itSMFI 2017 Forum Focus - June Forum Focus ITSMFI | Page 23

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Robert Lilley - Continuous Integration In An Integrated
World
Jayne Groll - How to Make ITSM Your New DevOps’
Best Friend
Dave Hayes - Infrastructure as Code and why it
matters to you
Philip Whitmore - Where's The S - A Focus On Security
In A DevOps And Agile World
On the last day of the conference I took part in a panel
titled “Is DevOps something new?”. It was an interesting
discussion, but I was particularly struck by one Twitter
comment which suggested that t he panel would have
benefitted from more DevOps practitioners. I certainly
can’t argue with this. While some of the panellists have
substantial DevOps background, and all of us have a
strong interest in DevOps, there’s naturally going to be a
bit of a bias towards people with an ITSM background at
an ITSM conference. However, in view of the importance
of DevOps with respect to the future of ITSM, I think we
need to put much more effort into building collaborative
partnerships with DevOps practitioners.
The main point that I took away from all this is that
DevOps is now completely mainstream.
Many IT
organizations are using ideas from DevOps to structure
how they work, and ITSM practitioners who cling to old
ways are going to find life extremely difficult. DevOps
doesn’t mean that you don’t need ITSM any more, but it
certainly means that you need to change how you do
ITSM. If you can focus on the PURPOSE of the things you
do, rather than on the exact steps that you have always
followed, then you should be able to navigate your way to
a solution that works for you.
Culture Change
Culture change was not advertised as a specific theme of
the conference. It emerged as a theme for me as I
listened to speakers explaining how the culture of the IT
departments they worked in had changed over the last
few years. These were practical presentations, about real
organizational transformation, and it was a pleasure to
hear ITSM practitioners talking about how they have made
a difference to the organizations they work for. In each
case the need was the same; to move from an
internally-focussed technology-driven culture to an
externally-focussed customer-driven one.
problems the IT departments faced, and the specific
solutions they implemented, there was one common
feature facilitating cultural change; The culture
transformation had been led by a passionate and
committed senior manager. I have seen many IT
organizations try to change their culture and fail, and
these examples confirm something I have long believed;
sponsorship from senior leadership is essential to making
culture change happen. It was heartening to hear about
organizations that have achieved genuine change in their
service culture because a passionate senior leader has
had the drive, skills, knowledge and commitment to
make this happen.
I guess if we’re going to have a conference that talks
about DevOps and ITSM it’s not too surprising to find that
culture change is going to feature prominently. What
made this conference such a pleasure for me was the
opportunity to listen to accounts of the process that
were based, not on theory, but on first-hand practical
experience.
Some final reflections
The most noticeable thing for me was that we have
moved on from talking about ITSM processes to talking
about how IT should be managed if we want to create
real value for our customers. The format has also moved
on. There are still many sessions that have a speaker at
the front with PowerPoint slides, but there are also a
range of different approaches. As well as the service
bazaar that I described earlier there were many panel
discussions, covering topics such as “Women in IT”,
“Career Paths”, and “Is DevOps something new”.
The challenge we face now is to think about what future
ITSM conferences can do to help people learn about 21 st
century ITSM. What new approaches can we take? Who
should we be collaborating with and how do we develop
that collaboration? I’d love to see future conferences
build on these ideas and help take ITSM to new heights.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering about the image in this
blog. It is a photo of the gift that the conference
organizers gave me. It’s a delightful piece of flax weaving
made in New Zealand.
There were two sessions that had a particularly big impact
on me. These were:
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Andy Keiller, University of Canterbury - Nurture the
Culture
Rebecca Wilson & Setu Lepaio, Inland Revenue
Department - Creating a Service Lead culture - what
does that even mean?
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What I found most interesting was that, despite the many
differences between the organisations involved, the
23 itSMFI Forum Focus—June 2017
Stuart Rance—Optimal Service Management