Why e-mail when you can wiki?
Whenever we have an ITAM conversation these days, it’s in the context of ITIL… and since ITIL is primarily a service framework, it leads into the integration of asset, service and change disciplines.
Just last week a customer, service desk manager, quizzed us about whether and how to use a knowledge base product that they own but haven’t implemented.
Here’s my take on traditional KM products for ITSM - meaning, the kinds of tools that come with or are sold with help desk tools, so you can track common problems and build a reference knowledgebase.
- They’re pretty mature, and there are plenty of good tools available
- The “out of the box” datasets that are available will cover a lot of common problems
- The really hard (expensive/laborious/tedious/unrealistic) part for most customers comes when they realize that it’s their custom apps and unique problems that most need a KB, and someone has to manually create and review that info.
- That’s where the discipline breaks down and you get a “half-done” implementation.
Now, here comes a new idea - Wiki’s. If you haven’t heard of it, check out www.wikipedia.com. The basic idea is a web-based, user editable encyclopedia.
So let’s apply this to an IT shop:
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Here is what has happened on Evergreen’s Blog for this Week:
The Top 10 Post on Evergreen’s Blogs:
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We all know that getting an ITIL project off the ground is difficult to say the least. Key to making anything happen is, of course, senior management sponsorship and support (in terms of time and dollars). A significant trend we feel worth noting is that we see an ITIL approach where the primary focus is on an integrated Change and Configuration Management (CCM) Solution is the most successful in terms of securing support and funding. Why? Well, a number of factors play in but it basically comes down to the fact that the value proposition associated with an integrated CCM approach is believable and easy to understand.
For Senior Management to support (thus attaching their name to) a project, the value must be easy for them to understand and easy for them to explain to their peers and executives. In addition, the project must make good business sense and hopefully appeal (provide value) to a wide audience. What we are seeing is that Change and Configuration Management, more than any of the other ITIL processes, meets these objectives and is being recognized by Senior Management as being a worthy endeavor.
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Howdy-
I recently had the opportunity to brief the IT Compliance Committee for a large company in the financial services space. My topic was “IT Governance Frameworks–Overhead or Strategic Weapon?”
A mentor told me once, “After we begin to understand what a brick is, a number of us begin to envision walls.” These guys are beginning to see walls!
They are no longer satisfied reacting to a wide variety of compliance actions.
They are tired of compliance fire drills.
They are fed up with the duplication.
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