Portfolio of Rob England

Rob England has produced a wide range of content for Two Hills:



Rob has also been the editor of the itSMF New Zealand's (roughly) quarterly newsletter for seven years.



Shared

Rob has shared much knowledge with the IT community:

Most web content by Two Hills Ltd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, i.e. it is placed into the public domain.


Books

More information on each book and where they can be purchased


Training

Training courses and coaching programs

* under development

Workshops and seminars

Half-day and one-day seminars for conferences or onsite for individual clients include

  • Dead Cat Syndrome
  • Continual People Improvement
  • Tipu Continual Service Improvement

The latest listing and full details are here.

White Papers

Presentations

Rob has done many keynotes, presentations and workshops.

Videos

In no particular order...

Playlist on Youtube with more videos

Webinars and Podcasts

Rob is now a regular host on ITSM Weekly Podcast Antipodean Edition since September 2012

Handouts

Conferences

Since founding Two Hills, Rob has presented at the following conferences (not including private companies or local chapter meetings of itSMF, ISACA, NZ Computer Society etc):

  • NZ National DevOpsDay, Auckland, March 2013 (speaker)
  • Pink Elephant 17th Annual International IT Service Management Conference, Las Vegas, February 2013 (5x speaker) – invited back for 2014
  • ISACA Oceania CACS, Wellington, September 2012 (keynote speaker)
  • itSMF Australia National Conference, August 2012 (keynote speaker and workshop)
  • itSMF New Zealand National Conference, June 2012 (keynote speaker and panelist)
  • CCLearning Prince2 Conference, Wellington, May 2012 (speaker)
  • ManageEngine User Conference, Sydney, April 2012 (keynote speaker)
  • ManageEngine User Conference, Melbourne, April 2012 (keynote speaker)
  • Pink Elephant 16th Annual International IT Service Management Conference, Las Vegas, February 2012 (2x speaker and 2x panel discussions)
  • itSMF Australia National Conference, August 2011 (keynote speaker and “hypothetical”)
  • itSMF New Zealand National Conference, June 2011 (keynote speaker, voted best speaker)
  • itSMF Canada NCR, Professional Development, May 2011 (speaker and workshop)
  • itSMF Denmark National Conference, May 2011 (keynote speaker)
  • Pink Elephant 15th Annual International IT Service Management Conference, Las Vegas February 2011 (speaker and workshop)
  • CCLearning Prince2 Conference, Wellington 2010 (keynote speaker)
  • itSMF Australia National Conference, Melbourne 2010 (keynote speaker)
  • itSMFnz National Conference, Auckland 2010 (speaker)
  • Pink Elephant 14th Annual International IT Service Management Conference, Las Vegas 2010 (speaker and workshop)
  • SPUSC (South Pacific Universities IT Service), Wellington 2009 (keynote speaker)
  • itSMF New Zealand, Wellington 2009 (speaker)
  • ISO Corporate Governance of IT (international), Wellington 2008
  • itSMF Thailand, Bangkok 2008 (speaker)
  • itSMF Asian Summit, Singapore 2008 (speaker)
  • BrightStar Best Practices, Auckland 2008 (speaker)
  • itSMF Best Practices, Netherlands 2008 (keynote speaker)
  • itSMF New Zealand, Wellington 2006 (speaker)

Articles

(Rob has published some of these articles under the pseudonym of The IT Skeptic)

