Two weeks – two conferences and a blog post on two recurring themes: ITIL® 4 and Self-Service Portals. Last week was an itSMF meeting at Glasgow University. This week the UniDesk 2019 Conference up at University of Highlands and Islands at their main Inverness campus. Conferences provide a great opportunity to network and find out […]
Over the last 12 years, we’ve had 516 University of Edinburgh staff complete ITIL Foundation training and at the end of May, we ran our first ITIL4 Foundation, adding another 14 names to the list. I was one of the attendees on this course, sitting an ITIL Foundation for the third time (I can tell […]
A situation when in the opinion of the master, the vessel, vehicle, aircraft or person is in grave and imminent danger and requires immediate assistance. International conventions (SOLAS, COLREG) clearly establish when a distress signal (such as a “Mayday” call) may be made. These same conventions bind those that receive a distress signal to respond in a particular way. Our […]
There’s a subreddit called “ATBGE” which stands for “Awful Taste… But Great Execution!” What lurks within is a lasting testament to the possibility of perfectly implementing a thing of no value. Or worse. Worse such as when a design, despite flawless execution, actively goes against the purpose of the thing to which it’s being applied. […]
Problem Analysis is probably the most well known of the Kepner-Tregoe thinking processes, and the one referenced in the ITIL textbooks. Almost certainly your current job description includes a “problem solving” section, yet I suspect that problem solving rarely proceeds via a systematic process and instead is often intuitive and sporadic. How many times has […]
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts – for support rather than for illumination.” Andrew Lang So you need to do reporting and you think that adding categories and subcategories will be the solution? But what if you are wrong? Sometimes the obvious go-to solution is not the optimal solution; neither for […]
ITIL has been designed to use a common language to describe processes and functions as clearly as possible. Incident Management is a good example of this. Incident Management is the most mature of the ITIL processes that we use here at The University of Edinburgh. The process was designed in collaboration with the University […]
Hi folks, Matt here again! One of the first big changes that I was responsible for after coming into post as Change Manager, was to implement a regular, weekly CAB. You can thank James Jarvis for the name: Go CAB. If you didn’t already know that James came up with that name, you might have […]
What’s happening? This is the first and most repeated question in a major incident or critical continuity event. Situation Appraisal is the Kepner-Tregoe thinking process designed to answer this question. The steps are simple in theory: Identify (and log) concerns/issues Set priority Plan next steps Manage involvement However in practice, folk tend to leap all […]
When I started my new job I had to get used to having a job title that some people don’t understand. Previously I was the ‘User Support Manager’, a fairly self explanatory job title, I managed User Support, IS Helpline and the User Support Team. But now? ITIL Manager? What (or who) is ITIL? What […]
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