT aligns with the business. If you follow this blog, you know I've written extensively about before.

But the beauty of this blog, which I will continue to write, has been the focus on a narrow subject, service catalog and service portfolio, I'd like to preserve that focus.  The next topic is much bigger: the emergence of the IT FrontOffice for the cloud.

I want to explore and engage in conversations with a community a whole set of questions that cloud computing gives rise to, From strategic questions, such as:

• What are the new IT operational models we should be thinking about?
• What are the key service management processes I need to revamp, revisit or re-engineer?
• How do I communicate to senior management the options available?

To tactical questions, such as:

•  How do we charge and what do we charge if we are not providing computing power?
•  What rationale do we use to choose when to leverage internal resources and external resources?
• What should our catalog, account management and billing strategy be?
• What's the best self-service strategy?

The ServiceCatalogs.com blog and community will continue -- it's truly become a great resource and has a vibrant active community.

If you are involved in virtualization, creating the next generation IT organization, private or public cloud computing, I invite you to join my new blog and join the new community at: www.cloudfrontoffice.com

New blog and community

Today I'm launching a new blog dedicated to the intersection of cloud computing, ITSM, and IT business strategy.

As I've written before, I think virtualization and cloud are a sea change for the IT infrastructure groups. And therefore a big opportunity and threat for IT groups, ITIL practitioners and how IT aligns with the business. If you follow this blog, you know I've written extensively about before.

But the beauty of this blog, which I will continue to write, has been the focus on a narrow subject, service catalog and service portfolio, I'd like to preserve that focus.  The next topic is much bigger: the emergence of the IT FrontOffice for the cloud.

I want to explore and engage in conversations with a community a whole set of questions that cloud computing gives rise to, From strategic questions, such as:

• What are the new IT operational models we should be thinking about?
• What are the key service management processes I need to revamp, revisit or re-engineer?
• How do I communicate to senior management the options available?

To tactical questions, such as:

•  How do we charge and what do we charge if we are not providing computing power?
•  What rationale do we use to choose when to leverage internal resources and external resources?
• What should our catalog, account management and billing strategy be?
• What's the best self-service strategy?

The ServiceCatalogs.com blog and community will continue -- it's truly become a great resource and has a vibrant active community.

If you are involved in virtualization, creating the next generation IT organization, private or public cloud computing, I invite you to join my new blog and join the new community at: www.cloudfrontoffice.com

New blog and community

Today I'm launching a new blog dedicated to the intersection of cloud computing, ITSM, and IT business strategy.

As I've written before, I think virtualization and cloud are a sea change for the IT infrastructure groups. And therefore a big opportunity and threat for IT groups, ITIL practitioners and how IT aligns with the business. If you follow this blog, you know I've written extensively about before.

But the beauty of this blog, which I will continue to write, has been the focus on a narrow subject, service catalog and service portfolio, I'd like to preserve that focus.  The next topic is much bigger: the emergence of the IT FrontOffice for the cloud.

I want to explore and engage in conversations with a community a whole set of questions that cloud computing gives rise to, From strategic questions, such as:

• What are the new IT operational models we should be thinking about?
• What are the key service management processes I need to revamp, revisit or re-engineer?
• How do I communicate to senior management the options available?

To tactical questions, such as:

•  How do we charge and what do we charge if we are not providing computing power?
•  What rationale do we use to choose when to leverage internal resources and external resources?
• What should our catalog, account management and billing strategy be?
• What's the best self-service strategy?

The ServiceCatalogs.com blog and community will continue -- it's truly become a great resource and has a vibrant active community.

If you are involved in virtualization, creating the next generation IT organization, private or public cloud computing, I invite you to join my new blog and join the new community at: www.cloudfrontoffice.com

We are riding donkeys!

My latest poll says 33% of service catalogs (so far) projects are riding donkeys; that is, have suffered slow downs due to cuts, but are still going in some shape. 

But 22% of project have gotten the Martian Death Ray -- canceled, obliterated, up in smoke. 

What am I talking about?  This poll. See the results so far and you can still vote. 

