Total Value of IT

Together with a team of franchising organizations, Gartner and itSMF (IT Service Management Forum) are offering a product under the name of TVIT - Total Value of IT. The aim is to allow clients to quickly assess their IT costs with a focus on Service Management. The concept is straightforward and simple:

An assessment of Service Management process maturity is combined with a high level IT cost analysis and peer group comparison. On the basis of the analysis, potential gaps are identified and measures to close them identified. The initial analysis and gap identification is performed in a short-term-project at moderate cost.

If you want to know more please let me know, or get in touch with the itSMF.

Lead Work Area

I saw the following sign recently. Guess where ... Yes, a shooting range. I believe that there might be some lead around ... especially the flying lead can harm your health considerably.



But seriously, I can't remember having seen any warning sign like this at our shooting ranges during my army time. Was that no concern back then?

IT Cost Containment

Over the past months, driven by the economic crisis, cost containment and reduction has become a major topic. Also the CIO business expectations for 2009 indicate that cost containment is on the rise. Improving business processes has been the #1 priority since 2006, but for 2009, rank 2 and 3 are occupied by cost reduction and workforce effectiveness.

This is also reflected in our client interactions, where cost reduction measures have become a frequent discussion topic. We therefore developed an approach to quickly identify savings potentials on the basis of comparing a reduced set of key metrics of a client organization with peer group data. A significant deviation will not reveal causal relations and automatically define the right measures to address the issue, but it provides an indicator which areas should be subject to a more detailed analysis and maybe a sub-sequent full-blown cost reduction program.

The following pic provides an overview of the complete approach:

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Project Portfolio Management

Due to the current macro-economic situation, many companies are currently reviewing their project portfolios and realize that there might be some dead wood. Is this something to be puzzled about? Not really.

Over the past years, many organizations have become quite good at improving their development and service management processes by applying frameworks and standards like ITIL and ISO XXXX. But, for demand management and project portfolio management, being crucial processes prior to development and operations, there are no real standards or generally accepted best practices. As a result, we frequently see practices that have a significant potential for improvement (to put it carefully) and project portfolios with no or loose governance.

And, many organizations seem to have mental problem with discontinuing projects that do not deliver adequate business value - either because they do no know, or they do not have the guts.

well, I think this will change!

Tax-payers' commemoration day 2008

Three day ago, on July 8, German tax payers could celebrate this year's commemoration day, i.e. from that day on they work for their own pocket and not for the government and social security.

Last year, this remarkable day was July 13, so there has been some improvement (of course, this depends on whom you ask). Nevertheless, it is astonishing that you have to work more than 6 months before you can reap and keep the benefits.

Telekom: Issue resolved

My issue with Telekom regarding the upgrade of my DSL connection was resolved to my fullest satisfaction. The story unfolded like this:
dsl-upgrade-disappointed-by-telekom
instant-science-dsl-upgrade.html
About two weeks after the letter from Telekom's Board of Management support, I received a call, telling me that they had taken the following measures:

For the router invoice, a credit voucher had been issued.

The law firm had been contacted to withdraw their claim

When returning home from my business trip later that week, I indeed had a credit voucher and a letter from the law form in my mail box. So, nothing more to say from my side.

Follow-up: DSL upgrade - Disappointed by Telekom

In a previous post (Instant Science: DSL upgrade - Disappointed by Telekom) I expressed my disappointment with Deutsche Telekom. Well, my mood didn't get better when I received a letter from a lawyer that claimed around 34 € in the name of Deutsche Telekom, but without actually explaining where this amount comes from and how it is composed. I assume that this is rather irregular from a legal perspective.

Consequently, I sent a letter to the law firm, asking for proof that he actually acted in the name of Telekom and also requiring a more detailed explanation of the claim. Some research on the net also indicated that the law firm is well-known, maybe one could say notorious, for its behavior. There seem to be thousands of complaints in various blogs and forums. Just search for "Seiler & Kollegen" and you will be surprised.

And, since I really was in a good mood, I also wrote a letter of complaint to Mr. Timotheus Höttges. Mr. Höttges is member of the board of management of Deutsche Telekom and also responsible for T-Home and Sales & Service. I am really looking forward to receiving a reply.

UPDATE 05-06-08

I received a reply to my letter to Mr. Höttges, Deutsche Telekom's BoM member being responsible for Sales and Service. The letter came from the BoM support unit and promised that the complaint would be forwarded to the appropriate specialists who would get in touch with me.

From the law firm I haven't received any response so far.

I am looking forward to the further proceeding ...

EU - List of restricted handluggage items

I received a reply from the EASA (see below). It declares that the list of forbidden items is not within the responsibility of the EASA and asks me to contact the European Commission instead. Of course, I have already done this. Once again, I am waiting for an answer.

Sehr geehrter Herr Simon,

bitte entschuldigen Sie die verspätete Antwort. Leider müssen wir Sie auch bitten, sich damit an die Europäische Kommission, Generaldirektion Verkehr zu wenden, da die Liste der verbotenen Gegenstände nicht in den Aufgabenbereich der EASA fällt. Sie können Ihre Frage an TREN-AIR-TRANSPORT@ec.europa.eu senden.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

EASA Communications Department

EU - List of restricted handluggage items

The EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency) issued a list of restricted handluggage items (Directive 68/2004) on February 1, 2004. The list contains a considerable number of items which obviously make little sense in an airplane, such as explosives, guns, etc.

However, there are also some items that confused me. Why should a golf club be harmful? Have you ever tried to swing a golf club in an airplane? think it might be difficult to use it as an effective weapon.

