The IT Skeptic - Comments for "Crap Factoid Alert: CMDB savings of more than $1 million per year "

selective savviness

JoePearson — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:29:36 +0000

Hmm. There certainly are credulous people ... but I tend to find them mostly in the vendors. I've been on the sales side of these things, and my colleagues in-country would leap at this kind of thing from "head office" and make press releases, slap it into proposal etc. So did I, of course, but cynically and with my fingers crossed behind my back. *ahem*

Maybe South African customers are more conditioned to expect and recognise marketing lies? :)

eta: very few people anywhere properly understand statistics, and not many get scientific method. I'd agree with that. When I say "savvy" I mean people can spot marketing bs without necessarily needing to prove that it's bs.

crud credulosity

skeptic — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 09:03:55 +0000

I've not met many people in this industry savvy about statistics and science. The majority of those I meet believe this crud. And even those smart enough to know better seldom have the time to think about it. I don't think it is quoted cynically, I think it is mostly quoted credulously.

It's criminal but customers expect it

JoePearson — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:21:51 +0000

Cary King already asked "questionable claims accepted as normal puffery that is to be expected?" I say yes. Most savvy customers know that marketing pitches containing this kind of fertiliser are full of nonsense. They will freely use it to persuade less savvy decision makers and budget holders, and more power to them.

In a sense. Of course it dumbs down, or demeans, the whole industry, and especially the trade press. (Publishing such claims as "research" is just another piece of puffery that savvy customers know all about.)

Sad.

Yes, I've thought "B.S.

JoePearson — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:17:08 +0000

Yes, I've thought "B.S. Management" too :) :) :)

(Punt reference in my blog? Naaa ... let's keep it clean)

the usual error

jvbon — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:48:31 +0000

This is a very classic error. ITIL doesn't require anything - it's what people make of it. ITIL simply is a reference document that can guide you in managing IT services. Some of its content is very valuable, some content is less valuable, and - sadly - the documentation lacks a good architecture (and certainly a good management). But it doesn't claim to have that architecture, so what's the point? ITIL claims less more than offering guidance for a set of "good practices". This simply makes ITIL a valuable reference document on some management issues that many IT shops are confronted with. But to *implement* this guidance you need more - and that's exactly what discriminates a competent consultant from the ignorant believer.

ITIL useless

Jon — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:25:48 +0000

No wonder our economy is in the toilet. With ITIL you need 50 managers for every process. These prodcuts, CMDB or otherwise all demand micromanagement of every little process. Then it chokes the living **** out of prodcutivity let alone innovation. What is the collective cost worth.

Caveat Emptor

Cary King — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:51:18 +0000

I wonder how others respond to this.

When vendors, or consultants, make questionable claims does it reduce their credibility?

Or, are questionable claims accepted as normal puffery that is to be expected?

And, does the perception of this sort of thing depend on whether you're already a customer of that particular vendor or a customer of some other vendor?

Cary King
Minerva Enterprises
Managing Partner
www.MinervaE.com

BS Management

Former BMC Employee — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:23:47 +0000

Yeah, BMC has been shoveling it for years now. Shortly before I left, they started a big initiative called, "Business Service Management". A few of us in our local office tried to figure out what it all meant (how our products or focus would change), but it turned out to just be a lot of hot air. After that, we started referring to it as "B.S. Management". You can probably figure out what that stood for. :)

Hand out the parachutes

Red Pineapple — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 08:49:29 +0000

I think Chokey can hand out the parachutes. :-)

Did you see there was a PinkVerify V3 with BMC having the first shoe-in?

Good feedback already from

skeptic — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:48:00 +0000

Good feedback already from the author of the news article referred to. Chris seems to be one of the better IT journalists around - he's actually looking for an objective view, not just processing press releases.

As well as correcting the "per year" bit he says:

I was uncomfortable about this story form the beginning, thus the "disclosure" note near the top. But I just hadn't seen much ROI info on CMDBs and figured at least it was a start to a conversation among companies thinking about investing in them.

I've had some really thoughtful offline responses to this story already, including the view that so much of CMDB information has not been proven in production situations that there is no way accurate projections on ROI and business viability can be made. On paper, they sure look interesting.

Also, we need to remember that this whole research job is designed to offer as best a projection as possible on ROI, and nothing else.

Forrester Research is a firm I trust to get at the truth, so when I saw they were doing the study, I felt a little better. But still, having a company (BMC) pay for research it really wants to see is a conflict of interest no matter how you look at it. You usually get what you pay for, and BMC did just that.

Amen.