Well, the itSMFnz19 conference is over and everyone has headed back home and to work.
We would like to thank all of our sponsors and supporters, some new, some continual supporters and some returning supporters without whom it would not be possible. More details on the sponsors can be found on our website.
We would also like to thank our speakers. It’s always a great experience to have so many submissions made, but never great having to turn people down. However it does mean that we must be doing something right.
Finally, a big thanks to our delegates. We always are a small conference, but that is one of our biggest benefits. While we had a number of new attendees, some new to itSMFnz conferences and some new to conferences in general, it’s great to see people renewing acquaintances and having time to find and talk to their ITSM whanāu. And that is what we are. Whanāu.
A redesigned program
I have to admit that this year was a worrying conference. We were trying a few new things which, while suggested by delegates last year, could have ruined the experience. This year, we reduced the number of speaking slots and made all one hour. Keynote or not, everyone got one hour. This enabled great Q&A sessions during and after the presentations, and also enabled some people to make their presentations interactive (Aprill Allen aka Knowledge Bird with her KCS Benefits Bingo). It didn’t work for everyone, so we may look to make some tweaks next year. However a less rushed atmosphere made everyone seemed more relaxed and appear to be enjoying things more.
We also reduced the conference from 3 days to 2. This was done to make it easier for people to get time off work and to reduce the overall cost for sponsors (along with reduced sponsorship costs). This seemed to work well and we think we will keep it.
Something else we expect to keep, is the more relaxed dinner. For many years now we have had a “Welcome” event and a “Departure Lounge” event to bookend the conference and give those arriving early or leaving late, the opportunity to chat about things we get mocked for in the real world, with like minded people. Sponsors mingle and catch up with people many have started to consider friends, and it is very informal. However we also made dinner informal. Finger food, bar stools and, this year, Casino Night entertainment. This broke down many barriers, encouraged networking and even enabled a conversation which led to the establishment of a more regular Otago / Southland itSMFnz branch, with a new Branch Chair. More on that when we have worked through the details.
Working Smarter; Being Better
Our theme was intended to help speakers share their knowledge and experience on how to get more out of working practices, as well as from a more personal perspective. It’s always a worry, building a programme, because while the subject of a presentation may sound great, there’s a concern that the core may be slightly different. Well not this year!
We started with a keynote from Wellington Civil Defence, who talked about preparing for “the big one”. Jeremy Holmes had been involved in the Canterbury quakes as well as in Wellington. However, the approach, methodologies and frameworks used, including Cynefin which is hot in IT, reinforced the fact that we all work in the same way. Nobody is doing anything fundamentally different to any other sector.
Christophe de Boeck then spoke in one stream on Serving with Feedback, referencing the need for empathy, servant leadership and the growth mindset vs the fixed mindset. Christophe will be speaking at itSMFnz branch events as well in case you missed this.
Aprill Allen took the other stream sharing experience and knowledge on Making Self Service Work. This was a great, interactive session and challenged many people with simple yet very effective advice, such as “ You don’t have to do something miraculous to impress people. Getting it right half the time will do”, which many organisations still struggle with.
Rob Bull then led us through using Lean as a way of continuously improving the way we work. This highlighted to many the fact, again, that we aren’t doing this in isolation. ITIL4, DevOps, VeriSM, Lean, Agile, etc all work together and often in similar ways.
Talking of ITIL4, that’s exactly what Erin Casteel, one of two ITIL4 authors speaking at the conference, who explained about Service Value System and Digital Transformation.
Following Erin was Lou Hunnebeck, the other ITIL4 author who took us on a journey to ITAM maturity, something that many people struggle with.
Challenging Lou for bums on seats was Roland Shepherd who spoke about predictive analytics and how they can improve employee experience. It’s always great, as an organiser, to hear people complaining that they can’t decide which session to go to, and this was certainly one of many times I heard that.
I also heard speakers complaining that they wanted to see someone they were up against (in the programme), including Tristan Boot who gave an enlightening talk of relationship management while bemoaning the fact that he couldn’t be next door.
