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Practical Service Management website launched! Practical Service Management launches on line, offering service management support and expertise at accessible prices for small businesses. The site supports small business with free resources, as well as providing support for service management implementations and access to big business experience and expertise at small business prices. itSMF Conference 2005 – Focus on Service Value This year’s itSMF conference in Brighton was the best attended yet, selling out with over a 1000 delegates. The conference was billed as ‘Pragmatic Service Management’, with a focus on real life experience and practical hints and tips from practitioners who have been there and done it. The presentations and workshops at the conference also reflected current trends in the service management industry – a shift away from academic style theory and qualifications, and towards experience and implementation credentials. OGC recognise ITIL is a set of guidelines, and many projects fail when interpreting these guidelines and adapting them into their own business model. Careful project planning is a must, as well as learning from the experiences of others in the industry. ITIL has been around for many years, but large scale implementation has come more recently and there are still many lessons to be learnt. Conference presenters and delegates also picked up on the industry trend towards service management articulated in value and business terms, rather than as defined by a single process such as change management. Service management implementations need to be based around a business ‘pain’ and to demonstrate value straight away. Ever shrinking IT budgets mean the business case for implementing ‘release management’ is hard to justify, but articulated in terms of increased business productivity, the cost justification is easy to see. Next year’s conference will be bigger than this year, and is moving from Brighton to Birmingham NEC. The number of delegates, presenters and vendors will be bigger than ever. As well as a chance to network and share war stories, these events provide a valuable chance to learn from the experience of others. More information can be found at www.itsmf.co.uk, or www.itsmf.com for international chapters. |