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The essential functions:

ITIL v3's "Service Operation" text describes several Service Operation functions: the Service Desk, Technical Management, IT Operations Management, and Application Management. So what is "application management"?

Application management is a function that takes care of applications through the entire application life cycle. "Function" here means a group of people and the tools that group uses. Application management is not a process: it is a function. Application management understands the application: why it was chosen, how it was built, and how it functions.

I've discussed before how "Lean" principles could be applied to IT services. Lean.org has some texts about Lean as applied to services, and there is a LOT of material about Lean in Healthcare--but I haven't seen any material so far about Lean in IT specifically.

Recently I've been reading "Seeing the Whole," a book about getting upstream and downstream companies in your value stream to work together, which has gotten me thinking again about Lean. I've got three things on the mind:

1. request fulfillment seems like IT's "engine," the process by which IT provides much of its value.
2. defects are problems, and ITIL's service lifecycle could learn from Lean's "stopping the production line" when defects are found
3. you must have accountability for all your services

No formal guidance exists, to my knowledge, describing how to marry project management, software development, and ITIL together. Yet these three areas almost always exist, and overlap, in an IT organization.

Previously I've written about project management and change management, but here I'm talking about more generally how you could fit the PMBOK, CMMI and/or Agile development, and ITIL together.

Here is my advice:

• Acknowledge you must interpret the guidance
  

This week I have been taking the Operational Support and Analysis support ITIL capability module class from taruu.com. This class essentially covers Service Operation. Specifically, the main areas include event management, incident management, request fulfillment, problem management, access management, and the Service Operations functions such as the Service Desk.

One of the neat things about the second-level classes is that they can focus more on how to apply ideas. The class is primarily exercise-focused rather than lecture-focused: for example, we roleplay how you would talk with a CEO about Service Management. The classes are almost as much about leadership and presentation as they are about the material.

Today Jack Probst presented to the itSMF Higher Education Special Interest Group (SIG). The presentation is to be posted on the SIG web site. The CMDB and the service catalog are very closely related. The CMDB starts with services anyways, and the service catalog is the list of services. Potential service catalog categories:

• Application Based Services (e.g. Customer Support Services)
• Hosting Services (e.g. Data Center services)
• Desktop Services (e.g. mobile devices)
• Shared Services (e.g. data LAN)
• IT Professional Services (e.g. Service Management, Procurement)

Last week we attended EDUCAUSE's Southeast Regional Conference 2009. We gave a couple of presentations related, more or less, to IT Service Management, and heard several others that you could call IT Service Management as well. The "Defending the IT Budget" presentation, for example, was about financial management.

The itSMF Higher Education SIG also has a virtual meeting coming up.

The itSMF Special Interest Group (SIG) for Higher Education is going to have its next event, June 17. It doesn't look like the SIG's web site is updated yet, so here are the details:

Speaker
Jack Probst, Principal Consultant, Pink Elephant

WHEN:
Wednesday, June 17th, 1:00-2:00 pm EDT

COST:
Free

REGISTRATION

Cross-posted to http://www.educause.edu/blog/borwick/SummaryIntegratedbyDesignAMode/173227.

Robert Thacker from Southern Polytechnic State University gave this presentation, "Integrated by Design: A Model and Methodology for a Sustainable, Integrated Enterprise Information System."

Cross-posted to http://www.educause.edu/blog/borwick/SummaryDevelopingStaffPosition/173074.

Zane Phipps and Matthew Silverman from George Mason University gave this presentation on "Developing Staff Position Descriptions from an Organizational Perspective."