That was a fair complaint, as Karen Ferris explained about the different superheroes we need, and have, to manage constant change, and told a very personal and touching story on her super hero within.
The day ended with Lou Hunnebeck talking about unlocking the power of ITIL4. It is a great pleasure to get architects and authors of books and frameworks to speak in New Zealand, because we are so far away from everyone else. So when Lou, for the third year in a row, chooses to come and share her knowledge with us, it is fantastic.
Day2, hangovers aside, started with a fire alarm. This didn’t bode well, as it had the potential to reduce the opening keynote, Jackie Clark from The Aunties charity, time. However, as Jackie took to the floor and talked about our privilege, using it, owning our shine (and something else) and littered the room with (generally) well received F-bombs and C-bombs, we decided to remove the planned Lean Coffee session next, and let Jackie flow. People spoke about her talk for the rest of the day.
Jackie was a hard act to follow, but Owen McCall and Beth Coleman grabbed their sessions by the scruff of the neck and while Owen spoke about High Performance IT and how we can create our future through the transformative power of IT, Beth took us along with her as she discussed Intelligent Swarming and how KCS assists. Enlightening!
itSMFnz stalwart, Rob England and his boss, Dr Cherry Vu brought some of us back from lunch on the final day with a condensed presentation (squeezed into 1 hour) about Human systems agility, which reinforced some of the key points from Christophe, Karen and Jackie, while Anthony McMahon explained how ITSM and Enterprise Architecture need to get into bed with each other. Now, I know some EAs, so I hope he didn’t mean literally!
Rounding off the session speakers, were Andy Keiller, CIO of the University of Canterbury and Sanjeev NC, who speaks around the world at conferences but admits he loves coming to NZ. Andy provided an update on the transformation they have been going through, the challenges associated and some of the learnings. Sanjeev helped shed further light on a simple self service implementation framework reinforcing some of the findings from Aprill's talk the day before.
The spotlight was on resilience
To really end the conference, we welcomed Dr Paul Wood. The core points from his talk, were seen as a day’s bookend, with him making the same points from a different perspective as Jackie.
Jackie came from a family where her father was a well known businessman, with many children and she became part of an abusive relationship, on the receiving end. She set up a charity for those in abusive relationships and after her husband’s death, started to speak about it.
Paul, became a drug user at a relatively young age, and after his mother’s death, killed his drug dealer who tried to rape him, went to prison and was the first person to achieve a doctorate while in prison.
This conference helped people to work better, through knowledge sharing by fantastic speakers and awesome sponsors, and helped people be better, through evocative and often emotional stories from many speakers.
What others have said
Aprill Allen / Knowledge Bird: “I was so pleased to catch up with a few familiar faces, but it was even better to meet some friendly new ones, and to have my privilege challenged by the amazing keynote speakers.”
“This was my first time attending the conference and I found the mixture of speakers, with different skills and objectives, along with the people touch, Jackie Clark QSM and Dr Paul Wood enlightening. I thoroughly enjoyed all the sessions I attended.”
“Thanks for another great ITSMf conference. Great speakers this year especially Karen Ferris and Jackie Clark. Well done another great year and all the best in the planning for next years event.”
Erin Casteel: “The presentations at this year’s conference were the most consistently future focused of any itSMF conference I have attended in the last 20 years, which was very refreshing. Even though there was a wide range of topics, a key theme that came through centred around both organizational and individual resilience in the face of continual, rapid, disruptive change. Speakers shared many different perspectives and compelling examples.”
Rob England: “I felt the conference was well composed: balanced and challenging; well in tune with the trends Cherry and I spoke about: brave and humanistic and well constructed to serve the vendors too (they matter). Well done!”
Anthony McMahon: “A great conference that provides plenty of opportunity for discussion and debate around a range of ideas relating to ITSM, while also meeting and engaging with critical thinkers across the IT industry. The theme for the 2019 conference was of collaboration and wellness, both very topical in the modern workforce, and all speakers provided some fantastic tips and tricks on how to bring out your best self”
We would like to thank all of our sponsors and supporters, some new, some continual supporters and some returning supporters without whom it would not be possible. More details on the sponsors can be found on our website.
