The 2nd Law of ITIL Bushido: Courage

Courage: the ability to confront fear, pain, risk/danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Moral courage is the courage to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, or discouragement.


ITIL Samurai are a courageous lot. They should be. For once the virtues of the ITIL framework have been implemented properly they know that there isn't much that they can't handle. They have the vision of foresight. Well set thresholds and alarms, monitoring, modeling, application sizing, demand management, outcome based Service Level Agreements and a battery of other tools given by the framework allow ITIL Samurai to not only predict and adapt to the future but they know that they are creating the future. This makes them courageous and fearless when making predictions and overcoming obstacles.

ITIL Samurai do not fear "negative metrics" and boldy present the "ugly side" of IT. They have the courage to not get involved in "blame game" politics for they know that at the end of the day, the customer doesn't care who's fault it was they want a solution not your petty, finger pointing groveling. ITIL Samurai always learn from these issues and look to ensure that they never happen again.

ITIL Samurai are not swayed by "vendor rhetoric" and understand that there is no such thing as an "ITIL Compliant" ANYTHING. They know that ITIL Certifies PEOPLE not Software or businesses. As such, when looking into buying a new tool to aid in the harmony of the infrastructure, they have enough moral courage to focus on the true needs of their business and weigh the software against thier own strict criteria to make sure it is a good fit before making a foolhardy decision that would disrupt the harmony of the organization.

ITIL Samurai laugh (HA!) at words like "discouragement" for they know that absorbing challenges and issues into the framework will allow them to seek more permanent holistic solutions. As such they see every issue that comes their way as an opportunity to shine and improve.

Example:
Capacity Management Goal: Ensure cost-justifiable IT capacity in all areas of IT always exists and is matched to the current and future agreed needs of the business

Through the constant constant monitoring and analysis of
Business Capacity
(e.g. How many more employees will we take on when we buy this smaller company?),
Service Capacity
(e.g. How many transactions per second does service X put through the LAN at peak times. How many people does it take to support this service?)
Component Capacity
(e,g, What is the % of CPU used per transaction type)

ITIL Samurai have foresight of vision when helping to meet the constant shifts of the business. This gives them tremendous courage in the face of adversity to tackle any challenges that come their way.

Other processes that build courage through better understanding:

Service Level Management
Availability Management
IT Service Continuity Management
Supplier Management
Financial Management

ITIL Samurai are courageous because they understand what it takes to deliver what their stakeholders want. If the stakeholders change direction, the ITIL Samurai does too making it seem effortless and painless.

The courage of ITIL Samurai is infectious. Not only to the members of IT but to the business as all throughout the organization the words "can we" are changed to "how will we".