Here is a map of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) v3.   ITIL v3 is organized by ITIL stages, processes, and sub-processes.  According to Wikipedia, “ITIL describes procedures, tasks and checklists that are not organization-specific, used by an organization for establishing a minimum level of competency.”   You can find an explanation of the ITIL processes at the ITIL Wiki.

If you’re doing any sort of IT work, it helps to know the lay of the land.  What better way to know the lay of the land of the IT landscape that to know the map of the minimum competencies that IT is supposed to perform.

Stages and Processes
Here is a map of the ITIL Stages and the ITIL Processes within each.

Processes and Sub-Processes
Here are the core ITIL v3 Stages:

• Service Strategy
• Service Design
• Service Transition
• Service Operation
• Continual Service Improvement

Here is a map of the ITIL Processes and Sub-Processes organized by ITIL v3 stages:

Here is a quick map of the process groups, knowledge areas, and processes in the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge).  Regardless of the PMI certification, I think it’s useful to know how the knowledge for project management is organized by experts and professionals.   This will help you more effectively navigate the space, and learn project management at a faster pace, because you can better organize the information in your mind.

If you are a program manager or a project manager, the categories are especially helpful for checking your knowledge and for thinking of projects more holistically.   You can also use the knowledge areas to grow your skills by exploring each area and building your catalog of principles, patterns, and practices.

Process Groups and Knowledge Areas
Here is a quick map of the process groups and knowledge areas in the Project Management Body of Knowledge:

Knowledge Areas and Processes
Here is a quick topology view of the Knowledge Areas and the processes:

Evernote tends to be my tool of choice when for Agile Results.   People often ask me what I use as my Personal Information Assistant (PIA) to manage action and make things happen.  Aside from pen and paper, I use Evernote and Outlook.   Outlook is my calendar and email communication stream.  I don’t use email to manage action because it leads to “paper shuffling.”  Instead, I pluck out action items into a list.   This gives me a lot of flexibility, and I either store that list on paper, or notepad, or Evernote.  I focus on “outcomes”, not “tasks.”  This keeps my lists simpler, my goals clear, and I avoid getting lost among a sea of tasks.

Here's my Evernote  structure:

It’s simple, durable, and evolvable.   It’s just folders and lists with notes.  Here’s the breakdown:

• Daily Outcomes is where I make a new list each day and add three goals, outcomes, or wins for my day to the top of the list.  I title each day using today’s date – “2012-01-29.”   This lets me make a new note without thinking about titles, and this format let’s me sort and flip back through to look for patterns … such as, what sort of wins am I going for.
• Weekly Outcomes is where I make a new list each week, either on Sundays or Mondays, and I write three goals, outcomes, or wins for the week.   I title each list with Monday’s date, so tomorrow’s would be: “2012-01-30.”
• If I do nothing else, each day, I do my Daily Outcomes, each week I do my Weekly Outcomes.   When I’m at my best, I do my weekly recap for me, and my Monthly Recaps for me, and I share it with the higher-ups.
• My Plate is always a short-list of what I’m juggling.
• My Work Projects and Personal Projects are simple lists per project – “One Place to Look” to capture the outcomes that count and dump my brain.
• Backlog is all the stuff I want to get to, but I’m not ready to start.  I track it as two lists – Work stuff and Personal Stuff.
• Shelved is stuff I start, but can’t actively work, so I set it aside – easy to rehydrate later as needed.
• Hot Spots are simple lists of key things like Vision, Mission, Values … my commitments for the year, a tickler list of my “Life Frame” (Mind, Body, Emotions, Career, Money, Relationships, and Fun).  It was acting as “My Plate”, but I found that I wanted an explicit “My Plate” place to list the balls I juggle in work and life.

In general, I don’t use tags.   I'm not a fan of tags ... just simple lists.  Tags and tagging require maintenance and memory to use well ... while simple folders and lists are in your face and what you see is what you get.   Views do help reinforce tagging systems and make them more useful, but what I found the trick is to actually just create the simple “80/20” views to start with, and then keep that brain dead simple and allow for mess and chaos over time, with easy cleanup -- batch and sweep style.

If it’s just lists in folders, it’s extremely easy to change the system when it’s not working.  While the folder structure is not perfect, it has been pretty durable for me.  I’ve used this system to manage million dollar projects and distributed teams around the world, and I’ve used it just for me in very simple scenarios.   The flexibility aspect is important, as is the ability to quickly tailor for your situation.