We would also like to thank our speakers. It’s always a great experience to have so many submissions made, but never great having to turn people down. However it does mean that we must be doing something right.
Finally, a big thanks to our delegates. We always are a small conference, but that is one of our biggest benefits. While we had a number of new attendees, some new to itSMFnz conferences and some new to conferences in general, it’s great to see people renewing acquaintances and having time to find and talk to their ITSM whanāu. And that is what we are. Whanāu.
A redesigned program
I have to admit that this year was a worrying conference. We were trying a few new things which, while suggested by delegates last year, could have ruined the experience. This year, we reduced the number of speaking slots and made all one hour. Keynote or not, everyone got one hour. This enabled great Q&A sessions during and after the presentations, and also enabled some people to make their presentations interactive (Aprill Allen aka Knowledge Bird with her KCS Benefits Bingo). It didn’t work for everyone, so we may look to make some tweaks next year. However a less rushed atmosphere made everyone seemed more relaxed and appear to be enjoying things more.
We also reduced the conference from 3 days to 2. This was done to make it easier for people to get time off work and to reduce the overall cost for sponsors (along with reduced sponsorship costs). This seemed to work well and we think we will keep it.
Something else we expect to keep, is the more relaxed dinner. For many years now we have had a “Welcome” event and a “Departure Lounge” event to bookend the conference and give those arriving early or leaving late, the opportunity to chat about things we get mocked for in the real world, with like minded people. Sponsors mingle and catch up with people many have started to consider friends, and it is very informal. However we also made dinner informal. Finger food, bar stools and, this year, Casino Night entertainment. This broke down many barriers, encouraged networking and even enabled a conversation which led to the establishment of a more regular Otago / Southland itSMFnz branch, with a new Branch Chair. More on that when we have worked through the details.
Working Smarter; Being Better
Our theme was intended to help speakers share their knowledge and experience on how to get more out of working practices, as well as from a more personal perspective. It’s always a worry, building a programme, because while the subject of a presentation may sound great, there’s a concern that the core may be slightly different. Well not this year!
We started with a keynote from Wellington Civil Defence, who talked about preparing for “the big one”. Jeremy Holmes had been involved in the Canterbury quakes as well as in Wellington. However, the approach, methodologies and frameworks used, including Cynefin which is hot in IT, reinforced the fact that we all work in the same way. Nobody is doing anything fundamentally different to any other sector.
Christophe de Boeck then spoke in one stream on Serving with Feedback, referencing the need for empathy, servant leadership and the growth mindset vs the fixed mindset. Christophe will be speaking at itSMFnz branch events as well in case you missed this.
Aprill Allen took the other stream sharing experience and knowledge on Making Self Service Work. This was a great, interactive session and challenged many people with simple yet very effective advice, such as “ You don’t have to do something miraculous to impress people. Getting it right half the time will do”, which many organisations still struggle with.
Rob Bull then led us through using Lean as a way of continuously improving the way we work. This highlighted to many the fact, again, that we aren’t doing this in isolation. ITIL4, DevOps, VeriSM, Lean, Agile, etc all work together and often in similar ways.
Talking of ITIL4, that’s exactly what Erin Casteel, one of two ITIL4 authors speaking at the conference, who explained about Service Value System and Digital Transformation.
Following Erin was Lou Hunnebeck, the other ITIL4 author who took us on a journey to ITAM maturity, something that many people struggle with.
Challenging Lou for bums on seats was Roland Shepherd who spoke about predictive analytics and how they can improve employee experience. It’s always great, as an organiser, to hear people complaining that they can’t decide which session to go to, and this was certainly one of many times I heard that.
I also heard speakers complaining that they wanted to see someone they were up against (in the programme), including Tristan Boot who gave an enlightening talk of relationship management while bemoaning the fact that he couldn’t be next door.