Which means the results may change minute to minute!

We are riding donkeys!

My latest poll says 33% of service catalogs (so far) projects are riding donkeys; that is, have suffered slow downs due to cuts, but are still going in some shape. 

But 22% of project have gotten the Martian Death Ray -- canceled, obliterated, up in smoke. 

What am I talking about?  This poll. See the results so far and you can still vote. 

Which means the results may change minute to minute!

We are riding donkeys!

My latest poll says 33% of service catalogs (so far) projects are riding donkeys; that is, have suffered slow downs due to cuts, but are still going in some shape. 

But 22% of project have gotten the Martian Death Ray -- canceled, obliterated, up in smoke. 

What am I talking about?  This poll. See the results so far and you can still vote. 

Which means the results may change minute to minute!

Job Board Open in Community Site

One of the purposes of the service catalog community is to support professional networking among service catalog practitioners. If you are looking for a job or need to find someone for a job (full-time, part-time, consulting) post it in this thread. We'll keep the post for at least a month.

Job Board Open in Community Site

One of the purposes of the service catalog community is to support professional networking among service catalog practitioners. If you are looking for a job or need to find someone for a job (full-time, part-time, consulting) post it in this thread. We'll keep the post for at least a month.

Job Board Open in Community Site

One of the purposes of the service catalog community is to support professional networking among service catalog practitioners. If you are looking for a job or need to find someone for a job (full-time, part-time, consulting) post it in this thread. We'll keep the post for at least a month.

Ch-ch-changes coming to the service catalog community

Over the next few days we'll undergo a major platform transition from our old Wiki to our bright, shiny Linked Group. 

The main reason for changing platform is to enable more professional networking between members.  We have about 8000 people who have signed up and use the Service Catalog community, which is pretty awesome. 

The next step is to enable you to have meaningful discussion and know exactly who is engaged, what they do and the kind of experience they bring to the discussion.  Also, as companies want to develop service catalogs, we hope this will be the destination network of choice.  This is why I've chosen LinkedIn.

So what do you need to do to continue?  Pretty easy. Sign on to LinkedIn and join:
Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Group.

To prevent spam, there are some rules we put in place a while ago. We will need to approve you, but we'll do that pretty fast.

The free service catalogue templates and ITIL service catalog examples will now be reachable through the discussion board in LinkedIn. 

This is a big move, and one that I think will really improve the quality of the interaction between our members. 

More news on this coming in the next few days.

Ch-ch-changes coming to the service catalog community

Over the next few days we'll undergo a major platform transition from our old Wiki to our bright, shiny Linked Group. 

The main reason for changing platform is to enable more professional networking between members.  We have about 8000 people who have signed up and use the Service Catalog community, which is pretty awesome. 

The next step is to enable you to have meaningful discussion and know exactly who is engaged, what they do and the kind of experience they bring to the discussion.  Also, as companies want to develop service catalogs, we hope this will be the destination network of choice.  This is why I've chosen LinkedIn.

So what do you need to do to continue?  Pretty easy. Sign on to LinkedIn and join:
Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Group.

To prevent spam, there are some rules we put in place a while ago. We will need to approve you, but we'll do that pretty fast.

The free service catalogue templates and ITIL service catalog examples will now be reachable through the discussion board in LinkedIn. 

This is a big move, and one that I think will really improve the quality of the interaction between our members. 

More news on this coming in the next few days.

Ch-ch-changes coming to the service catalog community

Over the next few days we'll undergo a major platform transition from our old Wiki to our bright, shiny Linked Group. 

The main reason for changing platform is to enable more professional networking between members.  We have about 8000 people who have signed up and use the Service Catalog community, which is pretty awesome. 

The next step is to enable you to have meaningful discussion and know exactly who is engaged, what they do and the kind of experience they bring to the discussion.  Also, as companies want to develop service catalogs, we hope this will be the destination network of choice.  This is why I've chosen LinkedIn.

So what do you need to do to continue?  Pretty easy. Sign on to LinkedIn and join:
Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Group.

