The IT Skeptic - Comments for "Who now controls ITIL?"

The beer game

skeptic — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:03:56 +0000

The beer game teaches in particular the instability of systems in the face of lagging feedback, and in general the usefulness of systems theory to describe complex production and distribution chains. Not relevant to ITSM other than perhaps bits of Service Strategy and for developing an empathy for one of the challenges faced by users. The idea of a simulation game may come from the beer game but even that i doubt - the idea is older. Fun though.

So far the only ITSM game I've done is the Lucid-IT railroad simulation. I guess they are all pretty similar in intent. They teach how much more smoothly we deal with incidents if we have incident process in place (and roles and communications and ...) and then if we have the supporting ancilliary processes such as problem, config, change and knowledge. Far more relvant and applicable than the beer game, which is much too general for this context.

That's exactly why I

pjotrg — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:39:27 +0000

That's exactly why I insisted on preparation and debriefing being more important than playing the rounds itself. It's there where a good gameleader can make the participants realise the "why"

I'm fairly certain all these

Visitor — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:03:39 +0000

I'm fairly certain all these products are derived from the grandfather of experiential simulators: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_distribution_game

While I am of fan of these products, I prefer the original. The modern versions focus solely on the "how?" while ignoring the "why?". So while they provide an improved conceptual understanding of ITSM -- and thus how to better react to changing conditions -- they don't trigger the sorts of insights that lead to structural change.

Simulations

pjotrg — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:13:32 +0000

Come on James! You can only kill 3 astronauts at a time ;-)

We're getting a bit of topic I know, sorry Skep.

I've played Control It at least 150 times and still like it. The good thing about it is its adaptibility of the script (wich I percieve as a bit less in the latst versions of Contril IT I've seen, being 3.3). The older versions were available in more languages (French, German, English, Spanish) which is great. Don't know about the current version.

I find Apollo 13 appealing but found that the script could not very easily be changed (you always have to go 'round the moon). I'm not "up-to-date" with the latest Appollo versions.

Wall Street (Formally Quintegrator, the Quint game) has recently been simplified and runs well. Is at least available in English and French, but exclusively for Quint

What I like (as a game leader) about these games is that there is NO computer support and that you can still quit easily change things whlist running the game and managing the players who (especially in the first round) work and cry and panic ! As we want to show that working along processes really works, the human factor in these games is the most important. Also, playing the game is one fun thing. The preparaton and de-briefing of a round is far more important!

In France we have 4 versions of the G2G3 game (Polestar, Airport, StockExchange and another which theme I forgot ) non of them are translated in French and very "screen-driven". The scenario is completely computerised which leaves the gameleader with less possibilitues to intervene on the spot. I must say I've only seen demonstrations of thes games and never played themselves so I may be completely wrong.

The fun thing is that all these games (but Apollo) originate (are based on) from Control IT version 1 ;-)

Peter (Game-boy ;-) )

ControlIT

JamesFinister — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:34:00 +0000

I have to say that in my Quint days I was a big fan of Control IT, but I think the G2G3 one works better and is more realistic. Apollo 13 doesn't quite do it for me because you can only kill so many astronauts in one day and walk away feeling good about it.

Thanks James

aroos — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:59:06 +0000

It was good of you to remind me of the simulations. I used to do ControlIT but did not like the new and fairly complicated Quint simulation game so I started doing trainings without simulations. Now I have created a new game and did it first time today. The class was quite enthusiastic.

My new FluKiller Inc is a simple and easy game but it made the necessary points beautifully.

Aale

Well...I adressed them a few

pjotrg — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 08:42:01 +0000

Well...I adressed them a few mails on another subject but did not get much response so frankly.....I gave up hope.

Besides.....who am I? Just one silly Dutchman living in France.

It'll only work if a big group of stakeholders would react. If you see that even itSMF has trouble getting real influence in what Skep calls "Castle ITIL" you would really lose hope. The point is that even in itSMF the real users of ITIL training (the people who send their employees to training) are in the minority.
Many course participants end up enrolled on a specific. training because the purchasing department happened to find the training on the market with the "best value for money", that is: cheap, mainstream, the newest version and if possible a course institue with a good name in the market.

