When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. - Hunter S. Thompson

27 March 2010

Reviewed briefly: "ITIL Lite" by Malcolm Fry

Reviewed: "ITIL Lite" by Malcolm Fry (ISBN 9780113312122)

SUMMARY: If you're thinking of implementing ITIL v3, read this book first. * * * * (4 out of 5 stars)

Malcolm Fry, who has been around the block a time or two in the IT Service Management (ITSM) world, is a big fan of ITIL v3.

But in the real world, especially when you're starting out, you may increase your chances of success if you only attempt to implement a core, defined subset of the full ITIL v3 lifecycle model.

His new book, "ITIL Lite", is about just that: being successful with a defined subset of ITIL. Mr Fry is writing about process improvement in the real world, as real people live it, every day, in real workplaces. He doesn't believe in jargon and The Next Big Thing in process wonkery means nothing to him. 

If you're thinking of implementing ITIL v3, read this book first.

Related: "ITIL Lite" article at BSM Review

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22 March 2010

Current events in snapshot form

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Maria the Korean Bride gets married in Raleigh, NC 

Western Union Building, 60 Hudson St Manhattan
 60 Hudson St, NYC, aka the Western Union building, from a morning walk in the rain

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Breakfast in Chapel Hill with Mark, Joyce and Carrie

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Drinks in NYC with Jamey, Inness, and Jeejo

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And Obama is Wellington. Afraid so, yes.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.

David Frum, "Health Care is the GOP's Waterloo", 22 March 2010, The National Post 

 

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