User:Bernd F Dollinger/ItSMF

The IT Service Management Forum (itSMF) is an independent, internationally, not-for-profit organisation of IT Service Management (ITSM) professionals worldwide. Around the operation of IT services the itSMF collect, develop and publish “best practice”, supports eduction and training, discuss the development of ITSM tools, initiate advisory ideas about ITSM and held conventions. The itSMF is concerned with promoting ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library), Best Practice in IT Service Management and has a strong interest in the international ISO/IEC 20000 standard. The itSMF publishes books covering various aspects of Service Management through a process of endorsing them as part of the itSMF Library. The itSMF is a brand and trademark with a focused vision and goal, which is often copied by partners , members, local chapters and other.

History
At the CCTA in UK starts 1986 the idea about a GITTIM - Government IT Infrastructure Management Method; that turned in ITIL. The program manager was John Stewart, who assigned Brian Johnson as responsible at CCTA site to create a user group, which was established in 1991 – the birth of itSFM. It was initially called the IT Infrastructure Management Forum (ITIMF). The change to itSMF was around 1994/5 in relation with the birth of the first “oversea” chapter in the Netherlands. The exact story was in this times not documented, but there is a blog with the remembers of Brian Johnson and Ivor Macfarlane.

The itSMF UK takes at this time the international coordination. With a growing number of national chapters a real international umbrella was needed. The itSMF International was created in 2004.

Context
The itSMF is depending on its vision and goal in relations with some organisations and topics around Business service management and IT service management. Organisations in correlation with the work around ITIL: Topics beyond ITIL, which are part of the work in the itSMF, were:
 * The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) is part of the Efficiency and Reform Group of the Cabinet Office, a department of the Government of the United Kingdom. . Primordial the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) was the name of the unit, which developed ITIL and established the itSMF. In 2000 it was subsumed into the OGC.
 * The Stationery Office (TSO) is the privatised publishing arm of Her Majesty's Stationery Office. TSO is the publisher of ITIL.
 * The APM Group Ltd (APMG) is the official accreditor of the OGC for qualifications based on their Best Practice guidance portfolio. APMG hosted the official web sides about best practises including ITIL.
 * ISACA is an international professional association, well known for COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology) as framework for IT Management and IT Governance.
 * ISO/IEC 20000 - The international standard for organisations,which will show there performance in ITSM.
 * ISO/IEC 15504, also known as SPICE (Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination) - The international standard for capability in information technology process measured with a standard assessment method.

International Organisation and Activities
There are 54 officially national itSMF Chapters worldwide today (December 2012). They are organized in the itSFM International as umbrella. Each chapter is a separate legal entity and is largely autonomous. The national chapters offer their services around the membership for there members. The members in the national chapters were entire companies or individuals. The members are
 * organisations, which are interested in ITSM and uses ITIL as their framework
 * service provider, which are looking for a quality in providing their services for its customers
 * training companies, which provides the standard course for ITIL and other best practises
 * tool developer and supporter for all supporting issues around ITSM like ticket tools, work flow tools, monitoring, software distribution
 * individuals and companies, which offers consulting for ITSM and ITIL.

The itSMF International operates with an Executive Board of seven members. The board represents with members of Australia, South Africa, Poland and more the chapters worldwide.

Typical activities in the national chapters were:
 * Conferences - Many national chapters offer their members an annually Conferences. They often include an exhibition. In addition the itSMF chapters were partner of conferences of other organisations (e.g. Gartner “Business Intelligence & Information Management Summit 2013” in Australia ).
 * Events and knowledge exchange – There were regional events to discuss and work together about topics around ITSM, ITIL and more . For special interest groups were regular appointments for meetings  . The special interest may by some industry, a single topic out of the ITIL or the relation to other organisations like the ISACA.
 * Development and research – The collective development of white papers and publications are regular activities in the chapters . The work groups in the chapters acts even as collectors of information. The national glossaries of the ITIL are typical results of the work in the chapters . The chapters were even active in research. There were own studies or together with other, well known research organisations (e.g. “Drive Service Management Adjustments With Peer Comparisons” from the itSMF USA together with Forrester Research, Inc.)

