Stuart Rance, HP
‘How to define Availability for real IT Services’
Many organisations define availability requirements for their IT Services using a very simplistic 99.9% or 5 9s figure, without any clear understanding of what these numbers might mean, how they could be measured, or how they might plan to achieve them. This often leads to dissatisfaction, with the IT organisation reporting that they have met their goals even though the customer is not satisfied with the service they are receiving. This presentation will describe successful approaches that have been adopted to define and measure service availability for different types of customers and services.
Stuart delivers a wide range of services to HP's customers in the UK and other countries, including service management and information security management assessment and gap analysis, designing and managing service improvement programs, developing and implementing processes and developing and delivering ITIL V2 and V3 training. Stuart also works in a worldwide role in HP, as the global lead of HP’s Service Management Profession, responsible for facilitating knowledge sharing, personal and career development, mentoring, and competency for a group of over 5,000 service management professionals.
Kevin Holland, NHS
‘I’ve looked at Clouds from both sides now’
Cloud Computing, Grid Computing, and Software as a Service are already a reality, yet only a few people in IT service management have started to understand what it means to them. It would be unwise to ignore this technological dynamic world of distributed environments, dynamic reconfiguration, on-demand capacity, and virtualisation. Even though the concepts of Cloud etc. are founded on providing services, not technology, traditional approaches to ITSM will struggle to work in this brave new world. It is imperative that service management embrace working with their technical, application, and operational colleagues all the way from design through to operations, otherwise technological marvels will become service catastrophes. This presentation will highlight the challenges of these technologies in terms of service management, and will offer some potential solutions, adapting and adopting tried and tested methods.
Kevin has worked in IT and service management for over 25 years, specialising in the introduction and improvement of IT services using techniques such as Lean. He is currently the Head of Service Quality Improvement for the NHS National Programme for IT. Kevin is well known for giving thought provoking presentations at service management events. He is an active member of the APMG and ISEB V3 examination boards, ITIL V3 CAB, and the BSI ISO 20000 committee. He is also involved in the development of publications on all aspects of IT Service Management and in developing service management professionalism in the UK public sector. Kevin is currently involved in designing the service management frameworks for the Government Cloud programme.
Mark Russell, Ernst & Young
‘Value added audits’
Many IT organisations are subject to a range of audits – quality audits, ISO audits, internal audits, client audits, SAS 70 audits. It can almost feel as if service management and operations teams spend more time answering the same questions from a range of different auditors than actually delivering services. However, audits can add true value to both IT and the business by highlighting areas for improvement, bringing insights from elsewhere, and bringing together technical and non technical teams. This presentation will highlight ways to make audits deliver value, and will offer practical advice on how service management and operations can make sure that this happens.
Mark is a Senior Manager in Ernst & Young’s Advisory practice. He has been working in the area of IT risk, assurance and control for over 20 years now. His current focus is on working with outsourcers to help them provide assurance to their users about the controls operated on behalf of those users, typically via mechanisms such as SAS 70 and ITF 01/07.
Julie Cousins, BT
‘Blending IT and Service Management cultures – Getting the mix right’
Most IT organisations, no matter what size, face the same challenge: Just how do you bridge the gap between IT and Service Management, and between technicians and processes, against a background of often wildly different cultures and drivers? This presentation will take you through how BT successfully addressed this challenge to achieve joint technical and service excellence. You will hear about what worked, and what didn’t work, and come away with practical advice on how to bring together the technical and non-technical cultures in your IT organisation to the benefit of your customers.
Julie has been in IT and service management for over 15 years, with experience in a range of areas. She is currently the Process and Quality Assurance Manager for BT Health NHS Service Operations Centre. In recent years she has been instrumental in what has been a massive change in the culture of IT support, moving from an IT business supporting “tin” to a Customer focussed, Service Management culture.
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