I think training of ITIL should be part a career development plan where people get prepared for their next role in the company. In the ITIL intermedia training RCV in the syllabus is stated:
(quote) "It is recommended that course providers make use of exercises to enhance the reinforcement of the learning objectives in this syllabus. To aid course
providers, there are areas within each learning unit whose learning objective include such phrases as “illustrate, discuss, use examples”, etc, which may be considered as opportunities to introduce practical course exercises. These are not mandated areas for practical exercises, but provided as suggestions for use by course providers" (end quote)

See for yourself, there are no mandatory requirements for excercises here (luckily EI's like EXIN demand a fair amount of excercises for a training to be eligible for accreditation ! ). Afterwards there is no check that the excercises have been done or understood, "just" a complex Multiple Choice exam which typicaly test a fair amount of "ability to understand MC questions" besides ITIL knowledge. The higher levels of Blooms taxonomy cannot solely be tested by MC questions. You will need proper assessments, real exams, just like at the university. Has anyone obtained his university degree yet by only doing MC questions (apart for the fake certifdicates that you can buy oin the internet ;-) )

Complaining

Visitor — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:23:55 +0000

There's a lot of comment that the exam structure is not correct. Ultimately the owner is OGC. Have you tried contacting them and informing them directly?
They can only act if you tell them........

Perhaps Aale, if you start

pjotrg — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:56:26 +0000

Perhaps Aale, if you start training ITIL V3
- you might discover once again that it is not perfect
- you may on the other hand discover some good things in it
- earn a bit more money, however stupid we might think it is, people always want the newest version of something

anyway, nothing is perfect, not even ITIL and......ask the guys form TopGear....how do you think a V3 engine would run ;-)

We'll just be patient and wait for V4 of even better V6 or V8. It's never gonna get perfect.

What should improve drastically though (in my humble opinion) is the certification scheme and certification approach (e.g. the syllabi totally lack any kind of requirements for practice). I still think that APMG is 3 steps behind the old V2 approach (EXIN/ISEB) which was better, yet not perfect!, than what we have nowadays

Eyes wide shut

aroos — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:42:16 +0000

I'm kind of hanging between. Is ITIL V3 good or is it an Enron/Subprime/Madoff-thing. There were a lot of experts who believed in those. On the other hand we have shown that there are a certain amount errors in the books but OGC/APMG/TSO are having their eyes wide shut. Nobody admits any errors but suddenly the worst bullsh** is taken off the Foundation exams. In a way they seem to be admitting that all books are not equal.

My dilemma is this. I'm losing business because I don't do V3. Am I being too critical? Should I start training it and do as James wrote?

Rob. Could we have a vote? Just for the registered people. It would be intresting to know what is the opinion of skeptical people.

Aale

Gartner Hype and ITIL

Glen — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:05:11 +0000

Have to say, that the comments in this thread match pretty close to where Garnter puts ITIL in its Hype curve.
Yea though I walk through the valley of discontent.....Someone is going to turn on the lights soon.

Voting with feet

JamesFinister — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:48:35 +0000

Those experienced people who think v3 is flawed (as opposed to those who think it is utter rubbish) know that you can always teach around the flaws. Good teaching is actually a good way of exposing flaws and developing improvements in a subject as part of feedback system. The current system appears broken in that respect, because the flaws in the exam structure itself get in the way - there is no dialogue between the delegates and the examiners.

In the UK some drastic price cutting seems to be taking place and I hear from freelance trainers that they are picking up less and less work. I think the market is already beginning to ask questions about the value of the new courses and structure, I know my client's are.

There are alternatives out there. A G2G3 simulation, for instance, probably provides a lot more value than a Foundation course if you are getting people to understand how ITIL can improve the service they provide. There is also training for MOF and ISO/IEC 20000, and then there is an increasing number of MSc. courses out there.

Eventually I think the ITIL exams will change in response to market forces, though possibly very late in the day.

Providing "alternative" ITIL courses with ITIL in the title raises all sorts of licensing issues, and I doubt would be possible. I have wondered aloud if it it would be possible to keep the v2 scheme going as a separate stream, sold off to another third party to develop independently.

