About this blog

Welcome to Kylie Fowler’s Practical ITAM blog.

I started this blog to raise my profile as an ITAM consultant specialising in those areas where IT Service Management (specifically ITIL) and ITAM intersect. In ITIL-speak we’re talking Service Transition – Change, Configuration and Release management. As v.3 currently stands, ITIL is short on ITAM detail in all these areas, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ensure that our ITAM efforts support existing service management efforts and respond to and reinforce ITIL directed change within the organisation.

Very few organisations have either the desire or the resources to implement ITIL as a big bang approach. Although any consultant would love to walk into an organisation and be requested to implement a complete ITAM programme, the reality is that most organisational change is incremental. Therefore we need to prepare the ‘at the coalface’ professionals – those actually doing ITAM inside organisations on a day-to-day basis – to recognise, respond to and take advantage of incremental organisational change.

My experience is that web-based professional development resources for ITAM professionals tend to be long on high level theory and short on practical information that ITAM professionals can apply to their daily practice. This blog is an attempt to remedy that situation by providing  ideas for helping you get the most out of ALL your ITAM efforts, including software, hardware and mobile device asset management.

We’ll touch on the latest developments in IT Service Management, particularly ITIL, and how they affect ITAM.  We will also look at how you can work more effectively with your non-IT partners, most particularly procurement and finance and accounting, but also the human resources, facilities and legal departments.

Blog posts will be structured so that each topic can be conceptualised as a journey – covering a current ‘likely’ state, explaining what the ‘ideal’ should be, and then outlining practical tips to help you move towards that ‘ideal’ state, even while recognising that few organisations will ever actually achieve it.

I’ll also add in the odd personal note, just to make it slightly more interesting for those of you with a low boredom threshold!

I hope you find it interesting, and comments, ideas and requests for topics of interest are always welcome.