This week, I was learning few things by shadowing by co-workers. Therefore, in this blog I will talk about what shadowing means and how is it helpful for the new staff members.
Some people would use the job shadowing instead of work shadowing. Shadowing involves observing other staff members to gain a better understanding of the role. The senior staff member in this case can act as your mentor showing and explaining everything they are doing so we could learn how to do certain task,etc., and in my case it was the senior support analyst.
After reading the following site, some of the pros and cons of shadowing someone at work place are as follow (https://www.collegeraptor.com/explore-careers/articles/careers-internships/pros-and-cons-of-job-shadowing/):
Pros:
- It gives you an oppurtunity to step into the company that you like or a job that you like.
- You learn what works in an actual work place.
- The person whome you are shadowing might be impressed by the way you are learning and if impressed might even recommend you a job position.
- Compared to an internship, it is less intensive- time wise.
- You get a feel of the work environment.
Cons:
- Shadowing someone doesn’t count as a job experience.
- Sometimes you learn some bad habits and methods to solve a problem.
- You can never know what kind of day each day will be.
- Sometimes when it get quite busy, the person wont have enough time to answer immediate questions related to a certain tasks to you.
Researching ITSM Framework for the replacement of software
For replacing the current software, I decide to look into 2 widely used ITSM frameworks which are ITIL and COBIT.
Both these frameworks can be considered as a foundation for the management and governance of IT services because each one of them has their own set of policies, procedures/ methods, sets of practices to overcome the obstacle, and deliver the service/s to the customers. Let’s first look into the ITIL framework.
ITIL Framework
ITIL is one of the most popular ITSM frameworks in the world today. The diagram below shows all the processes that are a part of the framework and all these processes are categorized under the 5 main service processes. ITIL mainly focuses on the management areas and does not focus too much on governance. The five processes are Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operations, and Continual Service Improvement.
There were 2 categories that looked interesting and fun to explore while I was started the Networking project and they were service transition and service operation. Nowadays, there are a lot of existing companies/ organizations that are shifting towards adopting the latest technology to compete in the market or to achieve their business goals. These technologies offer the users a more robust solution, high-level security, better quality, etc., which would help the company to achieve greater heights and earn more profits. Because there are changes that need to be made to the system frequently, the IT technician needs to understand more about how the ITIL framework works, and being an expert in understanding the service transition will save a lot of time and money for the company. Service transition explains in detail how a product can be implemented into the system from the start till the deployment, testing, documentation, etc.
The next process is service operations which is all about managing the issues, risks, events, etc., that happens in the system. This process is co-related to the service transition as it initiates the transition planning due to the errors, bugs, security risks, issues, and other unwanted events happening in the existing system which affects the whole business. If the results from reports/ statistics of the existing product do not meet the requirements and it starts getting more vulnerable and is compatible with the system, then the service transition processes get initiated to replace the current product with a better-related product to support the business. At first, the whole ITIL framework looks intimidating, but once every process that is required by the business are set correctly and all the information gained during the process gets well documented, then there will be drastic improvements in the system’s health and the system will be more stable, compatible with the latest products, provides better user experience and will make sure that the users can easily finish their tasks.
COBIT 5 Framework
COBIT is the 2nd framework that is used by a lot of users because it covers all the service areas and also includes the governance areas. COBIT, like ITIL, also has 5 main processes under which they are many sub-processes. The 5 main processes are as follow:
- Evaluate, Direct and Monitor
- Align, Plan and Organize
- Build, Acquire and Implement
- Deliver, Service and Support
- Monitor, Evaluate and Assets
Because we are not looking into the governance areas for our project, I have skipped that area. From the remaining 4 areas, I believe, Build, Acquire and Implement, and, Monitor, Evaluate and Assets, were the 2 two main areas that piqued my interest. The reason why I was interested in understanding them was that I want to learn and understand how we could use the COBIT framework to manage the changes made to the system (change management); from implementation until the end of the cycle, and also check and see what options COBIT framework provides users when they want to review the system and see whether they need any other transitions. For more information about the COBIT framework processes click the following link: https://www.isaca.org/resources/cobit
Below are some of the key things that I understand from the two frameworks based on my past learning and using them in some projects until now:
- How the frameworks work for a given scenario and how each framework is different from each other including the processes of each framework. ITIL is a simple ITSM framework and COBIT provides the users detailed plan/idea on conducting each processes.
- ITIL framework can be used to show the users how to apply/add a service to the system by following the protocols, guidelines, standards, etc., whereas, COBIT shows the user what the requirements are for implementing those services.
- ITIL allows users to manage the IT services in their company throughout its life cycle, whereas, COBIT on the other hand lets users to govern and manage the IT service in the company.For beginners, it would be advisable to research more about ITIL and check whether that framework would suit the scenario. The reason behind this is because there is good amount of resources available in the net to help you understand and create a solution. COBIT, on the other hand, has very less to no information available in the net except for definition of each processes, etc.
- There are some areas in both ITIL and COBIT, that the processes overlap with each other and these processes functions the way like the other, for example the managing changes in COBIT and the change management in ITIL are both described and functions in a similar way.
- For a given scenario, the ideal solution for the IT tech person is to understand both ITIL and COBIT and learn how it functions, so that he/she can apply both frameworks in the scenario and implement a high quality solution. The only problem here is that it could get a bit time consuming which is why it is not recommended to go for hybrid option for a very small project.
- For beginners, it would be advisable to research more about ITIL and check whether that framework would suit the scenario. The reason behind this is because there is good amount of resources available in the net to help you understand and create a solution. COBIT, on the other hand, has very less to no information available in the net except for definition of each processes, etc.
- ITIL is more focused around ITSM and not on the whole company. In regards to COBIT, it is said to focus on the whole company but there is no proof of that statement.
- There are some areas in both ITIL and COBIT, that the processes overlap with each other and these processes functions the way like the other, for example the managing changes in COBIT and the change management in ITIL are both described and functions in a similar way.
- COBIT documentations is more complex to understand when compared to studying ITIL.
Conclusion
Base on my understanding of ITSM frameworks, I have decided to use the ITIL framework because of the resources that are available to help me guide in the whole process of the project which is from analysis, to designing to implementation and finally deployment.
Thats all, and the next blog will be published soon. I hope you guys enjoyed reading the blog. Thank you.
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