To prevent spam, there are some rules we put in place a while ago. We will need to approve you, but we'll do that pretty fast.

The free service catalogue templates and ITIL service catalog examples will now be reachable through the discussion board in LinkedIn. 

This is a big move, and one that I think will really improve the quality of the interaction between our members. 

More news on this coming in the next few days.

400th post; time for a holiday break

This is the 400th post I've written and it lands right on the holidays. Coincidence?  I think yes.
It's time to take a well deserved holiday break.  But before I go, here are few holiday presents from me to you.

A community for service catalog practitioners

Our ServiceCatalogs community has about 8000 members. There's been some good contributions and good discussions.  I'm astounded when I think that there that many people who are working, planning to work on, helping, or just learning about service catalogs. A great resource and friendly people who answer your questions.  We'll be making some changes to our underlying platform in January so stay tuned.

Free Service Catalogue and Service Portfolio Templates.

The number one Google query that points to this site and our community site are:

Service catalog template
Service catalogue template
ITIL Service catalog
ITIL Service request

Free registration required but here's the link:  Service Offerings & Service Requests - ServiceCatalogs

You will find blank service catalog templates for portfolio service offerings and for service requests. There are also filled examples.

Remember to contribute your examples to this community.

A professional network for service catalogue practitioners 
Since I launched the LinkedIn  Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Group
We have some very nice discussions going and we are up to almost 500 members.  The group is open to service management professionals for learning, networking, jobs, discussions. (See rules).

A service catalog book

This September we launched the second edition of our book, Defining IT Success Through The Service Catalog, While the core (80%) of the book remained the same, there some important new changes which made it more useful.  The big changes: 

• The book is now fully complementary to ITIL v3.  We adopted ITIL V3 in terminology and process names everywhere it made sense.  For example, service request is now "request fulfillment."  All process names are consistent with ITIL v3 process names.   

• We’ve added more clarity about the service model to make coherent with ITIL v3 and newScale / Pink service model.  ITIL v3 has a little guidance about defining a business service; the book adds a lot more and the service catalog templates and request fulfillment templates remain.  But now we are all talking about the same thing.

• We added an extensive new section on Request Fulfillment that establishes specific requirements and clear links to Service Portfolio.  ITIL v3 refers to this linkage in passing, but not how or why.

• A new chapter on the value and use of technology along with a set of over two-hundred (200+) questions broken down by ITIL process to help organizations construct RFI's,  RFP's,  or evaluate technology for service catalog solutions.
  

• New section on using a service catalog to manage a supplier relationship and the case as to why you need to use a service catalog

.

So all in all, a great year. newScale had a great year, many new customers, recognition from leading industry analysts, our webinars were sold out. 

Much remains to be done.  But there's much to be grateful.  I'll be back in January.  Happy holidays!

400th post; time for a holiday break

This is the 400th post I've written and it lands right on the holidays. Coincidence?  I think yes.
It's time to take a well deserved holiday break.  But before I go, here are few holiday presents from me to you.

A community for service catalog practitioners

Our ServiceCatalogs community has about 8000 members. There's been some good contributions and good discussions.  I'm astounded when I think that there that many people who are working, planning to work on, helping, or just learning about service catalogs. A great resource and friendly people who answer your questions.  We'll be making some changes to our underlying platform in January so stay tuned.

Free Service Catalogue and Service Portfolio Templates.

The number one Google query that points to this site and our community site are:

Service catalog template
Service catalogue template
ITIL Service catalog
ITIL Service request

Free registration required but here's the link:  Service Offerings & Service Requests - ServiceCatalogs

You will find blank service catalog templates for portfolio service offerings and for service requests. There are also filled examples.

Remember to contribute your examples to this community.

A professional network for service catalogue practitioners 
Since I launched the LinkedIn  Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Group
We have some very nice discussions going and we are up to almost 500 members.  The group is open to service management professionals for learning, networking, jobs, discussions. (See rules).