The professionals aligned with the itSMF are requested speakers at conferences, member of discussions and publisher of books and white papers. In companies like IBM, HP , T-Systems and other communities around ITSM were established and interlinked with the itSMF.

National Chapters
The following list of some national chapters is taken for example to show individual activities.

itSMF Australia Inc (AU)
The Australia chapter was founded 1998 and operates as registered and legal business entity that was incorporated in Victoria; based in Melbourne. The chapter holds an annually conference – the 16th in 2013 – with the title “LEADit”. The chapter provides in five categories annual itSMF Industry Awards for Excellence in IT Service Management. For the member's a quarterly communique as “The itSMF Australia Bulletin” is printed.

itSMF Germany (DE – itSMF Deutschland e. V.)
The German chapter was founded 2001 in the constitution of an registered association (German: eingetragener Verein; e. V.). The daily operations is covered by an extra company, the itSMS GmbH, a 100 percent affiliate of the association. The board get supervision by an advisory board. The work groups develop and publish a list of books and position papers. The most productive group in count of published books is special interested group Public Sector (German: Öffentliche Verwaltung). There were three books about “ITIL in the Public Sector” (“ITIL in der Öffentlichen Verwaltung” ), “Organisation Model for the IT in the Public Sector” (“Organisationsmodell für die IT in der Öffentlichen Verwaltung”) ) and “Service Level Management in the Public Sector” (“Service Level Management in der Öffentlichen Verwaltung”) ). The work group about the alignment between CobiT and ITIL develop and publish in the second edition a detailed mapping for the both frameworks: “Praxis Reference Book ITIL-COBIT-Mapping” (“Praxishandbuch ITIL-COBIT-Mapping”). The position papers covers topics like Service Strategy, Cloud Computing, Mediation, Sourcing- und Outsourcing-Frameworks and Stability

Annually in December the chapter celebrates a two day congress. Topics were provided in different formats with typical keynotes, four or five parallel user sessions, which presents three 20-minute-speeches in a row and a joint discussion, and some open world café discussions.

During the year typical two one day meetings were hold – name itSMF Live! - with different, actual topics. A special event for the Public Sector is the event FIT-ÖV.

The chapter award since 2009 the ITSM project of the year. The first awarded project was “ITIL 2010” of the  Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit, Germany).

itSMF UK
As founding chapter of the itSMF movement the itSMF UK takes a leading role. Beside a board it has established a staff team for operation.

The itSMF UK celebrates an annually Conferences with an interesting exhibition. In 2012 takes the 21st place in London with around 900 participants. The chapter provide some Service Management Awards: Outstanding Contribution to ITSM Service Management, Service Management Project of the Year, Service Innovation of the Year, Service Management Team of the Year and more.

There were six regional groups actual in place (December 2012(. Additionally there were five special interest groups dealing with Transition Management, Service Level Management, Continual Service Improvement, Problem Management and Service Design. The itSMF UK publish the magazine “Service Talk” and “eNews” as quarterly informations around ITSM. Interesting books developed and published by the itSMF UK were the “ITIL Foundation Handbook (2011)” or the “Service Level Management - a Practitioner's Guide”, written by the itSMF UK SLM special interest group.

External links for several itSFM organisations

 * itSMF International and itSMF International
 * itSMF Australia Chapter
 * itSMF Belgium Chapter
 * itSMF Croatian Chapter
 * itSMF Czech Republic Chapter
 * itSMF Toronto, Canada Chapter
 * itSMF Germany]
 * itSMF Gulf Chapter
 * itSMF India Chapter
 * - Ipanema Technologies, itSMF member
 * itSMF Japan Chapter
 * itSMF Kenya Chapter
 * itSMF Norway, Norwegian Chapter
 * itSMF NL Chapter
 * itSMF Polish Chapter
 * itSMF Russian Chapter
 * itSMF Serbian Chapter
 * itSMF Spain Chapter
 * itSMF Swedish Chapter
 * itSMF Thailand Chapter
 * itSMF USA Chapter
 * itSMF UK Chapter