"This was an excellent course, If I was describing this course to someone considering attending, I would call it a COBIT boot course even a mini MBA at times.  Geoff added so much to the course material .....brought it alive".
Jonathan Sinfield, Head of IT, Marketform Group, UK

"Showed passion for the subject"
CIO, Port Authority, Australia 
 
"Utilised work and life experiences to explain the relevance of the course".
IT Director, leading Financial Services Company, UK
 
"Valuable and useful for my work as an executive in an IT service company"
CFO, IT services company, Australia 
 
"Great instructor! Provided insights and memory aids.
Business leader, international credit card company, USA
 
"Great - Most useful course I've been on in years" 
Head of IT, major UK city's public housing management company.

"Balanced approach. Refreshed the learning giving opportunities for everyone to participate, setting right examples on each of the COBIT topics. Very good and would like to recommend to colleagues in my organization and outside my organization."
Project Manager, from a leading global computer manufacturer and IT services company, Singapore
 
"Instructor was clear and concise. Very knowledgeable"
Regional IT Manager - Asia Pacific, global specialty chemicals and materials company, Singapore 

 "A very good course that has been delivered beyond my expectations. Very rare!"
IT Finance Director, Leading international pharmaceutical company, UK

"Very well presented, well structured course. Instructor with lots of experience".
Senior Service Management Consultant, IT outsourcing supplier to major chemical company, UK

"Good and dynamic presenter. (Not just a lot of Powerpoints) The instructor was highly qualified as well as experienced. People of this calibre are few and far between. Overall one of the best courses I have ever attended in more than 20 years of working life".
Head of IT Services, government department, Denmark.

"Very well delivered course - a great mix of IT and non-IT examples to illustrate points".
Finance & Commercial Consultant, international personal computer corporation, UK

"Trés professionnel.  Merci pour les efforts fait pour animer le cours".
Help Desk Analyst, International Organisation, Switzerland

"The instructor had in depth knowledge of the subject and with the help of real life examples based on his experience, learning ITIL was easy".
Project Manager, major mobile phone network provider, UK 

"Good in giving examples, explaining terminology, answering questions and delivering information at the right pace". Quality and Product Manager, IT hosting company, Iceland

"Very good lecturer. Nice warm personality". Team leader, global investment bank, UK

(Apr 10) After 2 years in development, ISACA released 3 core COBIT 5 books today. Key facts: 5 domains, 37 processes and 208 governance and management practices. Click here to download from the ISACA COBIT 5 website

(Jan 4) An interesting whitepaper on the current state of ITIL has been written for APMG by the IT Skeptic, Rob England. He reviewed 23 studies on ITIL and concludes, with reservations, that 30%-60% of organisations use ITIL. A reliable statistic is that there is a compound growth in ITIL course attendance of 30% per annum. Click here to download from the Best Practice Management website

(Dec 11) A range of documents and tools concerning ISACA's ISO 15504-aligned COBIT 4.1 Process Assessment Model (PAM) have been released. They include a self assessment guide and tools that are upgrades to the existing COBIT Maturity Model. Click here to download from the ISACA website.

(Dec 4) A new version of the Capability Maturity Model Integration for Services (CMMI-SVC V1.3) has been published. It is freely downloadable and is 520 pages. Click here to download from SEI at Carnegie Mellon university.

(Nov 28) ISACA has published a book (free download for members) on how to examine assurance in the cloud and how to create value, too. Click here to link

(Aug 15) ISACA has extended the public review of COBIT 5 draft until 18 September 2011. So, if you missed the end-July deadline you still have a chance to add your comments.

(Aug 1) Read a pot-pourri of my interesting finds in the newly published ITIL 2011 Edition. Click here to link.

(Jun 28) ISACA released today, 2 key COBIT 5 documents: COBIT 5 Framework and COBIT 5 Process Reference Guide. These can be downloaded from the ISACA web site. Click here to link. Comments on the exposure drafts can be made until 31 July on the ISACA website.

(Jun 23) OGC has announced that the ITIL V3 rewrite - ITIL 2011 it is called - will have publication of all volumes on 29 July 2011. Prices as usual! Click here to read about their content on the OGC website.