A service catalog book

This September we launched the second edition of our book, Defining IT Success Through The Service Catalog, While the core (80%) of the book remained the same, there some important new changes which made it more useful.  The big changes: 

• The book is now fully complementary to ITIL v3.  We adopted ITIL V3 in terminology and process names everywhere it made sense.  For example, service request is now "request fulfillment."  All process names are consistent with ITIL v3 process names.   

• We’ve added more clarity about the service model to make coherent with ITIL v3 and newScale / Pink service model.  ITIL v3 has a little guidance about defining a business service; the book adds a lot more and the service catalog templates and request fulfillment templates remain.  But now we are all talking about the same thing.

• We added an extensive new section on Request Fulfillment that establishes specific requirements and clear links to Service Portfolio.  ITIL v3 refers to this linkage in passing, but not how or why.

• A new chapter on the value and use of technology along with a set of over two-hundred (200+) questions broken down by ITIL process to help organizations construct RFI's,  RFP's,  or evaluate technology for service catalog solutions.
  

• New section on using a service catalog to manage a supplier relationship and the case as to why you need to use a service catalog

.

So all in all, a great year. newScale had a great year, many new customers, recognition from leading industry analysts, our webinars were sold out. 

Much remains to be done.  But there's much to be grateful.  I'll be back in January.  Happy holidays!

400th post; time for a holiday break

This is the 400th post I've written and it lands right on the holidays. Coincidence?  I think yes.
It's time to take a well deserved holiday break.  But before I go, here are few holiday presents from me to you.

A community for service catalog practitioners

Our ServiceCatalogs community has about 8000 members. There's been some good contributions and good discussions.  I'm astounded when I think that there that many people who are working, planning to work on, helping, or just learning about service catalogs. A great resource and friendly people who answer your questions.  We'll be making some changes to our underlying platform in January so stay tuned.

Free Service Catalogue and Service Portfolio Templates.

The number one Google query that points to this site and our community site are:

Service catalog template
Service catalogue template
ITIL Service catalog
ITIL Service request

Free registration required but here's the link:  Service Offerings & Service Requests - ServiceCatalogs

You will find blank service catalog templates for portfolio service offerings and for service requests. There are also filled examples.

Remember to contribute your examples to this community.

A professional network for service catalogue practitioners 
Since I launched the LinkedIn  Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Group
We have some very nice discussions going and we are up to almost 500 members.  The group is open to service management professionals for learning, networking, jobs, discussions. (See rules).

A service catalog book

This September we launched the second edition of our book, Defining IT Success Through The Service Catalog, While the core (80%) of the book remained the same, there some important new changes which made it more useful.  The big changes: 

• The book is now fully complementary to ITIL v3.  We adopted ITIL V3 in terminology and process names everywhere it made sense.  For example, service request is now "request fulfillment."  All process names are consistent with ITIL v3 process names.   

• We’ve added more clarity about the service model to make coherent with ITIL v3 and newScale / Pink service model.  ITIL v3 has a little guidance about defining a business service; the book adds a lot more and the service catalog templates and request fulfillment templates remain.  But now we are all talking about the same thing.

• We added an extensive new section on Request Fulfillment that establishes specific requirements and clear links to Service Portfolio.  ITIL v3 refers to this linkage in passing, but not how or why.

• A new chapter on the value and use of technology along with a set of over two-hundred (200+) questions broken down by ITIL process to help organizations construct RFI's,  RFP's,  or evaluate technology for service catalog solutions.
  

• New section on using a service catalog to manage a supplier relationship and the case as to why you need to use a service catalog

.

So all in all, a great year. newScale had a great year, many new customers, recognition from leading industry analysts, our webinars were sold out. 

Much remains to be done.  But there's much to be grateful.  I'll be back in January.  Happy holidays!

Some great conversations going on at our Linked in Group.

Since I launched the LinkedIn  Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Group
We have some very nice discussions going and some real good thoughts. So my latest post is live from our discussion forum there.  The group is open to service catalog professionals. (See rules)

Antonio, you are right that it's possible to have a meta model. In fact, that's what the SPACL initiative is all about (see announcement at www.servicecatalogs.com ).  We are hard at work with several of the leading ITSM vendors and are going to hopefully be unveiling something early next year. 

