Daniel McLean – författare

This book is one of a series covering the implementation of new processes within an organization and how to facilitate behavior changes to make the project a success. This volume deals with the implementation of a KPI management system.The book cleverly utilizes a narrative story to make the subject matter accessible and engaging for the reader. The characters are fictitious, but the story comes from the author’s own experience and real third party accounts.

In Availability and Capacity Management in the Cloud: An ITSM narrative, Daniel McLean’s fictional IT service management practitioner, Chris, faces the challenge of integrating cloud services into an ITSM structure. Based on the real-life experience of the author and other ITSM practitioners, this book tells the story of a cloud services implementation, exposing potential pitfalls and exploring how to handle issues that come with such projects. The end-of-chapter pointers give useful advice on dealing with the challenges organizations face when considering cloud services.

Achieving success through transforming behaviourHigh-performing IT organizations know that success is more dependent on transforming behaviour than on the state of their technology. They have learned how to adapt behaviors to meet new challenges as effectively as they would change technology.Managing change in real-life ITSM projectsBased on the real-life experiences of the author and other ITSM professionals, Catalogs, Services and Portfolios – an ITSM success story is a fictional account of change management surrounding ITSM projects. It tells the story of ITSM practitioner Chris as he learns how to deal with resistance to change and overcome inertia in staff behavior. Through his experiences, readers encounter the common challenges faced when implementing change in an IT Service Management context. The ‘tips that would have helped Chris’ sections are packed with helpful advice for anyone facing similar challenges.Ideal for newly trained ITIL® practitionersThe narrative style of the book helps readers understand how to manage resistance to change and the lack of empathy that often exists between IT and the business it supports. Presenting a realistic overview of an ITSM implementation, the book is equally suitable for newly qualified ITIL professionals and as an inspiration for team discussions.

Deploying releases into production is fraught with difficultyWith so many interested constituencies, processes can go wrong in more ways than they can go right. The problems start when requirements are gathered and, if unmanaged, can flow unchecked through the entire process, potentially delivering something that’s bound to fail while, paradoxically, exactly meeting the specification.In Release and Deployment: An ITSM Narrative Account, we follow the story of the release & deployment process in fictional form. Product overviewChris has got a new job as a release manager – but he's struggling. Parachuted into a large company to fix its release & deployment process after the catastrophic failure of its new app, Asgard, he finds himself battling an array of insular department heads who are all determined that whatever has gone wrong must be another team’s fault. They all want the finger of blame pointed elsewhere, and Chris seems to be the perfect target – so they shout down his questions and suggestions as insubordination.How can he pacify his new colleagues, avoid getting fired and get the job done? Lessons from real projects in a narrative formatThis latest ITSM narrative from Daniel Mclean explains the common pitfalls of release & deployment in fictional form, with each chapter describing a difficult meeting with a different department head and featuring a set of pointers that our hero would have found beneficial.Based on the real-life experience of the author and other ITSM practitioners, Release and Deployment: An ITSM Narrative Account exposes the potential pitfalls and explores how to handle the issues that come with such projects, all in the face of shifting organisational structures and changing management objectives.About the authorDaniel McLean is an ITSM consultant with over 20 years' experience in IT. He has spent the last ten years designing, implementing and operating processes supporting ITSM. He was also a peer reviewer during development of the OGC ITIL v3 Service Strategy Best Practice.Daniel McLean’s other ITSM narrative accounts are also available from IT Governance.

I was introduced to cities as “ecosystems” by the late Professor Forest Stearns (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee) who was an early pioneer in the studies of the urban ecology in the 1970s. I still recall the various terms: “Urban ecosystem”, “Urban zones” Urban corridors” Megacities” or “Megacities’ complexes” and “Megalopolis” used by various discipline experts as they grappled with the complex of all the terrestrial habitats-the city. Cities have been humanity’s habitat since ancient times and one can find references to the cities even in biblical writings and other ancient texts from many parts of the world. So what is different now? It is the rate of global urbanization that has brought urban systems and urban envir- ments into focus once again. This has captured our attention in the past several months. For example, the British Broadcasting Corporation News (BBC news) devoted a series of highly educational programs titled “Urban planet” in July 2006. I was impressed with the breadth and the depth of - ban issues discussed in the series and the fact that many academic and government experts were featured to provide an assessment of the current state of global urbanization. The United Nations reports that increased - banization has created a range of serious issues, including access to clean water, sanitation, shelter, urban poverty, HIV/AIDS and problems with - ban governance, not to mention the issues related to urban environments.