Thank you

Thank you all for reading this blog.

I wish a 2008 with good surprises for you and close ones.

Bem hajam,

Rui

ITIL v3 exam available on Prometric (and Pearson)

At last we have the option of taking the ITIL v3 Foundation exam through Prometric (only in English).

You can either book it online (Go to http://www.2test.com/, choose EXIN as exam provider and then EX0-101 ITIL Foundation v.3) or contact a local Authorized Prometric Training Center. It costs 140€ (when booked online).

This exam is also available on Pearson VUE.

I couldn’t confirm it but it looks like the ITIL v3 Bridging Foundation is available too.

You may find the free Overview of ITIL useful for reviewing (take care - it’s not enough for exam preparation…).

EXIN’s information on this here.

ITIL v3: Utility and Warranty - two sides of the same coin

Utility and Warranty come handy when characterizing and checking the value of a IT Service as it progresses throughout its lifecycle.

Utility - Functionality offered by a Product or a Service to meet a particular need. Utility is often summarized as “what it does”.

Warranty - A promise or guarantee that a Product or a Service will meet its agreed requirements (”how it is done”).

ITIL v3: The use of Resources and Capabilities

Service Strategy introduces an interesting pair of complementar concepts: Resources and Capabilities.

Straight from the book we have:

Resource: A generic term that includes IT Infrastructure, people, money or anything else that might help to deliver an IT Service. Resources are considered to be Assets of an Organization.

Capability: The ability of an organization, person, Process, Application, Configuration Item or IT Service to carry out an Activity. Capabilities are intangible Assets of an Organization.

People are at the same time a Resource (in the sense that people are frequently instrumental in delivering an IT Service) and a Capability (people carry out Activities…).

ITIL v3 Overview - Excellent summary. And free…

Robin pointed us out the excellent ITIL v3 summary An Introductory Overview of ITIL v3.

It’s more like the previous pocket guide for ITIL v2 and even if it’s not a crash course base material for ITIL v3 Foundation I do recommend it as a summary.

Don’t miss it as a good handy reference. I wish I could put my hands on a paper version of this…

ITIL v3 and IT Service Management Automation

 

Interesting how two voices converged to the very same topic of automating Service Management almost simultaneously (automation not as an end by itself but as a away of improving productivity thus focusing on variable issues).

Automation should be a natural consequence of the coesive and much more integrated ITIL we new have with the version 3 five core books.

Rodrigo Flores tackles Request Fulfilment automation opportunities in this post and Hank Marquis looks into a wider scope (relevant for ITIL v2 too) with this article.

 [Rodrigo posted the rest of his notes regarding Request Fulfilment automation here.]

Guru Watch #3 - Colin Rudd, The ITIL visual master

Colin Rudd has been around with ITIL since kindergarten (it takes time to hear it from his mouth… Go for the bit at 1h:43m:45s…). And it shows. He’s prolific on ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000 being responsible for ITIL books, training and consulting.

I’ve had pleasure of knowing him in person and he is a communicator (he can’t seem capable of saying no everytime we invite him to Portugal).

If you read Sharon Taylor’s Official intro book you’ll recognize his hand in the first diagram for every Service Lifecycle phase chapter. That’s no coincidence.

 For a taste of his writing and visuals look at the free ITIL v2 overview book.

ITIL v3 Processes along the Service Lifecycle Diagram

Here’s a take-and-share version of the previously mentioned ITIL v3 Processes throughout the Service Lifecycle. For a Visio version just email me (currently English and Portuguese versions only).

 [I've just removed the last spurious "Operations Management" entry. That's a function. Also, I have a Portuguese (European) version. Volunteers for other languages? I can make them available from here. I've seen a version from Hong Kong (last page)...]

A good read… and 27… 26 ITIL v3 processes

 

I’ve been reading “The Official Introduction to the ITIL Service Lifecycle Book” from Sharon Taylor. It’s a good read and quite an effective introduction to ITIL v3 (and an obviously cheaper one than the five ITIL v3 core books for 30£ the hardcopy or a bit more for electronic versions).

 

The tenth chapter gives a glimpse (more of a teaser actually) to the Service Management Model to be made available online  on the ITIL Live web portal http://www.itil-live-portal.com/ as part of the dynamic complementary guidance that’s meant to keep ITIL up to date.

 

There’s a graphical view for the 27 processesentries spread along the Service Lifecycle (Figure 10.2, page 150). IT presents a broad perspective of where those processes intervene throughout the Lifecycle.

Service Portfolio and Service Catalogue and… - ITIL v3

 

After a comment from IT Skeptic for the previous Service Catalogue - ITIL v3 post, I’ve drawn this diagram hoping it will give a clearer picture on this topic (it is heavily based upon Figure 3.7 from the Service Design core book) .