  1. Twelve Tips for Managing Geeks Datamation
  2. How Secure is Your IT Technical Career? IT Career Planet
  3. Seven Steps for Helping Geeks Grow IT Career Planet
  4. People, Practices, Things bITaPlanet
  5. Inside the Geek IT Career Planet
  6. Strategies For Securing Your IT Career IT Career Planet
  7. How an IT Guy Found Job Freedom IT Career Planet
  8. Geeks and the Meaning of Life IT Career Planet
  9. When Will Technology Make Life Simpler? Datamation
  10. Who Pays For On-the-Job Training? IT Career Planet
  11. Stop Calling ITIL Best Practice ITSMWatch
  12. What You need to know about ITIL Compliant ITSMWatch
  13. ITIL Must Embrace the Collective ITSMWatch
  14. ITIL Business Case 101 ITSMWatch
  15. What Goes into an ITIL Business Case ITSMWatch
  16. There is No Evidence for ITIL ITSMWatch
  17. Cooperation Between Vendors Over CMDB? ITSMWatch
  18. The Pillars of ITIL ITSMWatch
  19. The Success of Mediocrity in IT IT Career Planet
  20. Service Catalogue is the Center of the ITSM Universe ITSMWatch
  21. The (Belated) Rise of IT Professionalism IT Career Planet
  22. ITIL Version 3 Service Strategy: An Early Review bITaPlanet
  23. Tireless Innovation: Training the IT Way IT Career Planet
  24. ITIL v3: Passing the Skeptic's Test bITaPlanet
  25. When 'Best' is Too Good bITaPlanet
  26. The IT Skeptic Comes Clean ITSMWatch
  27. APMG ITIL Exams Getting Dumbed-Down ITSMWatch
  28. ITIL v3: What’s the Rush? ITSMWatch
  29. A Completely Unauthorized Biography - Part I: A History of ITIL ITSMWatch
  30. ITSM: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (Truth) ITSMWatch
  31. I Saw It On a Screen So It Must Be True! Datamation
  32. Project Managers are a Breed Apart Project Manager Planet
  33. What Shape Are You? IT Career Planet
  34. Silence is Not Assent: do your project justice. Project Manager Planet
  35. The Commoditization of the Tech Professional IT Career Planet
  36. A CMDB Can Be Done But Would You Want To ITSMWatch
  37. Avoiding “Dead Cat Syndrome” Project Manager Planet
  38. The Evolution of the ITIL Request ITSMWatch
  39. So You Want To Be An IT Consultant IT Career Planet
  40. Getting the Most from Your PM Service Provider Project Manager Planet
  41. Community, Activity, Environment bITaPlanet
  42. Book Review: Passing Your ITIL Foundation Exam ITSMWatch
  43. Succeed In IT By 'Reading' People IT Career Planet
  44. The Rise of Governance and Assurance bITaPlanet
  45. Just What is an ITIL Service Anyway? ITSMWatch
  46. What ITIL Means by "Process" ITSMWatch
  47. What Governance Isn’t Novatica/CEPIS UPGRADE
  48. Get The Business, Or Get Out Of The Business IT Career Planet
  49. The End of IT Worker Servitude IT Career Planet
  50. Ten Things They Don't Want You to Know About ITIL v3 ITSMWatch
  51. Internet, I Gave You The Best Years Of My Life IT Career Planet
  52. How Software Vendors Lie About ITIL Support ITSMWatch
  53. Tripping Out On Small-Business ITIL bITaPlanet
  54. ITIL Ain’t Folksy Anymore ITSMWatch
  55. On Demand Data and the CMDB ITSMWatch
  56. ITIL is Cultural Not Technical ITSMWatch
  57. The Four Big Questions ITIL Doesn’t Answer ITSMWatch
  58. Understanding the Cloud/Ops Disconnect ITSMWatch
  59. Managing Your Boss: Your Biggest Job IT Career Planet
  60. The (Ongoing) Evolution of the ITIL Request ITSMWatch
  61. Cooperation Between Vendors Over CMDB? Still waiting ITSMWatch
  62. Migration Isn't the Only Obstacle to Cloud Computing CIO Update
  63. What ITIL Doesn’t Cover ITSMWatch
  64. IT Teachers Suck ITCareerPlanet
  65. ITIL Foundation Exams Don't Test Understanding ITSMWatch
  66. Teaching Adults (Yes, It's Different) ITCareerPlanet
  67. How to Fix the ITIL v3 foundation Exams ITSMWatch
  68. ITIL v3: Still No Rush ITSMWatch
  69. ITIL Still Needs to Embrace the Collective ITSMWatch
  70. Kill Projects that Don’t Put People First Project Manager Planet
  71. Delivering Training to Adults ITCareerPlanet
  72. ITIL v3: Service Catalog Should be Front and Center ITSMWatch
  73. Practical Techniques for Training Adults ITCareerPlanet
  74. When projects are only half done Project Link
  75. Using Balanced Metrics as Service Support Indicators ITSMWatch
  76. Have the Pillars of ITIL Crumbled Further? ITSMWatch
  77. The Project Skeptic: IT has paid its dues Project Link
  78. The role of ITIL in managing IT risk and compliance TechDay ITBrief
  79. The Project Skeptic: How IT project management is different Project Link
  80. Asking the Hard Questions: The ITIL® Update The lead article in the inaugural edition of itSMF International's magazine, At Your Service
  81. What is Service Management ITSM Review
  82. What is a Service Catalogue ITSM Review
  83. What is a Technical Service Catalogue ITSM Review
  84. The People in ITSM ITSM Review
  85. Incident Management at Cherry Valley, Illinois ITSM Review
  86. Better Process Can Be Better Business Beetil
  87. Service Management Success: Delivering to Your Customers Beetil
  88. Responding to requests – Sensible service management Beetil
  89. Responding to Incidents – Sensible Service Management Beetil
  90. Dealing with Major Incidents – Sensible Service Management Beetil
  91. Problem Management – Sensible Service Management Beetil
  92. Ode to a Project Manager Project Link
  93. Problem Management Defined ITSM Review
  94. Eating Ourselves Project Link
  95. Proactive Problem Management ITSM Review
  96. Service Portfolio Versus Programme and Project Portfolio Project Link
  97. Root Cause – Railways don’t like derailments ITSM Review
  98. Service Improvement at Cherry Valley ITSM Review
  99. Everything is improvement ITSM Review


