terminology and document/process structure can appear more complex than they are in reality, especially to organisations that have made progress in using ITIL V2 to improve their own processes. This in itself is to be expected as part of the change process - homeostasis suggests that changes are well examined before being accepted. Sharon Taylor, ITIL V3 Chief Architect, spent some time refuting the "nay sayers", in an entertaining way, in her keynote at the recent itSMF UK conference.
Conclusion
In our view, the industry continues to move forward quite rapidly which means we all need to keep on our toes! The backlash section may seem negative, but to our mind it implies that most of the principles do in fact remain the same even if the terminology changes. We do need to avoid getting caught up in the hype of new fads and buzzwords, and yet also remain open-minded enough to recognise genuine progress.
Happy New Year and keep reading!
About the author
Brad Appleton is a software CM/ALM solution architect and lean/agile development champion at a large telecommunications company. Currently he helps projects and teams adopt and apply lean/agile development and CM/ALM practices and tools. He is coauthor of the bookSoftware Configuration Management Patterns, a columnist in The CM Journal and The Agile Journal at CMCrossroads.com, and a former section editor for The C++ Report. You can read Brad's blog at blog.bradapp.net.
About the author
Steve Berczuk is an engineer and ScrumMaster at Humedica where he's helping to build next-generation SaaS-based clinical informatics applications. The author of Software Configuration Management Patterns: Effective Teamwork, Practical Integration, he is a recognized expert in software configuration management and agile software development. Steve is passionate about helping teams work effectively to produce quality software. He has an M.S. in operations research from Stanford University and an S.B. in Electrical Engineering from MIT, and is a certified, practicing ScrumMaster. Contact Steve at steve@berczuk.com or visit berczuk.com and follow his blog at blog.berczuk.com.
About the author
Robert Cowham has long been interested in software configuration management while retaining the attitude of a generalist with experience and skills in many aspects of software development. A regular presenter at conferences, he authored the Agile SCM column within the CM Journal together with Brad Appleton and Steve Berczuk. His day job is as Services Director for Square Mile Systems whose main focus is on skills and techniques for infrastructure configuration management and DCIM (Data Center Infrastructure Management) - applying configuration management principles to hardware documentation and implementation as well as mapping ITIL services to the underlying layers.
