IT Service Management at LEADit – It’s as Easy as ABC

With an awesome 674 delegates (its biggest turnout yet), we were not left disappointed by our first visit to the Annual itSMF Australia Conference and Exhibition (LEADit). The passion for knowledge, the enthusiasm of IT professionals, the amazing presenter line up of IT service management (ITSM) speakers, the first-class entertainment, and the penguin, made this a truly unrivalled event. A huge thank you to the remarkable team at itSMF Australia, we had a blast.

From speaking with delegates at our booth (when Joe The IT Guy let people step away from him and the camera that is) and also managing to catch a couple of presentations ourselves, it seemed to be that the main theme running throughout the conference was “Attitude, Behaviour and Culture” aka The ABC of IT – aka the human aspect of ITSM and service delivery. Essentially we have to remember that IT isn’t about the technology (yes you did just hear a technology provider say that), it’s about the business and it’s about people.

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There were plenty more messages to be heard throughout the conference as well (most of which seemed to be underlined by ABC) and overall a great deal to learn from. It’s impossible for us to do justice to all of them, so instead we’ve listed what key takeaways we brought back from the event (with some suggestions for further reading for those who weren’t fortunate enough to attend).

Key Takeaways

• Agile methodologies in ITSM are gaining ground. This message was even more evident as Axelos announced a new PRINCE2 Agile Best Practice Framework.
• Continual service improvement (CSI) is vitally important to your organization. Every IT professional should spend at least 5% of their time improving what they do.
• ITIL is not the only global framework (don’t forget that!). It’s important for IT Professionals to have a good understanding of all frameworks and what value they can provide, COBIT5 for example.
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs) need to support end-to-end business; they should not be overly technology-focused.
• IT is not merely a technology operation it is an enabler of business (it is the business!). The Service Desk should be a hub of value creation.

A Little More Information

As not everyone was lucky enough to attend the event, we thought it might be useful to pull together a list of recommended reading (and watching) to help you learn more about these key takeaways. First of all, you should start by familiarizing yourself with your ABC’s with this great paper from Paul Wilkinson. Then dive into:

• Continual Service Improvement (CSI) – The Most Important Service Management Process – Stuart Rance
• Applying Agile principles to Service Management – Simon Morris
• The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win – Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford
• If You Don’t Have an SLA, You’re Delivering Bad Service – Hanan Baranes
• A COBIT 5 Overview (Webinar) – ISACA

Other Topics

Advice was provided on a wide variety of other ITSM topics as well, such as:

• Using Service Integration and Management (SIAM) to improve the delivery of your IT services
• Migrating to the Cloud
• BYOD benefits and strategy
• The importance of customer experience – ITSM is not just about technology
• Service Desk training and employees

For these we recommend taking a look at the following:

• Service Integration and Management (SIAM) – the New Discipline? (webinar) – Kevin Holland
• 6 Steps to Successfully Migrate Your Organization to Cloud – Oded Moshe
• How ITSM Needs to Change to Support BYOD – Karen Ferris
• High Touch, Transparency, and Good Customer Service – Hanan Baranes
• What Makes a (Super) Service Desk Manager – Joe The IT Guy

Over the course of the next few weeks we’ll also endeavor to write some “how to get started” articles on these main topics (e.g. “how to get started with DevOps”). Too often at events we find ourselves discussing the “why” but rarely explaining the “how”. So don’t forget to check back for those.

Overall

LEADit was a fabulous event and one that we would recommend to any IT professional, not just in Australia, but worldwide. It’s not the only event itSMF Australia runs either, there are plenty of regional events to choose from. Don’t just take it from us though, check out the Twitter stream to see what others in the ITSM community are saying (you’ll likely pick up a few more gems of knowledge by reading through these tweets too).

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