Has your team ever complained about the confusing issue submission form?

Have you had to alter how you’d like to handle certain issues due to the constraints of your software?

Do you have an issue tracking solution for facilities, software development, IT, HR, product management, and your help desks?

There are many issue tracking solutions available, but most are designed specifically to work within a certain department or group. For example, software development has a host of industry-specific solutions. These solutions can be tweaked or modified to marginally work for other teams, but inherent limitations persist due to the software’s designs.

IssueNet was developed with an object-oriented architecture that allows teams to completely customize all facets of the software to meet their specific needs. The options are endless and quite exciting when you consider the opportunities. For example, each issue type can have its own form, workflow, users, and notifications. Additionally, a single database can be used between all the solutions to allow better communication between teams, making implementation quicker and easier. Take a look at what an object oriented issue tracking can do for you! http://www.elsitech.com

With the transition from ITIL Version 2.0 to 3.0 and the increasing exposure of Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) the terminology and organization of the terminology used in the industry is changing and evolving.  But am I confusing my customers when I use the old ITIL terms or am I confusing them worse using the new terms they have less experience with? I need a way to figure out what is still the same and what is different in ITIL version 2 and version 3.

So I looked out to the web to see if anyone had done a direct comparison of the terms and books of ITIL v2 and v3.  I found where someone had done a pretty nice write up and several other sources plagiarized the work; but, it was still all written comparisons and I wanted more of a diagram, a drawing, something with arrows!  I never found what I was looking for so between episodes of NCIS last night I resolved my problem.

So without delay here is the Elsinore Technologies ITIL v2 vs. v3 comparison diagram.  If you note any mistakes on my part please let me know and I will correct my oversight immediately.  Regarding the diagram ITIL v2 books are broken out on the left and v3 on the right, the type of arrow doesn’t matter I used a few different styles for aesthetics only, also I added the service desk and variations thereof to the Service Operations book of ITIL v3.

A higher resolution version can be downloaded from our Oversight website at:

ITILv2-vs-v3-Diagram

It doesn’t take but a few hours of searching the web to find that there are quite a few players in the world of certification and IT Operations Frameworks.  The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) developed in the UK in 1989 by CCTA which now resides under the ownership of the UK Office of Government Commerce (OGC) was one of the first attempts at documenting the concepts, policies, and best practices for managing information technology (IT) infrastructure.  Over the past few decades IT departments have seen the development of websites, blogs, certification processes, revision changes of ITIL strategies, and teams of consultants grow at staggering rates.  A lot of this could be contributed to many economic factors but I believe the biggest changes are contributed to IT alignment with business units.  As IT services becomes more measurable in conjunction with business unit profitability, company executives can better see the bottom line revenue potential of investing in their IT department processes, training, and service management; not just the hardware and software assets.  With this shift in visibility IT departments go from black boxes which few executives understood to glass boxes that play an immediate role in productivity, revenue generation, and customer satisfaction visible to everyone.  And with this visibility comes money and as companies start spending more of it the private sector reacts providing an increasing number of services and solutions to help fill the needs.

Since its inception both formally and informally the playing field has changed and grown springing up new players such as ITSMF International, ITSMPA.org, ISACA, COBIT, ISO 20000, and Microsoft Operations Framework just to name a few.  These companies coupled with mandated compliances such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPPA, and SOX have made IT operations a huge growth area for companies of all types who want to provide their touch, insight, and experience to this unquestionably fast moving and high growth business segment.

But with all of these new players and the push by companies like Microsoft into the market defining new terms and best practices which organizations and sectors of this model will be the industry leaders moving forward.  The direction of operations is changing, in the past few years we have seen the process driven ITIL version 2.0 replaced with a business aligned version 3.0.  And now Microsoft is providing their version of operations framework which is similar to ITIL but has its own unique twists.  So who is going to jump into the mix next?  One thing is for sure competition sparks productivity, new ideas, and new ways of approaching problems.  All though I would like to see continued alignment in terminology I like the idea of new companies pushing the incumbents, if nothing else it gives me something to blog about!

Yesterday I was talking with a friend who asked me what it is I do at Elsinore.  I explained we are an issue management company and the minute the words came out of my mouth I realized the vagueness of the statement.  If I wasn’t already sure, the confused and pondering look on his face confirmed my suspicions.  So like most people I dug into examples, explaining how customers use our software for help desks, call centers, software bug & defect tracking, and a few other examples.  The entire process took me about 5 minutes and if it had been giving an elevator pitch I would have failed miserably.  I needed to be able to explain what issue management is without giving a 10 minute dissertation on the subject. I still need to be able to explain how our products relate to issue management but explaining the term issue management correctly was my first hurdle.

So like most people today I went directly to the almighty source of wisdom, Wikipedia.  There I found a pretty good definition of the term; Issue management is the discipline and process of managing business issues and usually implies using technology to electronically automate the process.   I say pretty good because I am not convinced that if I share this with my friend he will not still have a similar look of confusion but it’s a starting point.

My next step was to interview about a dozen colleagues and friends to get their response to what issue management meant to them.  I did my best to find a random sampling of different backgrounds and experiences.  I contacted people in staffing, construction, software development, stay at home parents, teachers, and engineers.  The responses I got were varied but not surprising, every person I talked with related issue management to their own day to day life and industry.  Staffing people described services to manage labor cost and customer issues, construction managers related the term to managing and coordinating the problems with each build, developers talked about tracking software bugs, and stay at home parents gave examples of scheduling conflicts and work that needed to be completed at home. 

It was becoming apparent that issue management was a marketing buzz word that meant different things to different people, maybe not as vague as terms like “business intelligence” and “B2B” or as over used as “out of the box” or “best in class” but still difficult to quickly explain.  But there was something about this term that resonated with everyone I spoke with today.  They were all able to relate the term issue management to a problem they were having and needed a way to resolve.  I read through everyone’s responses again and it started to mesh, stilling a bit from different passages I have a working definition that I am pretty happy with going forward.  It may still raise a few questions from time to time but overall I think it works. Issue management is a methodology by which problems, events, and other issues are identified, tracked, and ultimately resolved.