University ITSM

There are several videos from Charles Sturt University in Australia on YouTube about ITIL.  See them via this YouTube search.

Last Monday, as part of our Leadership Luncheon's series, the Fellows were given the opportunity to share a sandwich with one of the most inspirational leaders at Wake Forest University, Steve Reinemund. Serving as the dean of the newly merged business schools, Steve Reinemund is easily recognized as one of the most innovative leaders of our time. Praised for his ability to mentor and facilitate corporate relationships on all levels, Dean Reinemund shared a variety of insights with us, including his personal framework regarding successful professional and personal development.

A couple of weeks ago at the itSMF USA Higher Education SIG group on LinkedIn, I created a discussion topic:

Creating an IT Strategy

At the itSMF Fusion 2009 conference, I heard three different talks that related to creating an IT Strategy:

• http://itsm.is.wfu.edu/node/219

• http://itsm.is.wfu.edu/node/222

• http://itsm.is.wfu.edu/node/223

To over-simplify, a common thread between these three talks was that an IT strategic plan can become a communications tool for IT and the business, so that everyone understands where IT is going.

Does your University currently have an IT strategic plan? If so, how did you create it and how do you maintain it? Can you share it or link to it?

If your University does not have a plan, what are you doing to develop an IT strategic plan? How does your IT department communicate its vision with the rest of the University?

Here's a summary of the responses:

Our student worker went through our (physical) library and updated our LibraryThing account.  If you're interested, see our list of books!
Our collection has grown in a couple of ways: selective inheritance from previous collections, consciously buying reference texts on "best practice" such as the CMMI text, and cultivating an Amazon wishlist that we periodically review and purchase from.  The newest addition to our collection is the Lean Manager.

This past week I attended an Empowering Women event hosted by the Professional Development Center here at Wake Forest. The event featured Janet Ward Black of Ward Black Law, an accomplished lawyer and former NC Bar Association President. Mrs. Black spoke about career building in general as well as women’s past, present and future roles in the work place. As one of only four women to ever serve as the NC Bar Association President, Mrs. Black shared with us several personal stories as well as pieces of advice for career development and improvement.

Well, itSMF Fusion 2009 is over.  The only one I'd been to previously was itSMFusion 2007 in Charlotte, NC.  (If you're interested, see blog entries from 2007 and from 2009.)  I went to the academic forum for the first time, as well as the conference proper.

First off, Gaylord Hotels are BIG!!  Check out this movie from ServiceSphere:

Well, itSMFusion 2009 is over!  Here are my write-ups.  See also my write-ups from day one.

Day two

• (Kirk Weisler gave a keynote about being "positively contagious," which I didn't write up)
• itSMF Fusion 2009: IT Strategy--the Key to Getting Executive Support
• (I went to part of a good presentation about OLAs but had to step out)
• itSMF Fusion 2009: Release & Deployment Management: What the Books Didn't Tell You
• itSMF Fusion 2009: CSI--Just Click Your Heels and Sprinkle Pixy Dust... Right?

Day three

• itSMF Fusion 2009: Planning Business Manager and Customer ITIL Induction
• itSMF Fusion 2009: Roadmapping Service Management Success

Wil LeBlanc, currently from Safeway but previously with the Army, gave this presentation.  This presentation was very similar in concept to the itSMF Fusion 2009: IT Strategy--the Key to Getting Executive Support and itSMF Fusion 2009: Planning Business Manager and Customer ITIL Induction presentations.  Wil related his experience at the Army and at Safeway in implementing service management.

Malcom Fry gave this talk.  He is really funny and an engaging speaker.  His talk overlapped with the previous day's "IT Strategy--the Key to Getting Executive Support."  Here are some random notes from his talk:

Tom Pierce from AT&T gave this talk.  Essentially Tom made the following points:

• CSI doesn't get the attention it needs
• Someone in your organization should have explicit CSI duty
• ITIL calls out the role "CSI Manager" specifically for this purpose

Tom said that improvement has to follow the "farm" model: plant, cultivate, nurture, then harvest.  You can't plant and then harvest.