Websites

Blogging

Other sites

Rob's growing portfolio of websites is here.

Some selected content from the websites:

He Tangata
He Tangata is about putting people first in IT. Not technology or process. If we put people first we can achieve efficency and effectiveness. We can transform our processes and improve our technology and leverage our partners. More projects will succeed and more will stay succcessful without backsliding over time. If we put people first.

Real ITSM
In order to regulate the Real ITSM industry, and thereby protect the integrity of RITSI and public confidence in Real ITSM, RITSI issues compliance certification to users, products, and services under the FavorITSM program. Other frameworks have sadly neglected the revenue potential of such compliance certification, and have left it open to foraging commercial entities. RITSI has no intention of making the same mistake, although for a suitable consideration from an interested party we could conceivably reconsider this policy.
[Before you write to me, it's satire]

The CoPr Manifesto
Core Practice is business management information provided free, in the public domain, contributed by the community. We believe this is a revolutionary concept: Core Practice seeks to change the world.

About Core Practice
Not everyone can afford or wants best practice. We fully support best practices for those organisations that have the commitment and resources and reason to adopt best practice. For those who do not, something more pragmatic is required, which can be distilled from best practice as well as from legislative requirements and other sources. For these organisations (e.g. small businesses, start-ups, the cash-strapped) there is Core Practice. “If you do nothing else, do these things.”

We have a teapot
In the kitchen cupboard is a teapot. A nice simple white china teapot. I drive the economy by not using it.

The first principle of getting rich is to not be directly involved
There are people who get rich on their own time: lawyers and media stars spring to mind. But the first group have to be really smart, and work really hard for years; and the second group have to be born with some talent and then get really lucky or sleep with the right people. Either way it is hard to arrange, so keep your hours out of it.

ITIL’s dead elephant: CMDB can't be done
CMDB can’t be done. Not as ITIL defines it. At least not with a justifiable return on the investment of doing it - it is such an enormous undertaking that any organisation attempting it is going to burn money on an irresponsible scale. The truth about CMDB is no secret. It is a “dead elephant”: a great putrescence in the corner of the room that everyone studiously ignores, stepping around it and ignoring the stench, because life will be so much simpler if they do not acknowledge the obvious.

Debasement of concepts by IT vendors and analysts
The persistent erosion of meaning in IT terminology is a damaging practice endemic across vendors and analysts. When a concept gains some currency and everyone wants it, suddenly all the vendors have got it - often by re-labelling a feature of their existing product. And the analysts keep confusing the definition so no-one can call the vendors out for this obfuscation. I used to really struggle with this. I thought I kept getting the wrong end of the stick with new terminology, until I realised that is was other people moving the stick.

efficiency and effectiveness
Always remember that costs can be cut in two ways: by concentrating on efficiency or effectiveness. We often spend too much time on the former, and sometimes even reduce the latter.

The 7 Top Reasons Why You Can’t Quit Your Job
You are worried about not knowing what will happen to you. You can drive half-a-ton of steel at sixty miles an hour inches away from other vehicles, and trust their drivers to do the same. You can purchase and eat food that you didn’t see being cooked. You can enter a convenience store after nightfall. You regularly plug and unplug cables carrying 120 volts (or 240 volts) of lethal electricity. Heck, you pipe the stuff through a pad in your bed. But changing jobs is really dangerous.

Every good boy deserves men
Somewhere around teenage, almost all boys switch from "My Dad can beat your Dad" to "My Dad is an idiot" (that is, if their father is still around at that point). Disillusioned when they discover he is not in fact superhuman, they reject their father, and especially his advice. (Actually I know a certain eight-year-old boy who doesn't give much credence to his father's advice already).