First of all can I just say how great it is to be back. Sometimes it’s good to try something new if only to prove that you shouldn’t have gone in the first place. And so here I am back in the editor’s chair of VitAL after my brief summer sojourn. Sincere thanks of course to John Hancock for doing such a sterling job during my sabbatical. He did much more than simply keeping the train on the tracks.
The financial chaos is causing problems for under-resourced IT service teams who are often the first to get cut in a crisis. Steve White would rather be shovelling coal on the Titanic.
The downgrading of the US credit rating from AAA to AA+ had a huge (some might argue unprecedented) effect on trading volumes in the few days following. It could be considered as a change in environment (Cretaceous -Tertiary extinction event?) where only the fittest could survive. Some companies had near death experiences. Of the two separate instances that came to my attention, the ultimate root causes were the same.
This issue Noel Bruton says it’s time to climb mount backlog and get the support group’s workflow under control.
Having a backlog of outstanding support jobs is not uncommon. In fact, it is almost necessary to have some backlog in order to guarantee a smooth flow of work through the support group and maximise return on resources investment. But when the backlog starts to contain, or even be dominated by work that is impeding user productivity, then you have a major problem.
It’s not about just numbers but about what they are doing says Noel Bruton, UK based IT consultant and trainer
How many staff do I need in my IT support function? In terms of questions landing in my mailbox, this ranks a close second behind ‘which ITSM software should I use?’ Both questions suggest a false starting point. By illustration – you can’t choose an enquiry management system based on features alone, despite what some of the vendors would have you believe. Much more important is the software’s match to predefined processes. If you know what your processes are, or you’ve simply imported the superficial suggestions made by ITIL, then pretty much any mainstream helpdesk package these days will do the job, because they’re all ‘Pink Verified’ to match ITIL. But you still have to be prepared to customise, because what makes your support work for your user permutation in your industry will probably not match the generic design in the software as it comes out of the box.
Overcoming incompatibility between home workers and power management can, explains Frank Griffiths, Vice President of Professional Services at Verismic Software pay dividends all round
UK Transport Secretary Philip Hammond recently called for employees in London to work from home during the Olympics next year. He said some people might consider working away from their offices, or changing travel times to avoid busy periods. If his plan is supported, these London workers will join the 3.7m UK-wide employees who ‘sometimes work from home or use home as a base’ on a daily basis (June – September 2010, ONS).
A survey of firms by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) showed that the number offering at least some teleworking (home or mobile) rose from 14 per cent in 2006 to 46 per cent in 2008. IBM currently employs 200,000 remote workers globally, BT 15,000 and HSBC 15,000. Figures later this month are expected to show the trend continuing.
Over the last three years outsource Service Management supplier The Internet Group has been scaling up its services to add the mid-market to its existing portfolio of SME clients. In the process it has had to tackle SDI and ITIL and fundamentally shift up a gear in the way it does business. Matt Bailey spoke [...]
A familiar name in the world of ITIL, Pink Elephant has been at the forefront of IT management best practise for over 30 years. Caroline Wyatt, Head of Corporate Development explains the company’s approach and offers an example of how its ‘classroom in the cloud’ approach to training is helping one of its clients.
At a recent seminar, the delegates chose the Service Catalogue as their focus. With this in mind, Cherwell Software’s Tony Probert, sets out to explore the business benefits for an organisation of developing and implementing a Service Catalogue.
Christine Headford, product director at RMS Services explains why continual service improvement (CSI) must evolve to include business intelligence (BI) and how HEROes – highly empowered and resourceful operatives can help. ITIL has been around a long time; it is 20 years since the first ITIL manuals started appearing on desks and IT professionals started [...]