Stuart Rance blogs

blog

I've written about 200 blogs and white papers since I started Optimal Service Management at the end of 2013. Some of these are published on this web site, but many of them are on other sites, so here is a list to help you find any that you might be searching for.

They are listed in date order, with the most recent at the top. Most of these are freely available but there are a few where you need to register to download some or all of the article, these are indicated with an R in the right hand column.

I'll update this article when I post new blogs, so you can come back to see what I've been writing any time you get the urge.

All blogs published on this site are licenced under CC BY-SA 4.0    

(Blogs listed here but published on other sites are subject to the copyright restrictions specified on those sites).

 

  Publication Date  

 

Title

 

26-Jan-2023

 

ITSM Strategies for the next three years (contribution to eBook)

R

15-Feb-2022

 

Defining your risk appetite

 

25-Nov-2021

 

Mentoring 101

 

19-Nov-2021

 

Service Management Mentoring (YouTube video with Suresh GP and Stuart Rance)

 

9-Sep-2021

 

How Do You Choose an ITSM Consultant?

 

7-May-2020

 

We All Have to Embrace Complexity

 

14-Apr-2020

 

Customer journeys and value streams (recorded presentation)

R

24-Mar-2020

 

Processes are an Important Part of IT Service Management

 

11-Feb-2020

 

Continuity Planning for the Service Desk

 

7-Jan-2020

 

Service Management in 2020 and Beyond

 

26-Nov-2019

 

How Planning User Journeys Can Improve Your Service Desk

 

18-Nov-2019

 

Transitioning to ITIL 4 (article in UK itSMF ServiceTalk Express issue 4 - PDF magazine)

 

22-Oct-2019

 

The Best Way to Prevent Incidents

 

24-Sep-2019

 

How Value Streams Can Help you do a Better Job

 

18-Sep-2019

 

A great customer journey has to be planned from end-to-end

 

27-Aug-2019

 

What's the ROI of ITIL?

 

30-Jul-2019

 

Problem Management: Most Problems Don’t Have a Single Root Cause

 

9-Jul-2019

 

Do you know who you're talking to?

 

2-Jul-20129

 

If You Ignore These 7 IT Operations Activities, You’re Heading for Failure

 

10 Jun 2019

 

ITSM TIP #13 Which ITIL Processes Should You Start With (Video)

 

10-Jun-2019

 

ITSM TIP #12 Change Management Best Practices (Video)

 

10-Jun-2019

 

ITSM Tip #11 Why Should You Practice Availability Management (Video)

 

10-Jun-2019

 

ITSM Tip #10 Shift-Left Concept (Video)

 

10-Jun-2019

 

ITSM Tip #9 Share Your Knowledge (Video)

 

10-Jun-2019

 

ITSM Tip #8 Set the Right Expectations (Video)

 

10-Jun-2019

 

ITSM Tip #7 How to Choose a Framework (Video)

 

10-Jun-2019

 

ITSM Tip #6 Fully Understand Your Customer’s Needs (Video)

 

10-Jun-2019

 

ITSM Tip #5 Focus on Customer Experience (Video)

 

10-Jun-2019

 

ITSM Tip #4 Don’t Focus Your Service on Technology (Video)

 

10-Jun-2019

 

ITSM Tip #3 Design Your Process (Video)

 

10-Jun-2019

 

ITSM Tip #2 Define Metrics that Drive the Right Behavior (Video)

 

10-Jun-2019

 

ITSM Tip #1 Choose the Right Staff (Video)

 

4-Jun-2019

 

Free ITIL 4 content

 

28-May-2019

 

ITIL 4 Practices – What’s New and Changed

 

25-Apr-2019

 

Start where you are: Love the one you're with

 

23-Apr-2019

 

ITIL 4 Value System, Value Chain, Value Stream: What’s the Difference?

 

26-Mar-2019

 

The 7 Guiding Principles of ITIL 4: Practical Advice to Help You Make Decisions

 

12-Mar-2019

 

Your ITIL 4 Questions – Answered!