(Apr 19) COBIT 5 details were formally disclosed at a BCS presentation in London last week . Read about them in my ITSM Portal column: COBIT 5 Update - it's almost ready.

(Apr 4) This looks like being one of the best masters degrees in ITSM currently available. The National University of Ireland (NUI) in  Maynooth, County Kildare is launching an MSc in IT Management in September 2011. It will be very business aligned and strongly focused on the IT-CMF framework that the Innovation Value Institute based at NUI Maynooth drives. It can be conducted over 12 months full-time or 24 months part time and is taught module based with a business research project dissertation, too. Click here to visit IVI website and view the MSc and other IT-CMF qualifications.

(Jan 13) Our principal, Dr Geoff Harmer, will be running a 4 day CGEIT course for IT Governance Ltd on 23-26 May in Central London. This course prepares delegates for the ISACA CGEIT public exam held in London on 11 June 2011. Click here for details from the IT Governance website.

(Jan 12) Being ISACA-licensed for COBIT, we have scheduled ISACA's new Implementing Governance of Enterprise IT using COBIT (2 day) courses during 2011. Courses will be run by Dr Geoff Harmer, an ISACA-licensed COBIT trainer. This is suitable for those who hold the ISACA COBIT Foundation certificate and now wish to drive an IT Governance programme in their organisation. The course includes the ISACA exam. Click here to read the course outline.

(Nov 16) On 28 October 2010, OGC published the new ITIL V3 complementary publication: ITIL Planning to Implement Service Management (PISM). Price is GBP 75 (or $115). If it matches the V2 book of the same name it will be very useful. Click here to visit OGC website to view information about the book and browse inside to see the TOC and part of Chapter 1. Read my review on ITSM Portal.

(Nov 15) A new 32 page ITSM magazine has just been published by itSMF International. Called "At Your Service - the official magazine of itSMF International". It is freely downloadable. Click here to download from the itSMF International website

(Sep 17) Everyone passed the COBIT Foundation exam at our public course in September in London.

(Aug 16) An update on the COBIT 5 domains and processes from the development team at ISACA suggests that there may be 37 processes in COBIT 5. Click here to view the update on the ISACA website.

(Jul 16) All 100% of delegates who attended our public COBIT Foundation course at the end of May passed the exam.

(Jun 25) Alan McSweeney has provided a 35 slide presentation on Slideshare that provides an understanding of how to use IT-CMF to develop a business-oriented IT strategy. It also gives a good background understanding to the recently launched IT Capability Maturity (IT-CMF) framework. Click here to view and download from the Slideshare website

(Jun 14) ISO has published a technical report ISO TR 20000-5:2010 Exemplar implementation plan for ISO/IEC 20000-1. It is a 31 page document that provides guidance on activities for implementation starting with start up and business case development that lead into a 3 phase plan for implementation. It contains 13 pages of tables in annexes that cover all activities with responsible roles being listed. We'd suggest also using the Van Haren book "ISO 20000: An Implementation Roadmap". Why? Because it has about 6 real-world case studies, too. Buy ISO 20000-5 from BSI shop or your favourite ISO vendor.

(Jun 2) Today IT-CMF Version 1 was released by the Innovation Value Institute (IVI). Read my column on IT-CMF. Getting to this stage has involved a $10M investment and 60,000 man hours of collaborative development by IVI consortium partners. IT-CMF has been used to date to assess 80 leading Fortune 500 companies. For further information click here to visit the IVI website.

(Updated May 27) For the second year, we have been selected by itSMF USA from much competition to run an official ISACA COBIT Foundation course including exam at the Pre-convention training for the itSMF Fusion conference now to be held in Louisville, Kentucky after the floods in Nashville have closed the original conference venue until October. The training will run from 18-19 September and the conference itself runs from 19-22 September. Our principal consultant, Dr Geoff Harmer, will be running the course.

(May 11) Once again all delegates attending our COBIT Foundation Course taught by our principal Geoff Harmer in Melbourne, Australia in April passed the exam.