There are of course a lot more organizations arranging ITSM events than the local Chapters of itSMF ; both commercial and non-commercial organizers . One such event is the annual “ Service Manager Dag ( Day )” in the Netherlands arranged by the local Dutch IT society NGI-NGN . This year the event took place on March 23 rd in the charming city of Amersfoort approximately 50 km southeast of Amsterdam . The venue was an old train garage and the rustic interior contributed positively to the atmosphere of the event , together with the 300 + participants , the sponsors and their stands , the speakers and the toastmaster Mark Smalley . Like so many other conferences there were quite a few international speakers and participants , including yours truly . The conference program had several key-notes and four breakout tracks , all marked with Dutch or English flags , indicating the language . Since my Dutch is somewhat limited to say the least it made my selection of track sessions a lot easier . Below is a little overview of the sessions I chose , without going into the details . Mark Smalley of course welcomed everybody and explained some of the practical details for the day . First key-note was Niels Loader from Quint Wellington Redwood , who emphasized the challenges and changes ahead of us as service managers . Next key-note was a welcoming reunion with Mike Orzen , whom I last met at the itSMF Norway conference back in 2012 . This time Mike spoke about lean IT , DevOps , learning cycles and continuous learning . Later on the day Mike reminded me that during breakfast back in 2012 I promised to invite him for the itSMF Denmark conference . I have now forwarded the latest call for speakers to him . Final key-note for the morning was professor Rini van Solingen . Just using a flip-over he gave a very interesting presentation with the title “ The Responsive Enterprise ”. On one page , he had written three numbers : 1543 , 1687 and 1859 . They appeared to be years , but what exactly happened those years ? He revealed that 1543 was the year Copernicus discovered that the earth wasn ’ t the center of the universe , 1687 was the year Newton made his second law and 1859 Darwin published his book “ On the Origin of Species ”. But to fully understand how this fits with ITSM you need to see it live or a recording . 10 itSMFI Forum Focus — June 2017
After the break , the break-out sessions started . I chose to listen to Dr . Martin Goble from TCS in the UK and the session “ The road to SIAM ”. Service Integration And Management is a hot topic at the moment . Martin did a good job of explaining what SIAM is and gave some good examples , of both successful and some not so successful implementations . Next break-out session was with Benno Peperkamp , who , based on a thesis on a research program , gave a presentation with the title “ Successful IT sourcing constructs : The tension between trust and formal contract ”. A somewhat theoretical presentation , but quite interesting in my opinion . After lunch , there was one more key-note by Paul Bessems . The subject being blockchain and how that will change our lives , especially our work life . First afternoon break-out for my part was one more session on SIAM . This time with Claire Agutter on the SIAM Body of Knowledge and the SIAM Foundation education and certification . I ’ ve since started on the SIAM e-learning and will bring a review later of this education . Also interesting to hear that work is in progress for the next level of education . The final session I could participate in was with Rob Akershoek , one of the key architects behind IT4IT from the OpenGroup . A lot of information on the framework and how it can be applied . IT4IT is also one of the hot topics at the moment . An important part of any conference is of course networking . I had the pleasure to meet people I had only met in cyberspace including Barclay Rae from the UK , Christian Tijsmans from Belgium , Mark O ' Loughlin from Ireland , Daniel Breston from the UK / US and Aala Roos from Finland . I also met with “ the usual suspects ” such as Sofi Fahlberg from Norway , Elina Pirjanti from Switzerland / Finland , Simone Jo Moore from France / Australia and Kaimar Karu from UK / Estonia . And , not the least , people from the events committee including Dave van Herpen , Gerard de Jong , Robert de Koning , Philippe Lardinois , Murat Kocamis , Stephen Ley , Maarten Bordewijk and especially Ester van der Wal , whom I suspect had a big stake in the successful execution of the event . More information about the conference can be found here .