Unfuck-it Essential Reading: The Visible Ops Handbook

I am an unapologetic ITIL believer.  ITIL, for those of you who haven't ever encountered the acronym, stands for Information Technology Information Library.  ITIL is framework for IT service  management created by the British Government, sometime around 1989.  We'll discuss ITIL in pretty specific detail down the road, especially as we evaluate ITIL's compatibility with the Unfucking mindset.

Given the layers of structure and process included in the IT Service Management (ITSM) framework, ITIL can be really unwieldy to implement in smaller organizations.  Knowing how to separate the signal (impactful, action-oriented process and methodology) from the noise (committees, bureaucratic overhead) can be really daunting, especially in your first few attempts.

The folks at the IT Process Institute, a collection of really smart people who have spent a lot of time thinking about IT other process frameworks, have compiled a tight, direct overview of implementing ITIL in organizations called The Visible Ops Handbook.  Around my circle we refer to it as Visible Ops, which I will do for brevity.

Visible Ops is broken down in to four parts:

1. 'Stablize the Patient' and 'Modify First Response'
2. 'Catch and Release' and 'Find Fragile Artifacts'
3. Create a Repeatable Build Library
4. Continuous Improvement

More than any other book I've read on the subject of ITIL, The Visible Ops Handbook provides a concise, easy to digest blueprint for getting the basics of ITIL implemented to help out a stop to uncontrolled, unplanned and unmanaged changes.  

This book is such a fundamental tool in the Unfuck It tool box that I'll spend the next four or five posts going through the sections in deeper detail.

If you're at all interested in ITIL or technical process improvement, I highly suggest you get over to the ITPI website and purchase the PDF.