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Process Maturity Matters

One of the key findings or our most recent research study is that process maturity matters!  That is, organizations with higher levels of process maturity for key IT controls got more measurable performance gain than those that implemented the same
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Metrics That Matter - Part 4 Server to Sysadmin Ratio

Fourth in a four part series on key metrics related to the IT Controls Performance Study. In virtually every vocation, there are simple organizational indicators that are used to benchmark effectiveness and efficiency. A sales organization may want to
posted by Gene Kim | 0 Comments
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Metrics That Matter - Part 3 - Change Success Rate

In my previous Metrics that Matter posts, I discussed how high performing IT organizations use mean time to repair (MTTR) and first fix rate (FFR).  In this post, I'll excerpt from my recent article that covered another metric that stratified
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Metrics That Matter - Part 1 - Mean Time to Repair

I'm writing a series of artcles on metrics related to Visible Ops.  I'm posting the intro to each, with link to full article. Please leave comments.  Regards.  Gene. High performers know that 80% of all outages are due to a change, and
posted by Gene Kim | 3 Comments
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Health IT

Healthcare organizations are rushing to implement information technologies for a variety of reasons including cost pressures and regulatory mandates.  This drive to implement electronic medical record (EMR) systems and the increasing level of automation

Executive Commitment to Change Process

I've just completed interviews with11 top performing IT organziations to look for common change, configuration, and release practices that are responsible for performance breakthrough. One of the common themes that emerged from these interviews was that
posted by kurtmilne | 0 Comments
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The Stick - additional training as gentle deterrent

One more post on the use of consequences as a way to enforce documented procedures - then we'll move on to the use of the carrot. Here is a link to an article that offers an interesting idea.  It highlights a technique to help enforce security related
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The Stick - or just the threat

In part one of “The Stick” we explored various types of consequences can be administered.  My opinion, based on my management experience, is that consequences must be consistently applied.  In fact harsh consequences that are randomly applied
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The carrot and the stick – the stick.

The goal of the first phase of Visible Ops is to get control of the change process. A key success factor for this non-trivial goal is thoughtful application of the carrot and the stick.  If you don’t take intentional steps to encourage those
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Does VO Assume Many ITIL Processes are in Place?

A while back I was asked if Visible Ops presupposes that the Service Desk and Incident Management ITIL processes are already in place because we touch on them in the book but don’t go into any detail about how to set them up.   To explain, Visible
posted by George Spafford | 0 Comments
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Isn’t There More to ITIL than what Visible Ops Covers?

One question that comes up is, “Why doesn’t Visible Ops cover more of ITIL?”  This is understandable as ITIL is comprised of a number of books with the Service Support and Service Delivery volumes comprising the core.  The answer is fairly straightforward
posted by George Spafford | 1 Comments
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Avoid Making a Nervous Change Detection System

In the Visible Ops methodology, we stress the use of automatic change detection systems.  To accrue the benefits, it is important that the tools be implemented correctly.  The reason for this caveat is that the improper use of a change detection
posted by George Spafford | 0 Comments
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Detected Changes are Incidents

As we cover in Visible Ops, the use of a detective change control can really reinforce the adoption of Change Management and then be used to report all changes thus allowing for tighter control of operations, an improved security posture, and so on. 

What is a Rollback Plan?

We live in a very complex world that is getting more so every day.  There are so many variables that exist in our systems that it is very conceivable that even a well planned change may fail during implementation into production.  I always like
posted by George Spafford | 0 Comments
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Why Change Management before Configuration Management?

In ITIL, Configuration Management is the process that provides accurate and timely information to other process areas.  For Change Management, it provides key relationship and stakeholder information so the Change Manager can assess the potential
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