While I'm convinced that business services are more variable than technical services, they don't have to be. Every organization has as core set of differentiated business processes from everyone -- that's the one part where you OUGHT to be working on unique services. After that, there's a set of CONTEXT processes where your goal ought to be driving for the commoditization.  At my company, we our product processes are core; our accounts payable is not. We have a lot in-house technology in product development; but in accounting we use COTS software and outsource what we can.

And infrastructure services which are the building blocks of Business Services are actually very common and reusable.  

In fact, I've been talking to a few sourcing and benchmark experts about how they help companies prepare to buy services, define those services and then compare them to determine a fair price. A hefty piece of work.

One of the concepts I learned is that they prepare "MARKET READY" service definitions - in other words, they help an organization carve out a service definition that can be bought and compared. This is not like a one size show, but rather coming out with service definitions and market-available variations. 
Here's an example, using my restaurant analogy:  We have burgers and we have pizza.  The pizza can have any of 15 toppings. The burger can be made big or small, and there 10 condiments available in the package.  Some do home delivery, other providers do not.   But caviar topping is not offered in any of them -- you'd have to provide your own. 

The value of creating or having market ready definitions are many. 

First, It's easier to justify what things cost if the customer knows what it'd cost outside the organization. Remember, it's not always cheaper or better.

Second, it provides a platform to differentiate your own services.  "We provide what they do, plus we do x, y, and z. And we are cheaper, or better, or more expensive..."

Third, it provides a framework to have discussion if ALL those things you are doing that are not available in the market are a) worth doing, b) being done the most effective and efficient way, or c) maybe are very important differentiator and you should do more.   

Update on Service Catalog LinkedIn Group: Discussions

As an experiment, I recently created a Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Group for practitioners and professionals to network together on LinkedIn.

The reception has been very nice; we have 371 people linked as of this morning.  And that was all I expected. But recently LinkedIn upgraded their groups by adding a discussions forum for the group. And some very nice discussions have started to take place. 

What's great and different is that you know who is writing and their background. Anonymity is useful for some things, but Identity is critical for others because it lets us build trust and relationship.  Here are a couple of examples of the types of discussions; I encourage you to join.

We are just now completing our cost mapping exercise. That exercise entails mapping all cost elements to specific services in the catalog. An example here would be all the hardware, software and labor (including contracts) associated with Wintel Managed Hosting.

Once we've mapped the costs to each service--accounting for ALL costs in our organization--we will determine our unit cost based on forecasted volumes from each of our customers. From that we will establish a price that we will publish on an annual basis. We will not expose our customers to "true cost" in the catalog. However, we will provide quarterly reviews, a year-end true-up (because we are a "non-profit"), and, if justified, a mid-year adjustment. ....

The rest here

Update on Service Catalog LinkedIn Group: Discussions

As an experiment, I recently created a Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Group for practitioners and professionals to network together on LinkedIn.

The reception has been very nice; we have 371 people linked as of this morning.  And that was all I expected. But recently LinkedIn upgraded their groups by adding a discussions forum for the group. And some very nice discussions have started to take place. 

What's great and different is that you know who is writing and their background. Anonymity is useful for some things, but Identity is critical for others because it lets us build trust and relationship.  Here are a couple of examples of the types of discussions; I encourage you to join.

We are just now completing our cost mapping exercise. That exercise entails mapping all cost elements to specific services in the catalog. An example here would be all the hardware, software and labor (including contracts) associated with Wintel Managed Hosting.

Once we've mapped the costs to each service--accounting for ALL costs in our organization--we will determine our unit cost based on forecasted volumes from each of our customers. From that we will establish a price that we will publish on an annual basis. We will not expose our customers to "true cost" in the catalog. However, we will provide quarterly reviews, a year-end true-up (because we are a "non-profit"), and, if justified, a mid-year adjustment. ....

The rest here

Update on Service Catalog LinkedIn Group: Discussions

As an experiment, I recently created a Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Group for practitioners and professionals to network together on LinkedIn.

