Atwell Williams - ITIL Certification Series, Part 1 of 2 - Service Support

A thorough understanding of ITIL (now considered the worldwide, de facto standard in IT service management) equips you with the knowledge to deliver high-quality, customer-centric IT services to the business. The ITIL Foundation Certification is the first step towards more advanced knowledge of Service Management, including ITIL Manager Certification and ITIL Practitioner Certification. This podcast series focuses on the six modules that comprise the Service Support ITIL core volume, which concerns the user's ability to perform the job functions that support the business.

ITIL Certification Series, Part 1 of 2 - Service Support: Podcast interviews with Atwell Williams, director of IT Service Management at BMC Software, Inc.

Service Desk (Part 1 of 11)

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Service Desk is the only ITIL function. All the rest of the modules you will study for your ITIL Foundation Certification are ITIL processes. The Service Desk provides a single point of contact for advice, guidance, and the rapid restoration of IT service(s). Since it is the users' single point of contact with the IT organization, their experiences with the Service Desk greatly influence their level of satisfaction and overall perception of IT and your entire organization. Listen in to understand the critical success factors for the Service Desk.

Incident Management (Part 2 of 11)

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The goals of incident management are to restore normal service as quickly as possible, to minimize the adverse impact of incidents on business operations, and to ensure that the highest possible levels of service quality and availability are maintained. Learn the true definition of an incident, where incidents can originate, and the best practice processes for handling these. (Incidentally, you should download this recording.)

Problem Management (Part 3 of 11)

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The Problem Management ITIL process differs from Incident Management in that its main goals are to detect the underlying cause of an incident, to resolve it, and to prevent it from happening again. This process is in place to minimize the adverse impact of incidents and problems on the business that are caused by errors in the IT infrastructure and to prevent incidents from recurring, related to these errors. To achieve this, you must get to the "root cause" of the incident and initiate actions to improve or correct the situation. This podcast teaches you the relationships Problem Management has with other ITIL processes and an easy way to study for the ITIL Foundation Certification.

Configuration Management (Part 4 of 11)

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Configuration Management is the ITIL process concerned with identifying, recording, and reporting IT components including their versions and relationships to other IT components. Items under this process's control include hardware, software, and documentation. These items are stored in the Configuration Management database (CMDB) and are known as Configuration Items (CIs). Configuration Management is not the same as Asset Management, but you have to tune in to figure out exactly why these disciplines are different.

Change Management (Part 5 of 11)

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Change is a constant in business. In IT, where a complex infrastructure is the norm, changes impact the business. This means that you have no choice but to spend a significant amount of time assessing the impact of business changes on IT, analyzing the impact of IT changes on the business, identifying the problems that continually arise and require additional changes, and introducing new ideas and tools that cause even more changes. Managing change has now become a full-time occupation and is an important ITIL process to understand. Change Management, when done well, results in minimal risk to the business, and that's the most important goal.

Release Management (Part 6 of 11)

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The term "Release" is used to describe a collection of authorized changes to an IT service. Every organization should have a policy for managing releases and roles and responsibilities should be formally defined so that everyone understands their job and level of authority as well as the tasks of others involved in the Release Management process.

Bio

Atwell Williams is presently a director of IT Service Management within BMC Software's Business School. In this role, Mr. Williams is responsible for educating customers as well as BMC staff in the areas of IT Service Management (ITSM) and the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). Mr. Williams is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and BMC Customer Forums. He has also published several whitepapers on the subject of ITSM and Continuous IT Service Improvement.

Resources

Read Atwell William's blog on TalkBMC: IT Service Improvement - Are We There Yet?

BMC Education

Atwell Williams - ITIL Certification Series, Part 2 of 2 - Service Delivery

Production Credits

Ynema Mangum, Producer
Tom Parish, Audio Producer
Dana Farver, Communities Editor-in-Chief
Alysia Korelc, Web Developer
Scott Ebner, Audio Mixing

If you're interested in contributing to TalkBMC or you have an idea for a topic, please contact Ynema Mangum at talkbmc@bmc.com.