 

6-Mar-2019

 

How ITIL 4 can help you get closer to your customers
(SysAid webinar)

R

18-Feb-2019

 

Everything You Officially Need to Know About ITIL 4

 

11-Feb-2019

 

3 ways to approach configuration management

 

15-Jan-2019

 

How to Make Your ITSM Processes Work for You

 

14-Jan-2019

 

Cyber security is not just for work

 

9-Dec-2018

 

8 Tips to Help You Improve Your Service Level Management (PDF)

R

4-Dec-2018

 

How to Replace Your IT Service Management (ITSM) Tool

 

13-Nov-2018

 

What's wrong with ITIL V3?

 

23-Oct-2018

 

ITSM: Are You Managing Services, or Just Incidents & Changes?

 

10-Oct-2018

 

ITSM 101: 5 More Ways People Misuse ITIL

 

03-Oct-2018

 

ITSM 101: 5 Ways People Misuse ITIL

 

27-Sep-2018

 

Information security and the service desk

 

25-Sep-2018

 

6 Things I Wish I’d Known When I Started in IT Service Management

 

1-Sep-2018

 

6 Tips to Help You Improve Configuration Management

R

14-Aug-2018

 

How to Level Up Your Skills to Stay Relevant in ITSM

 

8-Aug-2018

 

How to manage major incidents and security breaches

 

23-Jul-2018

 

How to get the best value from an ITSM consultant

 

10-Jul-2018

 

When Should ITSM Change Management Start

 

12-Jun-2018

 

How to Design an ITSM Process

 

11-Jun-2018

 

Which framework is right for your business?

 

15-May-2018

 

Putting the Ops in DevOps

 

8-May-2018

 

Change Models: For When a Standard Change Is Not Flexible Enough

 

10-Apr-2018

 

Be Careful How You Use Metrics

 

19-Mar-2018

 

How well does your service desk communicate?

 

6-Mar-2018

 

5 Steps to Start Improving Your IT Organization, for the Non-Unicorns Amongst Us

 

27-Feb-2018

 

Getting Your Service Desk Metrics and Measurement Right

 

21-Feb-2018

 

Getting Started with ITIL

 

6-Feb-2018

 

9 Guiding Principles That Can Help Improve Your Service Desk

 

25-Jan-2018

 

What does GDPR mean for your service desk

 

23-Jan-2018

 

9 Guiding Principles for Service Management Leaders

 

18-Jan-2018

 

GDPR: Beyond Compliance - How RESILIA can help you build trust and add value

R

15-Jan-2018

 

Incident Management Isn't Just For IT

 

10-Jan-2018

 

ITIL® Update: Putting principles before process

 

09-Jan-2018

 

Meltdown and Spectre: What Should You Do?

 

18-Dec-2017

 

Managing IT is just like running a barbershop

 

14-Dec-2017

 

Defining Metrics for Problem Management

 

20-Nov-2017

 

You Need a Vision

 

14-Nov-2017

 

How to Explain GDPR to a 5 Year Old

 

31-Oct-2017

 

7 Ways to Diagnose IT Incidents and Problems

 

19 Oct-2017

 

6 Tips to help you improve incident management

 

10-Oct-2017

 

Your Cybersecurity and ITSM Questions – Answered!

 

12-Sep-2017

 

Defining Metrics for Change Management

 

12-Sep-2017

 

We all get it wrong sometimes

 

05-Sep-2017

 

How to Continually Improve Your Service Portfolio – Even If You Don’t Have One!

 

14-Aug-2017

 

Goldilocks does security

 

08-Aug-2017

 

How to be Great at Actually Finishing Your IT Tasks

 

10-Jul-2017

 

Recorded ITSM Presentations

 

06-Jul-2017

 

Back to ITSM Basics: Do You Deliver Valuable Services, or Just Technology?