The reception has been very nice; we have 371 people linked as of this morning.  And that was all I expected. But recently LinkedIn upgraded their groups by adding a discussions forum for the group. And some very nice discussions have started to take place. 

What's great and different is that you know who is writing and their background. Anonymity is useful for some things, but Identity is critical for others because it lets us build trust and relationship.  Here are a couple of examples of the types of discussions; I encourage you to join.

We are just now completing our cost mapping exercise. That exercise entails mapping all cost elements to specific services in the catalog. An example here would be all the hardware, software and labor (including contracts) associated with Wintel Managed Hosting.

Once we've mapped the costs to each service--accounting for ALL costs in our organization--we will determine our unit cost based on forecasted volumes from each of our customers. From that we will establish a price that we will publish on an annual basis. We will not expose our customers to "true cost" in the catalog. However, we will provide quarterly reviews, a year-end true-up (because we are a "non-profit"), and, if justified, a mid-year adjustment. ....

The rest here

Reminder: Professional Network for Service Catalog Practitioners Still Going Strong

A reminder:  Join our LinkedIn group for service catalog professionals

Reminder: Professional Network for Service Catalog Practitioners Still Going Strong

A reminder:  Join our LinkedIn group for service catalog professionals

Reminder: Professional Network for Service Catalog Practitioners Still Going Strong

A reminder:  Join our LinkedIn group for service catalog professionals

Update on Service Catalog Linked In Group

In less than three weeks, I see a few hundred people have joined the group. Wow, that's wonderful.  I hope this is helping you make connections with peers in your area, interest, company, etc.  It has certainly helped me get in touch with a few of you.

If you haven't joined, you can do it now by clicking here:  Service catalog group in LinkedIn

I've made a couple of changes: one, if you want to use your gmail, yahoo, msn, etc account you now can.  I still prefer your business email as it makes it faster to approve you into the group.  Using your consumer  e-mail account will work fine; I just need to review each separately, which takes longer.

I have declined  few people. If you are wondering why you were declined, I'll tell you why:

1) You don't have a profile in LinkedIn.  This is a professional network for practitioners, so need to see that you are a) a professional in involved in some aspect of IT (any will do), b) a profile that is at least 25% filled. Easy solution: complete your profile and try again.

2) You are vendor. Easy solution: quit your job.

3) Your background, interests, experience is completely different than an IT professional. No easy solution.

Update on Service Catalog Linked In Group

In less than three weeks, I see a few hundred people have joined the group. Wow, that's wonderful.  I hope this is helping you make connections with peers in your area, interest, company, etc.  It has certainly helped me get in touch with a few of you.

If you haven't joined, you can do it now by clicking here:  Service catalog group in LinkedIn

I've made a couple of changes: one, if you want to use your gmail, yahoo, msn, etc account you now can.  I still prefer your business email as it makes it faster to approve you into the group.  Using your consumer  e-mail account will work fine; I just need to review each separately, which takes longer.

I have declined  few people. If you are wondering why you were declined, I'll tell you why:

1) You don't have a profile in LinkedIn.  This is a professional network for practitioners, so need to see that you are a) a professional in involved in some aspect of IT (any will do), b) a profile that is at least 25% filled. Easy solution: complete your profile and try again.

2) You are vendor. Easy solution: quit your job.

3) Your background, interests, experience is completely different than an IT professional. No easy solution.

Update on Service Catalog Linked In Group

In less than three weeks, I see a few hundred people have joined the group. Wow, that's wonderful.  I hope this is helping you make connections with peers in your area, interest, company, etc.  It has certainly helped me get in touch with a few of you.

If you haven't joined, you can do it now by clicking here:  Service catalog group in LinkedIn

I've made a couple of changes: one, if you want to use your gmail, yahoo, msn, etc account you now can.  I still prefer your business email as it makes it faster to approve you into the group.  Using your consumer  e-mail account will work fine; I just need to review each separately, which takes longer.

I have declined  few people. If you are wondering why you were declined, I'll tell you why:

1) You don't have a profile in LinkedIn.  This is a professional network for practitioners, so need to see that you are a) a professional in involved in some aspect of IT (any will do), b) a profile that is at least 25% filled. Easy solution: complete your profile and try again.

