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10 useful books on IT service management

To date, a lot of applied literature on the management of IT services has been published. The selection from IT Guilds contains 10 different books on this topic, from the practical application of ITSM to fixation about a startup from Silicon Valley; among the authors are both traditionalists and nonconformists.

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Introduction to Real ITSM

Along with successful experience in implementing ITSM practices, there are many inverse examples. Only about them, of course, do not like to spread. Rob England believes that one of the main reasons for this kind of failure is that the theoretical ITSM described in the ITIL library is far from reality. In the book “Introduction to Real ITSM,” Ingland is ironic about ITIL, its authors, and the leaders who enforce ITSM, caring for the implementation of idealized processes and rules, but little understanding of human relationships. Meanwhile, any IT team, says Ingland, is primarily ordinary people for whom there is no better motivation than personal gain.

Rob England is a renowned consultant with 20 years of IT experience, an ITSM specialist, a regular member of the itSMF forum, and author of the IT Skeptic blog.. “Introduction to Real ITSM” was published in 2008 and, despite bullying the “canon,” it is now considered a classic among books dedicated to ITSM. Over the past time, England’s view of the pain points of service IT management has not become outdated. The book should definitely appeal to those who are tired of excessive excitement around ITSM and ITIL.

ITSM QuickStart Guide: The Simplified Beginnerʼs Guide to IT Service Management

ITSM QuickStart Guide - A short (110 pages) summary of ITSM guidelines. However, this is not a boring guide, but a fascinating story about the evolution of information technology, its specific heroes and companies. And also about how this evolution led to the emergence of the IT Service Management methodology. The book covers the main aspects of ITIL and more specialized topics such as ISO 20000 and eTOM management standards.

The ITSM QuickStart Guide, of course, does not turn the reader into an expert, but it does provide basic concepts about ITSM, explaining its importance. Reading this book will not be superfluous, for example, before an interview.

ITSM for Leaders: A leaderʼs Guide to Understanding IT Service Management

The author of the book, Jeffrey Teffertiler, is an ITSM consultant with 25 years of experience in IT management, including in the field of managed services provider (MSP). Teffertiler shares his personal experience in implementing ITSM, gives practical advice to managers, tells how to get the most out of business from ITSM. Target audience - top management.

Teffertiler also wrote other books on IT management, examining the use of ITSM for various models of IT service providers, such as ITSM in the Outsourced World of IT and ITSM + Cloud Computing . Teffertiler also has a YouTube blog that, in addition to ITSM and ITIL, talks about digital transformation, IT asset management, development, DevOps and more.

Ten Steps to ITSM Success

The authors of “10 Steps” are also supporters of service IT management, close to reality. The approach here is more traditional: Timothy Rogers and Angelo Esposito give recommendations on the implementation of ITSM best practices, based, inter alia, on personal experience. Ten Steps to ITSM Success is a detailed hands-on guide that will be interesting for CIOs, top managers, and IT consultants.

Despite the fact that Rogers and Esposito are ITSM experts, and the book was published with the participation of itSMF USA, the “10 steps” are far from academic. All the advice and recommendations, according to the authors, are as close as possible to reality. Among the topics are goal-setting, determining current and future needs, analyzing financial indicators of services, coordinating development priorities, creating a roadmap, coordinating roles and responsibilities, building DevOps, monitoring and continuous improvement.

Balanced Diversity: A Portfolio Approach to Organizational Change

ItSMF Australia expert Karen Ferris offers a set of diverse practices (59 in total) that can be used to implement changes in IT taking into account the company's corporate culture. You can apply these practices in both small and large projects, for operational or strategic changes. Using the formal and informal methods described in the book, you can create a change plan that meets the various needs of the business and customers.

The book is based on research on successful organizational change in IT and is a practical methodology. It is best suited for use in ITSM-oriented companies.

IT Change Management: A Practitioner's Guide

ITSM-based IT change management is a special art when a manager must strike a balance between a strict, often bureaucratic approach and informal methods, which can sometimes become too risky for a business. Greg Sanker's book aims to bridge the gap between the formal rules of ITIL and the realities that IT faces in their work, as well as to give an understanding of when to accelerate the process of change and when to slow it down to protect the business. However, one of the key principles that Sanker promotes is the need to focus on results and business values, rather than processes.

The book is intended for a wide audience, but first of all it will be useful as a practical guide for those who are just starting to work with ITSM.

Measurement Based Service Management

Cleverics is a recognized expert in ITSM and ITIL. In addition to popular foreign IT-related books, Cleverics publishes its own. One recent example is Measurement Based Service Management. The book is based on the experience gained by Cleverics consultants during the assessment of business processes of various IT companies.

The authors dwell in detail on the goals in the field of IT management, the main of which is the quality of IT services. To achieve goals and “clean up” IT, it is proposed to create a measurement system that would allow to control and adequately evaluate the control object. At the same time, the book describes not ready-made models, but proven in practice methods of building measurement and evaluation systems - with examples of their use in real situations.

Service Catalog for Successful IT Management

The book talks about one of the most important, but still underestimated components of IT service management. The authors give an exhaustive definition of the concept of the catalog of IT services, tell how to manage it, explain what place the catalog takes in ITSM automation systems, and give examples of situations where it can come in handy. The Russian version of the book differs from the original in that it is equipped with additional examples and tools from the practice of Cleverics.

About the Authors: Troy Dumoulin - Vice President of the consulting company Pink Elephant, which is constantly involved in the development of ITIL, starting with the first library; Bill Fine and Rodrigo Flores are former executives of newScale, a software development company.

Project Managing ITSM from Hell: A Guide to Worst Practices

Another non-standard analysis of ITSM practices from colleagues and like-minded Rob Ingland. In the Project Managing ITSM from Hell book - unlike the rest, mostly optimistic, authors - Brian Johnson and Paul Wilkinson describe the “worst” practices of a service approach in managing IT services. They explain the choice of angle by the fact that the "best" practices are too costly and in most cases do not give a positive result. The “worst” ones are valuable, if only because they show how not to do it, and here the authors rely on the sanity and skepticism of the readers.

In addition to the entertainment component, a lot of useful information can be gleaned from the book about the basics of ITSM, which have remained essentially unchanged since ITIL v2. In 2012, a Russian translation was released -“Managing ITSM projects from the evil one. Collection of harmful tips "


Five vices of the team

In the end, a little breathtaking fixation. “Five vices of the team” is a bestseller that has been reprinted six times only in Russia. Book author Patrick Leonsey tells the story of a fictional technology company in Silicon Valley. Management is trying to get the company out of the crisis by replacing the CEO. The new CEO, Catherine Petersen, begins by re-organizing the work of managers and the entire team. Of course, she has to face the resistance of the team, simultaneously solving the problem of the “five vices”: mutual distrust, irresponsibility, undemandingness, fear of conflict and indifference to the results.

Patrick Leoncy believes that the main competitive advantage of any company is not the budget, not technology and not the strategy, but that same “team spirit”. No matter how trite this statement may seem, he, judging by the sales and reader reviews, has many adherents who have become convinced of the thesis of Leoncy from his own experience.

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