ITIL

Call of Duty to Shape ITIL and the Best Management Practice Portfolios

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Ros Satar

6 min read

Axelos shapes ITIL

Some time ago, I wrote about the latest happenings after the announcement by the UK Government Cabinet Office to enter into a joint venture with Capita for the Best Management Practice Portfolios.

At the time, things were ominously silent on the communications front, but Capita had been busy buying up what looked like strategic purchases in view of the joint venture.


What’s Changed?

We know a lot more since that piece was published back in May.

The concern for many in the industry was that maybe contributors who worked for vendors and clients in the industry would lose that sense of detachment in continuing to work now with a commercial competitor.

But now, just three months on, there is a lot to reflect on, not all of it negative.

At the Know 13 conference, representatives from NewCo (as it was called) engaged with key members of the ITSM community to set the new scene – The Red Herring in the Moat of Castle ITIL.

And this month, NewCo has announced their new CEO, their new name and now the first of what should be a series of workshops involving more of the great and the good of the ITSM community.

With the new CEO coming from games company Activision and the focus on gamification, I can be allowed the liberty of punning with a games title, but seriously – a lot has changed in a short space of time.

What’s Good?

The positive thing from this is that slowly but surely, the wheels of transformation are turning.

AXELOS does not become fully operational until 1st January 2014, but in the meantime the initial hashtag of #jvlistening has now evolved into #AXELOSListening and most recently #AXELOSDOing.

It is certainly a step in the right direction as they use the remaining five months to baseline their strategy and direction for the entire portfolio.

What Could Go Better?

AXELOS are in a tricky position.

They need to keep the ITSM community engaged, many of whom take a pragmatic view when it comes to consulting and implementing solutions – many truly accepting that ITIL®, for example, are a set of guidelines and adapting (rather vigorously in some cases) as they go.

But – they will have to accept that they cannot please everyone all of the time.

Already there have been rumblings about who has been invited, who was not invited, what countries are in, what countries are out.

So much so, it has started to resemble that time-honoured instrument of school torture – being picked for sports sides in the playground.

So What Can They Do?

At the moment very little except keep doing what they are doing.

It is totally impractical to expect them to involve the entire body of the global community in one place, at peak holiday season for a number of workshops.

But they will need to think about how to engage more than just the key names in Europe and the US.

It is almost as though many, who have often consulted on or worked through messy transformations themselves have forgotten what is involved in literally moving from one company to another.

Is it frustrating that some elements are slow to materialise (website, out-of-office notifications on enquiry emails)? Yes of course it is, but come on, it is nothing we have not seen ourselves over time.

Bit by bit information is coming out – and to be honest if I look at what I wrote in this blog just two months ago, we had nothing to go on.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility?

I think that there are few good things to take out of the communications so far.

I was lucky enough to meet up with a few of the people who had been invited to the ITSM sessions, many of whom I respect very highly within the industry.

And towards the tail end of the evening, someone pointed out that the invitees find themselves with a lot of responsibility on their shoulders.

They have been chosen as the first tranche of the community to help drive the direction of the best management practices.

AXELOS have a lot to do post-workshops.

They will need to schedule more, widen the net, analyse the results of the initial workshops and keep communicating.

But the community is being offered the chance to help shape the new direction – who will answer that call of duty?


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About

the Author

Ros Satar

Ros Satar started out her life in ITSM tackling Configuration Management head on in 2005. Ros worked as an ITSM Solution Architect and Process Consultant before deciding to combine a career in IT with journalism, now working as a freelance ITSM Analyst and Consultant.

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