[Guest Blogger] ITIL Silliness - a little levity for an oh-so-serious season

 Don Spencer (Waterloo, ON, IT Manager of Pano Cap Canada )

I guess I deserved it. Last week, I pulled a few pranks on family, friends, and colleagues on April Fools' Day (I even convinced a few colleagues that Microsoft had patched operating systems to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the 'biblical value' of 3.0 under pressure from lobby groups). And I took pride in calling the bluff of Microsoft IT Pro Advisors on their hoax. But yesterday, in my excitement to believe a no-cost solution to ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) certification was forthcoming from IBM and Microsoft, I got caught by the IT Skeptic.

It didn't matter that I was reading the blog post several days after it was posted. It didn't even matter that I jumped the gun with a quick email post to a colleague at work celebrating the joint (and non-existent) IBM/Microsoft initiative. What mattered to me was that I was had - hook, line, and sinker - only to realize my mistake reading the final paragraph of the news announcement - something, by the way, that happened after I had sent off that celebratory email announcement. I hate being caught by practical jokesters, even though I love to perpetrate hoaxes!

Ever heard of the IT Skeptic blog? I hadn't either. But then, after reading a few posts, I became convinced that I need to add an RSS feed for it to my Google Reader. Especially interesting to someone contemplating various certifications was the book review entry on IT Service Management from Hell! Based on Not-ITIL from Van Haren Publishing. Working, as I do, for a company whose owner is originally from Germany, I took notice of the Publishers Warning:

"The humour in this book was subject to extensive Teutonic Testing prior to release (no, honestly, it was). the Publisher read passages to volunteers from Bavaria, Westphalia and a number of Rheinlanders; sadly some injuries did result with numerous abdominal sutures being required. The 'funny' bits responsible for the injuries were, of course, removed (so were the sutures, eventually) to ensure a level of laughs commensurate with the needs of the people of Germany. So hold your sides and prepare for some serious Germanic japes and Teutonic titters a-plenty..."

It's time to order the book.

Which got me to thinking - where is the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) equivalent publishing phenom (OK, so there's a recent, serious guide to MOF from Van Haren...in Japanese)? It's time, I think, to call on the Microsoft Scripting Guys to commence another project.