November 2002 Meeting Recap

HDI – NE Chapter – November 2002 Meeting – Marlborough location: Topic: ITIL – Surrounding the Service Desk Speaker: David Pultorak, founder of Pultorak & Associates, Erdenheim, PA This was a very informative meeting. There were 24 people in attendance. At the last minute, David could not get away from a client site in Texas to be present for his presentation. He emailed his Powerpoint presentation to Robin Whitman, President of the HDI New England Chapter and worked with the Verizon Learning Center to have a speaker phone set up and the equipment needed to do the presentation remotely. Chuck Kelley, VP Membership for the New England Chapter was at the keyboard to change slides and keep the presentation moving forward. David began his presentation explaining ITIL does indeed surround the service desk, but not like the “Raptors” in the movie Jurassic Park, closing in for the kill, but in a much more friendly and positive way. As we all know, the Service Desk cannot stand alone. So what are the processes surrounding the Service Desk? Well, that is what David outlined for us in the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and the Microsoft Operations Framework. See below: This graphic shows how the Service Desk function is surrounded by other business operations of IT. It is so important to set up standards to judge by. You need to understand the process, the role of the processes and where they fit within the IT organization. Once you have this understanding, you can then apply this knowledge to the Service Desk. What is ITIL? It’s a lot of common sense written down! It’s a set of industry products, services and organizations. It was developed in the UK in the 1980’s. The most recent edition came out in 2000-2001. The purpose of it? To create a set of comprehensive, consistent and coherent codes of Best Practice for quality IT service management, promoting business effectiveness in the use of IT. It has been used in the United States since 1997. David recommended training in ITIL. There are three phases of training. Foundation Certification – This will give you a basic understanding of the 10 ITIL service delivery and support processes and Service Desk functions. This is a 2-3 day class, with a multiple choice 1 hour exam to pass for certification. Practitioner Certification – Need to have taken Foundation Certification first. This is a deep understanding on ONE of the 10 processes. This is a 2-3 day class and 2 hour essay exam. For example, if you are responsible for Change Management in your organization, then taking the Practitioner Certification Class on Change Management would be a benefit for you. Service Manager Certification – Foundation Certification necessary first. This is a deeper understanding of the 10 ITIL service delivery and support processes. It is a 2 to 3 week training class. This also has 2x3 hour essay exams to pass for certification. David suggested the first class should be taken by all IT professionals since it has essential information that IT professionals use 80 percent of their day. He also recommended that people apply what they learned for at least a year before going on to the next class, and then wait again to apply the knowledge before taking the final class (it is more of a “Master’s Degree” in certification for ITIL.) It’s very comprehensive and complex. David also recommended reading books on ITIL. His website is: www.pcbit.pultorak.com. This is a great website to visit for additional information and links to other ITIL sites. HDI-NE Home Page Underwritten by GroupSoft Systems, Inc. HDI-NE Chapter is solely responsible for the content of this site.