 

22-Jun-2017

 

DevOps and Culture Change in New Zealand

 

22-Jun-2017

 

How to Define, Measure, and Report IT Service Availability

 

13-Jun-2017

 

How to Help an Angry User in 5 Easy Steps

 

11-May-2017

 

6 Tips to help you improve change management

 

02-May-2017

 

How Do You Measure IT Services

 

12-Apr-2017

 

Theory of Constraints: Using a Current Reality Tree

 

04-Apr-2017

 

5 Tips to Help Prioritize Your CSI Improvements

 

23-Mar-2017

 

What configuration data do you need?

 

07-Mar-2017

 

Hide and Seek With Problem Management

 

07-Mar-2017

 

What should an IT department measure

 

20-Feb-2017

 

We need fewer ITSM processes

 

07-Feb-2017

 

Enterprise Service Management Is Not Just for Service Requests

 

31-Jan-2017

 

Back to ITSM Basics: The 9 Guiding Principles of ITIL Practitioner

 

24-Jan-2017

 

How to make IT change management work for everyone

 

17-Jan-2017

 

Major ITSM Improvements Should Start with Small Steps

 

10-Jan-2017

 

Service Desk Improvement: Part 3

 

09-Jan-2017

 

Service Desk Improvement: Part 2

 

06-Jan-2017

 

Service Desk Improvement: Part 1

 

03-Jan-2017

 

Back to ITSM Basics: Start Where You Are

 

14-Dec-2016

 

Your metrics are not your goals

 

13-Dec-2016

 

How to Meet Customer Expectations

 

01-Dec-2016

 

ITIL Practitioner and the Three Ways of DevOps

 

24-Nov-2016

 

The customer is NOT always right

 

16-Nov-2016

 

Why an IT Hero Culture is Bad for Customers

 

01-Nov-2016

 

Defining Metrics for a Help Desk

 

17-Oct-2016

 

Don't train your customers to be phishing victims

 

22-Sep-2016

 

The past and future of IT service management

 

13-Sep-2016

 

Security Theatre Doesn’t Make You Any Safer

 

6-Sep-2016

 

Supplier Management Is More than Just Negotiating Contracts

 

24-Aug-2016

 

The Power of Communities

 

2-Aug-2016

 

Do You Know When to Break the Rules?

 

1-Aug-2016

 

How does 'Focus on Value' relate to the rest of the ITIL Practitioner Guidance?

 

29-Jul-2016

 

ITIL Practitioner - Focus on Value

 

26-Jul-2016

 

Using Kanban boards to support IT operations

 

29-Jun-2016

 

The 3 ways aren't just for DevOps

 

28-Jun-2016

 

Are You Pedalling Furiously but Getting Nowhere Fast?

 

31-May-2016

 

Please, Don't Just "Do" DevOps!

 

25-May-2016

 

Antifragile: Fail often, detect quickly, recover fast

 

27-Apr-2016

 

What value are you creating from your IT job?

 

26-Apr-2016

 

How to create a team of real IT heroes

 

22-Mar-2016

 

What’s Wrong with IT Service Management Maturity Assessments?

 

17-Mar-2016

 

Information Security and Encryption

 

24-Feb-2016

 

Who Is Your Customer?

 

22-Feb-2016

 

Good cyber resilience needs collaboration

 

09-Feb-2016

 

The importance of good communication

 

26-Jan-2016

 

How You Can and Should Manage Availability of IT Services

 

11-Jan-2016

 

5 Tips to Improve Security of Your Home Computers

 

29-Dec-2015

 

5 New Year's Resolutions for ITSM Practitioners

 

18-Dec-2015

 

15 Tips for ITSM

 

16-Dec-2015

 

Applications are not IT services

 

24-Nov-2015

 

Work on a Service Desk? Say What You’ll Do, then Do What You Said

 

12-Nov-2015

 

What do we mean by adopt and adapt? Part Two

 

21-Oct-2015

 

Come to FUSION 15 and Learn about ITSM

 

20-Oct-2015

 

What do we mean by adopt and adapt? Part One

 