2) You are vendor. Easy solution: quit your job.

3) Your background, interests, experience is completely different than an IT professional. No easy solution.

Catalog community update: 6000 members

Some time this weekend the Open Source Catalog Community will pass 6000 members.
I thought it would be good to memorialize that number.  Most people come for the free service catalog templates and examples, and to read good discussions in the forums. 

On an average day there are between 80 - 300 visitors, and anywhere from 30 - 50 regular visitors. 
So I know you are a shy bunch... :) Lots of downloads of the templates and examples but not so much sharing.  In other words, normal behavior.

We'll soon migrate from our Jotspot platform to our new Drupal platform, so things will change quite a bit.  My hope is that once we are on the new system, we can start to add some features, like chatting, or social networking.

We'll be off the rest of the week and back on Monday.  It's the July 4 holiday here in the United States.  Oh yeah, 50% of visitors are from the world. Europe, Australia, Asia, Latin America, Africa. From Pretoria to Qatar to Tulsa to Canberra. Pretty much the whole world is represented.

Catalog community update: 6000 members

Some time this weekend the Open Source Catalog Community will pass 6000 members.
I thought it would be good to memorialize that number.  Most people come for the free service catalog templates and examples, and to read good discussions in the forums. 

On an average day there are between 80 - 300 visitors, and anywhere from 30 - 50 regular visitors. 
So I know you are a shy bunch... :) Lots of downloads of the templates and examples but not so much sharing.  In other words, normal behavior.

We'll soon migrate from our Jotspot platform to our new Drupal platform, so things will change quite a bit.  My hope is that once we are on the new system, we can start to add some features, like chatting, or social networking.

We'll be off the rest of the week and back on Monday.  It's the July 4 holiday here in the United States.  Oh yeah, 50% of visitors are from the world. Europe, Australia, Asia, Latin America, Africa. From Pretoria to Qatar to Tulsa to Canberra. Pretty much the whole world is represented.

Catalog community update: 6000 members

Some time this weekend the Open Source Catalog Community will pass 6000 members.
I thought it would be good to memorialize that number.  Most people come for the free service catalog templates and examples, and to read good discussions in the forums. 

On an average day there are between 80 - 300 visitors, and anywhere from 30 - 50 regular visitors. 
So I know you are a shy bunch... :) Lots of downloads of the templates and examples but not so much sharing.  In other words, normal behavior.

We'll soon migrate from our Jotspot platform to our new Drupal platform, so things will change quite a bit.  My hope is that once we are on the new system, we can start to add some features, like chatting, or social networking.

We'll be off the rest of the week and back on Monday.  It's the July 4 holiday here in the United States.  Oh yeah, 50% of visitors are from the world. Europe, Australia, Asia, Latin America, Africa. From Pretoria to Qatar to Tulsa to Canberra. Pretty much the whole world is represented.

I Agree: Insist on out-of-the-box configuration

From Information Week.

Without a service catalog, BSM initiatives will fail--manually building services in operations tools is neither scalable or maintainable. Problem is, while many vendors advertise service catalogs, some are little more than database platforms that require heavy customization. Insist on out-of-the-box configuration.

I agree.  The article pretty much blows the door on BSM vendors claim they are one-stop shops. This annoyed BMC's CTO enough that he answered back.

So here is this CTO's take. If BSM is a journey -- stated ad nauseam, ad infinitum, like a song that never ends -- then how would you prefer to travel:

a) Would you want to set your own schedule, places to see, food to sample? Or
b) Go with only one tour guide, eat only one kind of food, and see only what the tour operator wants you to see? 

For me, I'd rather assemble my own tour than be stuck in a bus; but for my aged in-laws, the tours are great way to get there.  The reality is there's a market for both.

The article is here: BSM Vendors Push Products, But Process Is More Important

One thing the article did get wrong: NewScale is a software company. We are mentioned as an open source provider. That's our Open Source Catalog Community.