Entries in the category "Charlie Miles"

The digital landscape has changed the rules of business and has transformed how almost everything gets made, delivered, sold and bought. To keep pace, almost every organization has had to engage in some form of digital transformation. What does this mean for IT service management? Since digital transformation starts with and relies on how IT services are delivered and managed - it means a lot. Are you ready?

We often stress the importance of communications; but simply communicating is not enough. There is a lot of noise in our world today – a lot of chatter and a lot of words being uttered. What is truly important is effective communication, which, as I’ve witnessed, sadly tends to be lacking especially in business and within IT. I see a lot of talking to, not talking with. And, if we are completely honest with ourselves, at times we are all probably guilty of this.

The other day I was having trouble getting online from my home office. I had internet connectivity but couldn’t connect to any site. When I checked my internet connection, I realized that instead of my laptop connecting to my wireless router, it was connected to my refrigerator!

Shadow IT is not a new phenomenon, it has existed since technology, technical savvy and know-how left the Data Center. IT management has complained a lot about it, but generally has either not done anything about it, accepted it for what it is, or been unsuccessful in addressing it. But now it has become critical to address Shadow IT as it is, and will, continue to be a factor that is driving digital transformation in your organization.

If you know me, you know that I travel quite a bit. But something just happened to me that has never happened before; my airline lost me.

First, a quick back story: Recently, I flew out of Phoenix to Burbank, and had quite an enjoyable flight experience (I was upgraded to first class!) – it was a short, smooth, comfortable flight on a nice early autumn day. My flight back, however, was a different story. When it was time to check in for my return flight at the end of the week my reservation was no longer active. I called the customer support line, and the customer service rep said, “according to our system you were a no-show for the flight out of Phoenix, therefore the reservation was canceled.”

Being a sports fan, I often find service management analogies in sports. So in honor of the beginning of football season, I would like to present the similarities between a football team’s season success to the success or failure of service management (although I do realize this may prevent me from being invited to your Super Bowl party!)

My premise: A team full of great football players may not always be the best team in the league, or even win many games for that matter.

I am struck by the volume and frequency of talk in our industry around the need for better collaboration and communication in business and IT today. We have been talking about this for a very long time and even more so with the increased prominence of Agile, Lean, and DevOps.

I often ask clients and students how important collaboration and communication is to the success of their work and organization, and the answer is always “important.” My follow-up question is how effective is communication and collaboration in your organization, and invariably the responses range from OK, fair to poor. I do this to illustrate a point: why does this gap exist?

It may come as a surprise that this is my first-ever blog post, considering that I have been a traveling consultant and trainer for 18 years now. I speak publicly, have authored a few white papers and spent most of my time in front of clients. But when it comes to blogging and tweeting, I seem to have this fear of putting myself ‘out there’ on the Internet. However, something happened to me recently which I feel a strong desire to blog about.

I was recently robbed while traveling on business. I had set my computer bag down and didn’t pay attention to it…and when I did, the bag was gone. The bag included my entire personal and professional life; my credit cards, IDs, and my computer. Lesson learned: be extra diligent of your surroundings and your belongings!