08-Oct-2015

 

5 Reasons the Service Desk Should Care About Information Security

 

22-Sep-2015

 

Protect your organization from insider threats

 

2-Sep-2015

 

Self-Service Webinar Q and A

 

27-Aug-2015

 

RESILIA™ Cyber Resilience Best Practices – in 3 minutes

 

24-Aug-2015

 

IT change management doesn't always need a CAB

 

19-Aug-2015

 

Protect your organization from ransomware

 

4-Aug-2015

 

IT Managers Need a Vacation Too

 

24-Jul-2015

 

Managing cyber resilience with RESILIA

 

20-Jul-2015

 

Practical Tips for Self-Service Success

 

9-Jul-2015

 

Keep it running or fix it quick?

 

2-Jul-2015

 

5 Tips to help you improve problem management (PDF)

 

1-Jul-2015

 

Cyber resilience and ITSM - working together to secure information

R

16-Jun-2015

 

Using Theory of Constraints to Help Continual Service Improvement

 

5-May-2015

 

What is ITIL?

 

17-Apr-2015

 

Unhappy is the land that needs a hero...

 

13-Apr-2015

 

That's not a service catalogue! - Part Two

 

31-Mar-2015

 

Improving Categorizing Incidents

 

29-Mar-2015

 

That's not a service catalogue! - Part one

 

24-Mar-2015

 

ITSM or ITIL? That Isn’t the Question

 

18-Mar-2015

 

Do we need ITIL® practitioners?

 

18-Mar-2015

 

We Don't Do People

 

15-Feb-2015

 

Why do you need to carry out major problem reviews?

 

3-Feb-2015

 

Defining Metrics for the Service Desk

 

2-Feb-2015

 

What behaviour do your SLA targets encourage?

 

13-Jan-2015

 

15 ITSM Tips for 2015 - Part 2

 

6 Jan 2015

 

15 ITSM Tips for 2015 - Part 1

 

28-Dec-2014

 

2014 - a year of consulting, training, writing and presenting

 

3-Dec-2014

 

Stuart Rance blogs

 

25-Nov-2014

 

ITIL or COBIT or something else? Which should organizations choose?

 

25-Nov-2014

 

Whose Fault Was It?

 

10-Nov-2014

 

Cyber Resilience: Bridging the Business and Technology Divide

R

10-Nov-2014

 

The Help You Need to Adopt Continual Service Improvement

R

07-Nov-2014

 

Do you need an ITSM assessment?

 

21-Oct-2014

 

How to Make Sure Your KPIs Are Balanced

 

07-Oct-2014

 

DevOps isn’t only for startups

 

24-Sep-2014

 

Do you really need all those cumbersome processes?

 

23-Sep-2014

 

Defining Metrics for Incident Management

 

29-Aug-2014

 

Managing a continual service improvement register

 

25-Aug-2014

 

Don’t hide your service desk away

 

19-Aug-2014

 

How Long Should an ITSM Project Take?

 

24-Jul-2014

 

Most training is a waste of money

 

23-Jul-2014

 

Knowledge Management Is Not Just About Document Repositories

 

02-Jul-2014

 

When did you last review your management system?

 

20-May-2014

 

What’s the Point of Configuration Management?

 

09-May-2014

 

How do you choose an ITSM consultant?

 

21-Apr-2014

 

Are you coming to SITS14?

 

10-Apr-2014

 

Do we still need ITIL?

 

26-Mar-2014

 

What Is Change Management For?

 

10-Mar-2014

 

Excellent service doesn’t have to cost more

 

25-Feb-2014

 

Continual Service Improvement (CSI) - The Most Important Service Management Process

 

30-Jan-2014

 

The Adaptive Service Model

 

30-Jan-2014

 

Why You Should Stop Doing Problem Management

 

 

Picture credit Christian Schnettelker

This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 

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Optimal Service Management Ltd.

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Essex, IG8 9AN, UK

Registered No: 8791379 England

Phone: + 44 791 3344 143

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