The IT Skeptic - Comments for "Muddled Management of Portfolios"

Frank, I agree with you but

Visitor — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 01:13:42 +0000

Frank, I agree with you but trying doing that within an organization that works on a shared services model?? is not so easy... I am with you but it damn difficult to make it happen.

Dan

Biased

skeptic — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 03:49:00 +0000

I confess I might be biased, since I contributed one tiny bit of the Service Strategy rewrite. *blush*

And as this post started out saying, I seldom really read a book any more and this one is no different. I have dipped and sampled and scanned. The "excellent" word springs to mind relative to the one it is replacing. This one has more explanation and more readability. I'm surprised you find it too theoretical. What can Service Strategy be about other than business theory? That's the point: to open ITSM eyes to more than process. And name one ITIL core book that has guidance on implementation.

I'll be the first to take potshots at the weaknesses as we find them. I dream of having the time to deconstruct it properly. I've already raised the Business Relationship naming issue on Twitter. But I find it useful and better, and so far it hasn't let me down badly. Was "excellent" too strong a word? I don't think so.

Besides, I'm sharing the marquee with David Cannon at the itSMF conference in South Africa next March, so I need to be polite for the beers to be enjoyable :)

Portfolios

guerino1 — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:21:21 +0000

Hi,

When someone talks to me in terms of Project or Program Portfolios and dismisses the vast inventory of all other types of relevant enterprise Portfolios that need to be accounted for and proactively managed, I usually get very quick insight into how much Business and/or IT experience he or she actually does (or doesn't) have.

My humble advice... When you come across a person that doesn't understand the many different types of Portfolios that are relevant to an enterprise, don't sit there and argue with them or try to re-educate them. Just move on to someone who does get it. This advice should scale easily to written artifacts that don't get it, either.

My Best,

FG
--
Frank Guerino, Chairman
The International Foundation for Information Technology (IF4IT)

I'm surprised you find the Strategy book "excellent"

Osama Salah — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:10:45 +0000

I'm only surprised that you find the Strategy book "excellent". But to be fair besides Business Relationship Management I haven't read anything else in the new revision (I find the one page ISO 20000 coverage of the subject more straight forward than the 30 pages of in ITIL. ITIL didn't say anything wrong, but after reading those pages I was more confused about the subject in terms of practical implementation).

I find the Strategy book too theoretical with little to no guidance for implementations. But if you insist it's excellent I'll give it another chance.

rgds
OS