That was a fair complaint, as Karen Ferris explained about the different superheroes we need, and have, to manage constant change, and told a very personal and touching story on her super hero within.
The day ended with Lou Hunnebeck talking about unlocking the power of ITIL4. It is a great pleasure to get architects and authors of books and frameworks to speak in New Zealand, because we are so far away from everyone else. So when Lou, for the third year in a row, chooses to come and share her knowledge with us, it is fantastic.
Day2, hangovers aside, started with a fire alarm. This didn’t bode well, as it had the potential to reduce the opening keynote, Jackie Clark from The Aunties charity, time. However, as Jackie took to the floor and talked about our privilege, using it, owning our shine (and something else) and littered the room with (generally) well received F-bombs and C-bombs, we decided to remove the planned Lean Coffee session next, and let Jackie flow. People spoke about her talk for the rest of the day.
Jackie was a hard act to follow, but Owen McCall and Beth Coleman grabbed their sessions by the scruff of the neck and while Owen spoke about High Performance IT and how we can create our future through the transformative power of IT, Beth took us along with her as she discussed Intelligent Swarming and how KCS assists. Enlightening!
itSMFnz stalwart, Rob England and his boss, Dr Cherry Vu brought some of us back from lunch on the final day with a condensed presentation (squeezed into 1 hour) about Human systems agility, which reinforced some of the key points from Christophe, Karen and Jackie, while Anthony McMahon explained how ITSM and Enterprise Architecture need to get into bed with each other. Now, I know some EAs, so I hope he didn’t mean literally!
Rounding off the session speakers, were Andy Keiller, CIO of the University of Canterbury and Sanjeev NC, who speaks around the world at conferences but admits he loves coming to NZ. Andy provided an update on the transformation they have been going through, the challenges associated and some of the learnings. Sanjeev helped shed further light on a simple self service implementation framework reinforcing some of the findings from Aprill's talk the day before.
The spotlight was on resilience
To really end the conference, we welcomed Dr Paul Wood. The core points from his talk, were seen as a day’s bookend, with him making the same points from a different perspective as Jackie.
Jackie came from a family where her father was a well known businessman, with many children and she became part of an abusive relationship, on the receiving end. She set up a charity for those in abusive relationships and after her husband’s death, started to speak about it.
Paul, became a drug user at a relatively young age, and after his mother’s death, killed his drug dealer who tried to rape him, went to prison and was the first person to achieve a doctorate while in prison.
This conference helped people to work better, through knowledge sharing by fantastic speakers and awesome sponsors, and helped people be better, through evocative and often emotional stories from many speakers.
What others have said
Aprill Allen / Knowledge Bird: “I was so pleased to catch up with a few familiar faces, but it was even better to meet some friendly new ones, and to have my privilege challenged by the amazing keynote speakers.”
“This was my first time attending the conference and I found the mixture of speakers, with different skills and objectives, along with the people touch, Jackie Clark QSM and Dr Paul Wood enlightening. I thoroughly enjoyed all the sessions I attended.”
“Thanks for another great ITSMf conference. Great speakers this year especially Karen Ferris and Jackie Clark. Well done another great year and all the best in the planning for next years event.”
Erin Casteel: “The presentations at this year’s conference were the most consistently future focused of any itSMF conference I have attended in the last 20 years, which was very refreshing. Even though there was a wide range of topics, a key theme that came through centred around both organizational and individual resilience in the face of continual, rapid, disruptive change. Speakers shared many different perspectives and compelling examples.”
Rob England: “I felt the conference was well composed: balanced and challenging; well in tune with the trends Cherry and I spoke about: brave and humanistic and well constructed to serve the vendors too (they matter). Well done!”
Anthony McMahon: “A great conference that provides plenty of opportunity for discussion and debate around a range of ideas relating to ITSM, while also meeting and engaging with critical thinkers across the IT industry. The theme for the 2019 conference was of collaboration and wellness, both very topical in the modern workforce, and all speakers provided some fantastic tips and tricks on how to bring out your best self”
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