The list also contains martial arts equipment and list some examples, such as shuriken and nunchakus, and kubatons. However, it also contains an item called "kubasaunt" and honestly, spoken, I have no idea what this might be. I am tempted to believe that the EASA doesn't know either and the term just ended up there as the result of a mistake. Consequently, I sent the following note to the EASA, asking for a clarification:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

in Ihrer Verordnung EG 68/2004 vom 01.02.2004 werden Gegenstände aufgelistet, deren Verbringung in ein Flugzeug aus Gründen der Flugsicherheit nicht zulässig ist.

Unter Abschnitt 1 - Punkt 3 (Stumpfe Gegenstände) werden auch Kampfsportausrüstungsgegenstände aufgeführt, darunter „Kubasaunts“.

Dieser Gegenstand ist mir, im Gegensatz zum ebenfalls genannten Kubaton, unbekannt. Bitte teilen Sie mir mit, was ein Kubasaunt ist, damit ich nicht unversehens in die Situation komme, ein solches eventuell bei einer Reise mit mir zu führen.

Mit freundlichen Grüssen,

Kai Simon

If you also are curious what kubasaunts are, check back later. I'll post the answer from EASA here.

DSL upgrade - Disappointed by Telekom

At home, I have a DSL connection provided by Telekom since 2001. Until February this year, I had a 6 mbit connection with DSL and phone flatrate and I virtually never had any problem with regard to availability. The cost was maybe somewhat higher than with some competitors, but the service lovel made me stay.

Then I was called by a customer representative and offered an upgrade from 6 -> 16 mbit, in combination with a hotspot flatrate. The flipside was a 2 year contractual obligation, but I considered this as acceptable.

A few days later I received the order conformation and another couple of days later the DSL connection was dead. When calling the service center I had to learn that my DSL modem was not capable of a 16 mbit connection and that I would need a new one at the cost of 49 €. I was also told that the cost could be offset against my monthly fee, since I had not been informed about the additional cost.

A few days later, I received the new modem that nowadays is combined with a wireless access point, installed it and functionality was thus restored. I then sent a mail to Telekom customer service, told them about the issue and asked how to handle the refund/offset. I also told them that I would not pay the invoice for the port, until the issue was settled.

Today, I received a call where I was told that a refund or offset is out of question and that I should pay the invoice. The reason given was that 49 € is the price and since they could not confirm that I had not been informed about the fact that I would need a new port, there was no reason to waive the invoice.

I then tried to revoke the upgrade. No, this wasn't possible either since the cancellation period is two weeks. This despite the fact that I had contacted them regarding the issue within this period and the handling time caused the delay.

Well, what I am supposed to do now? Probably send a harsh letter to Telekom manangement, try to enforce the revocation of the contract and then change the provider. So far, my impression of Telekom's service offering has been positive, but this has really disappointed me.

Ministerial Fingerprint

In the latest version of the Datenschleuder, the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) has published a fingerprint of Germany's Minister of the Interior, Wolfgang Schäuble. It also contains an instruction how to make fake fingerprint that can be attached to another person's fingertip.

The CCC has been fighting authorities' data acquisitiveness for quite some time now, and this scoop will hopefully fuel this discussion and make a broader audience aware of what threat to personal integrity the widespread use of biometrical data constitutes.

BTW, this is the fingerprint:

Data retention law - Vorratsdatenspeicherung - Slap in the face for government

Today, the German constitutional court issued an intermediate decision regarding the new data retention law. The law forces telcos and ISPs to store any connection data for six months and to make it available to law enforcement organisations (police, prosecutors) upon request. The court has ruled that this data only needs to be made available in the case of capital crimes. The final decision is expected to be taken later this year.

Some time ago, the German Minister of Justice commissioned an investigation regarding the legal aspects of the planned data retention law. Obviously, the result was not the desired one and the publication has been slowed for quite some time, while requests regarding the publication of an intermediate version have been refused by the ministry.

It is astonishing, how frequently the "law and order" politicians in the German government are slapped by the constitutional court. Last week, the court prohibited the automated scanning of cars' license plates, this week the next slap in the face.

Addition (March 21, 2008): One of the best commentaries on the topic I found, in the paper "Die Zeit".

Computerwoche article

I recently published a short article on the "Glocalization of IT Governance" in the German IT weekly Computerwoche. It outlines four governance styles and describe their main characteristics.

If you read German, you can find it here.

Feedback and comments are welcome!

Conference presentation

On June 4, I will be giving a keynote presentation on Enterprise Information Management (EIM) at a conference arranged by IIR. When starting to prepare the keynote I realized that the term EIM is used in a rather inconsistent way by users and vendors alike. But, as some of my colleagues stated: for companies to manage their information assets better, they need to clearly understand the term enterprise information management and its meaning. And, they also came up with a definition:

Enterprise information management (EIM) is an integrative discipline for structuring, describing and governing information assets, regardless of organizational and technological boundaries, to improve operational efficiency, promote transparency and enable business insight.

This definition is comprehensive and covers the most important elements of EIM. But, although it is a one sentence definition, I was looking for something even shorter. How do you like this one:

EIM is the just-in-time concept for information.

Unfortunately, the conference was cancelled due to a small number of participants. I find it interesting that a concept like EIM is not interesting enough to attract a larger audience.

WLAN Security

A lot of people still seem to be rather ignorant about the vulnerability of their wireless access points. One of our neighbors believed that using a hidden SSID would be a sufficient security level. Of course it is helpful, but if you change neither the standard SSID nor the standard password for router administration ...

Well, today is his birthday, so in the last row you can see my congratulations:



This was just for the lulz and I promise that I also will give him the new password when he comes over for a party tonight. So, no harm done.

Otherwise, security is still an underestimated issue. Imagine, I had used his access point for unlawful activities. He would have a hard time explaining this to the police.