The ITIL world descends into farce

The IT Swami predicts the next itSMF AGM will involve Board members coming and going through doors on both sides of the stage, occasionally in disguise and at least one in drag.

It is a little speculative, but I suspect what they are up to is to keep the governance farce going long enough that people like me will give up writing about it. It is a good strategy - I'm just about over it.

There can be few other explanations for the following chronicle from the latest Skeptical Informer newsletter:

No sooner had the Skeptical Informer gone to press than:

  • Sharon Taylor's title as Board Chair mysteriously disappears. There is no explanation at all on the website but enquiries reveal that the full Board - i.e. all the chapter reps from around the world - decided they wanted the Executive Board to elect its own Chair and that the existing Board had no mandate to run the presidential-style election for Chair already executed.
  • The Board calls for nomination for election of a seventh Board member - again without explanation ("never apologise, never explain", or is it "let them eat cake"?). Again the IT Skeptic goes enquiring. The explanation is innocuous: There already "was a co-opted, non voting directorship covering Chapter Services. The 'new' position is really a formalisation of that post [which could not be called for] during the original nomination, as it was not then a formal position." So why not tell the world that so there is some semblance that we know what we are doing?
  • So far not so bad but then the new incoming Board, before they have taken up their new positions and before the seventh Board member is even nominated let alone elected, decides in its wisdom to hold a hasty vote for Chair and elects Sharon Taylor back into the position she vacated some days earlier.
  • itSMFI finally lifts a moritorium on publication of its own investment venture, the Van Haren ITSM books, imposed because it seemingly hadn't occured to anyone that buying the books might be seen as competition by their already contracted partner TSO.

About all we haven't seen yet is someone cross-dressing in order to meet their loved one's parents, and a custard pie being thrown.

And remember: this is only the stuff I dare tell you about! OK itSMFI, I surrender. If you stop doing it I'll stop writing about it.


What do the itSMFI Board member country designations mean?


In the news announcement you reference on this matter posted at the itSMFI site it shows a country designation. Given that I believe Sharon Taylor is Canadian and Rob Stroud Australian - what are they meant to mean? Do they indicate who nominated them to the election?

the country that nominated them

So it does. I know no more than you but I'd say it must be the country that nominated them. As far as I recall this is the first indication we mere mortals have had as to which chapter actually nominated them.

Good fun stuff skep but if

Good fun stuff skep but if you were there (as I have been told by a colleague of mine who was there) you would have seen one Chapter chairman attempting to wreck the whole organization. The person i am told is located not too far from you. About 1,500km.

Thankfully the ITSMF has now got some good leadership in place and it is rapidly attempting to fix things. But it needs support not negative criticism.

Better inside the tent pissing out

"Better inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in". Perhaps if people hadn't been shut out they might be more positive.

Sometimes it's best to keep dry...

Sometimes people are best left outside the tent pissing themselves than in the tent pissing all over everyone else. This might well be one of those times...

how about Sun Tzu

Perhaps but I would suggest the organisation is now fragile enough that one person just about could wreck it if left outside the circle.

If Lyndon Johnson isn't to your taste, how about Sun Tzu: "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer"

Enemies or Enema?

So this person is an enemy then? Well if that's the case how is he Chairman of an itsmf Chapter?


yes the farce continues

the boys club is being invaded by the girls but nothing changes

Why is this all so painfull

We have a strategic plan ITS CALLED DOING THINGS!!!!

Syndicate content