Greg Sanker is a 24 year veteran of Hewlett-Packard, where he served in various Information Technology roles, including Network Operations Manager. He currently manages the Service Management Office for the Oregon Department of Revenue

Killing CAB, Part I: Standard Changes

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Hate CAB? You’re in good company if you do. I’ve never met someone who actually likes coming to CAB. What I come across far more often is people who hate ‘CAB’, and would rather do just about anything to avoid it.

Fusion 15: Five Simple Ways to Make the Most of the Premier Conference

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Fusion 15 is the premier ITSM conference – Part HDI conference, part ITSM conference, and new this year, DevOps Fusion. So much opportunity; so little time. Without a plan it’s easy to miss out on something important!.

A Lesson Hard Learned: Hiding Behind A Service Level Agreement

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But there is no joy in Mudville- mighty Casey has struck out. Ernest Lawrance Thayer penned those infamous words to describe the shocking strikeout of the odds-on favorite of The Mudville Nine.

Five things that should be on every CAB agenda

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What are we supposed to talk about at CAB? What should be on the CAB agenda?

IT Strategic Vision: The Land of Unicorns and Rainbows

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What do unicorns and rainbows have to do with IT Strategic Vision and Service Management? It’s an interesting tale, and if you read on, I’ll make it worth your while. Trust me.

Best Practices Don’t Make you Excellent!

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 “Best practices can only make you average. They stifle creativity and encourage ‘inside the box’ thinking.” I hear this all the time. But the truth is, best practices are what makes excellence possible, and I’ll tell you why.

What’s a RACI Chart and how do I use it?

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Misunderstandings make for good TV entertainment, but in ITSM, it’s not so funny. A RACI chart is a quick and easy way to create clarity. I have no clue who first created the RACI chart, but like most common sense, it likely was born out of necessity. I picture a  struggling team trying to figure …

OneTeam

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Earth to IT: we don’t care about your stupid internal bickering and blame games. We expect you to work together to help us solve our business problems. Your customers are under pressure to deliver results, and they don’t have patience for silos and tribalism. If you have a silo’d IT culture ~ it’s time to grow …

The Practitioner’s Dilemma: How to Adapt ITSM

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Trying to implement ITSM processes “by the book” is destined to fail. Practitioners must adapt best practices to meet the organization’s unique challenges. The Practitioner’s Dilemma Many newly trained and highly motivated folks head back to the office intent on trying to implement ITSM processes. Makes sense, right? But I’ve seen a wake of disaster …

Why ITSM Doesn’t Work in the Real World

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Feeling like the lone IT Service Management prophet, without honor in your home town? Knowing how much Service Management can help, but feeling it will never happen because of the huge gap between ‘here’ and ‘there’? Been there. Why IT’IL never work You’ve been to training. You know how it’s supposed to work. But there’s …

The surprising bonus value of CAB

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CAB is arguably the most widely adopted ITSM process, but its value goes far beyond Change Management. CAB rallies people  around a common cause; the perfect antidote for silos and fragmented service delivery. Didn’t see that one coming In What is an ITSM CAB: A Simple Explanation I talk about CAB evaluating changes for business …

Basic IT Request Fulfillment and Excellent Customer Service

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Calls are not all created equal.  Read how Basic IT Request Fulfillment can help you  stop ‘taking tickets’ and start actively managing excellence in  customer service. Life is like a box of chocolates Every Service Desk analyst can tell you; answering the phone is a bit like the box-of-chocolate effect – you can get a …

The Difference Between Standard and Normal Changes in ITSM

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Often times people confuse ‘Standard’ and ‘Normal’ Change in IT Change Management. There’s an important concept that gets missed when they’re mixed up. This article will help you keep them straight.  Scope of IT Change Management First things first. IT Change Management is a control process. In addition to its widely understood role of evaluating …

IT Improvement: Let’s Get This Party Started!

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 In IT, there are times for incremental improvements and other times when you just gotta start a revolution. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, the difference between the podium and obscurity in men’s high jump was a mere 10 centimeters. Dating back to the late 1800’s, high jump has been dominated by two major techniques: scissors …

Holding Still and The Illusion of IT Stability

Keeping your IT infrastructure stable while making necessary changes feels a bit like walking a tightrope without a net. A near-impossible feat requiring nimble balance The art of Tightrope Walking Nik Wallenda recently walked a tightrope over a quarter mile chasm near the Grand Canyon on live television  He did it with no safety harness; …

How to Implement Basic ITSM Problem Management

If you’re in IT, fixing the same issues again and again may not mean you’re insane, but it’s definitely driving your customers crazy! Stop the Insanity with Problem Management! Most organizations start looking at formal Problem Management when there’s a highly visible problem that they just can’t seem to fix. Customers are frustrated and complaining. …

What is a Service in ITSM?

Looking for a working definition of an ITSM Service? Is it Customer Service, or something more? Read on for a straight-forward explanation. Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve seen a lot of “Service Management” discussions lately where it’s clear those talking don’t share the same understanding of “service”. Unfortunately, it’s more than simple semantics. Service …

Enabling Excellence in IT Service Management

I expect excellence in myself and others. Excellence is relative to my current ability; always striving for continual  improvement. Excellence is pushing the limit of my current ability, the undying belief that I can do great things, and unrelenting commitment to achieve it. ~ Greg Sanker I started ITSMTransition with one goal – to Enable …

Six Problem Management Myths Busted (and One Confirmed!)

Just because every now and then, you call an IT issue a “problem” and resolve it, does not mean you’re doing problem management! — Joe the IT Guy Problem Management Myths Joe the IT Guy recently wrote about Problem Management: No Problemo on his blog (I highly recommend stopping by. Great stuff). While writing What is …

What is Basic ITSM Problem Management?

When Devo unleashed their infamous “When a problem comes along, you must whip it”, they did more than coin an icon of 80’s pop music. Let’s move ahead with Basic ITSM Problem Management. The Problem with ‘Problem’ So, what exactly is a ‘Problem’ In ITSM, a Problem is the underlying cause of one or more …