The best option, and I know a lot of us are chatting about this at different levels, would be a scheme based around ITSM, embracing COBIT, USMBOK, ITIL etc. and adding in other experiential training which is of practical use to ITSM. Where, for instance, do you learn how to actually run and chair a CAB, or to negotiate an SLA.

So, ITIL is OK but the certifications and tranings are not?

pjotrg — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:14:16 +0000

What I read her and in many other posts (also on other forums like LinkedIn) is that there is a common understanding that ITIL on itself is good. Most people claim the the things added and changed in ITIL V3 are worthwile. Anyway, for me the ITIL books are still a good sort of cooking-guides (like the one my mother gave me when I left the house)

We just do NOT agree with the current certification scheme and course content as dictated by The Lords Of APMG.

This would call for action. In France we would go for a strike (but I think that would be useless). Why don't we create an alternative set of certifications, certification scheme and syllaby in present that to the world (with or without the support of itSMF). Perhaps that might convince The Lords Of The APMG that they are on the wrong track. For a first suggestion and inspiration: take a look at EXIN's IT-Track approach which is based on competences needed to fullfull certain jobs (instead of bundling knowledge from just one book in a certification).

Can we fix it? Yes we can!! It's time for ITIL revolution!!

Yes Hames

Visitor — Wed, 27 May 2009 11:57:24 +0000

That'd be a little bit of an ould colloquial term for 'mess' Skeptic. ;-)

Time v Money

JamesFinister — Wed, 27 May 2009 06:30:38 +0000

One feature of the original ISEB scheme that we've lost is the element of time investment. If I look back on a two week manager's course slide pack from those days there are less slides in it than for a V3 Foundation course. The difference is the amount of additional material there was in the form of exercises and practical case studies. The emphasis was very much on understanding and applying, with a fair bit of personal development thrown in for good measure. We always ran the courses residentially because evening sessions were the norm. It seems hard to believe in the current world but we also used to recommend exam candidates got five days of study leave from their jobs.

The downside of this was that the courses could hardly be productionised, and the true cost of the course in time and money restricted the number of candidates, but those who attended were usually highly committed.

This was obviously a factor in introducing the Foundation course as a way of sheep dipping large numbers

I don't see how we could ever return to those days, or that it is wholly desirable to do so. I do think that the combination of the newly qualification scheme and current economic conditions mean that what we have in place now is not sustainable and requires a rethink.

James Finister
Wolston Limited
www.wolston.net
www.coreITSM.com
http://coreitsm.blogspot.com/

it's not brain surgery

skeptic — Wed, 27 May 2009 05:52:39 +0000

You know I agree.

I don't see why a well-experienced IT Ops person has to spend thousands, or TENS of thousands, of dollars for the "right" to run ITIL processes. Sure you have to get your head round ITIL to understand the talk and maybe even learn a new concept or two, but if you know your IT stuff and are half way smart it's not brain surgery.

But people love a slip of paper that says you know what you are doing, as if that could be tested by a few multichoice questions.

Good prediction

aroos — Wed, 27 May 2009 05:39:59 +0000

Your 2006 entry was a good prediction, I had not read it.

I would say that in some areas ITIL training and implementation is a fad. To me it looks like teambuilding in the 90's. There is nothing new or wrong in teams, teams work. The fad was the teambuilding training with rock climbing etc. It created a whole industry of trainers which was a good business for several years when every manager wanted to do a teambuilding exercise.

Itil is good but the massive certification program is the fad.

Her Royal Highness is doing OK

skeptic — Tue, 26 May 2009 18:57:44 +0000

I think Her Royal Highness is doing OK without the book royalties

Hames?

skeptic — Tue, 26 May 2009 18:55:00 +0000

"Hames: a pair of curved metal (or sometimes wooden) pieces lying on the horse collar of a horse harness, taking the pull from the traces "??

We invented the wheel

skeptic — Tue, 26 May 2009 18:53:17 +0000

We invented the wheel thousands of years ago but the hula hoop was still a fad. ITIL laid dormant for most of that time and you know it. ITIL may have been around two decades but the ADOPTION of ITIL veers dangerously towards faddishness.

It remains to be seen whether ITIL sticks. Will all the sites who rushed into ITIL still be "doing" ITIL in five years? Cult? definitely. Long-cycle-fad?...to be determined.