Enterprise Digital - the podcast

This is a fantastic episode with Hank Marquis – who works with Gartner but is speaking here on his own behalf, mostly around the psycho-metrics of service and service management people. The conversation focusses around feedback, how it is gathered and used, and the tools and academic background used to make some sense and develop practical and useful strategies for improvement. There’s a bit of Star Trek, people and personality profiling and experience management in there, plus a whole lot more. Ian is also surprised at Hank’s choice of go-to drink…    

This is a discussion on the service management industry, based around a more broad and personal interview of host Barclay Rae. Ian provides suggested commentary on Barclay’s hair and sartorial style over the years, plus discussions about music, Glasgow, London, Mary Poppins, Live Aid, and his IT career, also, missing out some key bits like being CEO of itSMF UK. ..(senior moment). There is also some discussion around the life and challenges of working as a consultant. As ever we go to the bar where Barclay tries to dodge the idea of having a favourite drink.

This is a short episode and the first of an occasional series of ‘news’ or topical discussions around the industry. This Is with Barclay and Ian who talk about, well we can’t really say, but it’s about the stuff that’s going on in the industry, or what we can say about it, whatever it is… 

Humans collaborate, and parrots cooperate..! This is all you need to know about this episode. Our guest is French-Czech consultant David Billouz, who regularly provides ITSM insights via LinkedIn and other platforms.  David clarifies some key elements of collaboration and cooperation, as well as the need for a phased approach. Somehow, we work parrots into this discussion. Confused. Curious? Then listen on..!  I ask the world’s longest-ever question…  Some great discussion around the integration of ITSM, Agile, DevOps (C A L M S) and other different elements of a successful, sustainable, converged approach. I said CALMS…

This episode is a catch-up chat with Ian and Barclay – discussing a number of topics such as Pink23, digital experience management, global travel, the value of good partnerships in business, and other SMW– service management whimsy… As ever we chew the fat over a few points of trivia before setting the world to rights and the heading for the podcast bar.   

Ignore the socks comment, this is another piece of initial trivia, but this episode features our amazing guest Claire Agutter, who explains SIAM clearly to us and also discusses some of the findings and learnings from the Annual SIAM report, which she produces with Scopism. Claire has great insight and experience in training, and development of IP in the ITSM world and we discuss how SIAM makes sense in a multi-vendor environment, and also beyond IT.

Our guest this week is David Barrow, an experienced service Industry practitioner and consultant, and the author of a new book on co-creating value with ITIL 4. Whilst not directly discussing ITIL, we explore co-creation by co-creating the podcast discussion on different approaches to value, the value of the guiding principles, plus also how we can develop communities to focus on specific requirements for co-creation. There is also now a real challenge on who can ask the longest question on the podcast… it doesn’t matter but we d still end up in the bar…

This week we review the podcasts that we’ve produced over the last year – a diverse and fascinating variety of topics, as well as a brilliant spectrum of guests. We begin with a ‘poem’ about the podcast, created by an AI bot – fascinating and impressive content, if not a poem… We differ a little on the current level of practicality around XLAs – surely an ongoing topic for 2023. We both have our own little rants.. Mostly we reflect on some of the fantastic guests and conversations that have contributed to the podcast over 2022. This will continue and further develop in 2023 - we look forward to that. Cheers and Happy New Year!

Our guest is the debonair Duncan Watkins, from Forrester Consulting – Duncan is a well-known and respected member of the UK and global ITSM community. The discussion focuses on comparing current approaches to employee experience and customer/user experience. We discuss similarities and differences, with a focus on what organisations are trying to do – not just the hype. Duncan mentions a ‘spectrum of experience’ – a useful reflection. How do we avoid XLAs falling into the same traps as SLAs – maybe product management as a direction – certainly understanding different types of business… It’s a great discussion and a valuable debate on a highly current topic.

An excellent, enlightening, and exhilarating episode – with our guest Simon Wardley, of Wardley Maps fame..! Simon defines and discusses the challenges that led him to mapping and how this can really help decision-making by providing context and changing relationships as well as the fixed points that are usually shown on graphs. We discuss doctrine tables, principles, and how most maps are not really maps. We also discuss the people side and warning flags about the ‘re-org’ culture that bedevils most organisations on a permanent basis – good advice is to sort out principles first. Our principles take us regularly to the bar and we also discover Simon’s preferred tipple for (dis) ‘orientation…’