I think that’s the key though.  You have to find a simple system that works for you.   And if you can do the basics well, then you’re in good shape.  In it’s simplest form, it’s all about having lists of outcomes and actions at your finger tip, and being able to take the balcony view, and see the forest for the trees.

My Related Posts

• 3 Keys to Agile Results
• Now Available: Getting Results the Agile Way on Kindle
• Meaningful Work
• 30 Days of Getting Results

I’ve updated 30 Days of Getting Results based on feedback.  (Special thanks to Alik Levin for his feedback and insight above and beyond the call of duty.)   The site URL is simpler now and easier to share:

• 30 Days of Getting Results - http://30DaysOfGettingResults.com

I wanted to clean it up and improve the experience, especially for those that are using this as their 30 Day Improvement Sprint to bootstrap the new year.

Time Management Skills
Here are some of the time management skills you will learn, tune, and improve as part of the time management training:

• How to manage your time
• How to focus and direct your attention with skill
• How to spend more time on the things that really matter to you
• How to be the author of your life and write your story forward
• How to make the most of your your moments, days, weeks, months, and years
• How to use a simple system to achieve meaningful results
• How to achieve work-life balance
• How to play to your strengths and spend less time in weaknesses
• How to motivate yourself with skill and find your drive
• How to change a habit and make it stick
• How to improve your personal productivity and personal effectiveness

You will learn time management tips and strategies as part of a system, each lesson can be used by itself or “better together” with other lessons.

Time Management Training Lessons at a Glance
Here are the 30 Lessons at a Glance that make up the time management training:

• Day 1 – Take a Tour of Getting Results the Agile Way
• Day 2 – Monday Vision – Use Three Stories to Drive Your Week
• Day 3 – Daily Outcomes – Use Three Stories to Drive Your Day
• Day 4 – Let Things Slough Off
• Day 5 – Hot Spots – Map Out What’s Important
• Day 6 – Friday Reflection – Identify Three Things Going Well and Three Things to Improve
• Day 7 – Setup Boundaries and Buffers
• Day 8 – Dump Your Brain to Free Your Mind
• Day 9 – Prioritize Your Day with MUST, SHOULD, and COULD
• Day 10 – Feel Strong All Week Long
• Day 11 – Reduce Friction and Create Glide Paths for Your Day
• Day 12 – Productivity Personas – Are You are a Starter or a Finisher?
• Day 13 – Triage Your Action Items with Skill
• Day 14 – Carve Out Time for What’s Important
• Day 15 – Achieve a Peaceful Calm State of Mind
• Day 16 – Use Metaphors to Find Your Motivation
• Day 17 – Add Power Hours to Your Week
• Day 18 – Add Creative Hours to Your Week
• Day 19 — Who are You Doing it For?
• Day 20 — Ask Better Questions, Get Better Results
• Day 21 – Carry the Good Forward, Let the Rest Go
• Day 22 – Design Your Day with Skill
• Day 23 — Design Your Week with Skill
• Day 24 – Bounce Back with Skill
• Day 25 – Fix Time. Flex Scope
• Day 26 – Solve Problems with Skill
• Day 27 – Do Something Great
• Day 28 – Find Your One Thing
• Day 29 – Find Your Arena for Your Best Results
• Day 30 – Take Agile Results to the Next Level

Key Links

• 30 Days of Getting Results
• Getting Results the Agile Way - The Book (Amazon) (Now available on Kindle!)
• Getting Results Site and Knowledge Base (Checklists, guidelines, and how tos for focus, motivation, prioritizing, setting goals, time management, etc.)

Colleagues, friends, and family have been asking me how my book, Getting Results the Agile Way, is doing.   It’s doing well.   Today it was #10 on Amazon’s Best Seller’s list in Time Management.

Time Management is a great niche because time is such a unique and precious resource.   How you invest your time helps shape your happiness, your fulfillment, your work life balance, and your achievements in work and life.  I hope the insights and actions I’ve shared in Getting Results the Agile Way, serve you well on your journey and in your pursuit of mastering your time.

I think what makes this book unique for people is that I’ve tried to integrate as much as I could from many amazing mentors at Microsoft, my personal trials and tribulations, and even lessons from software development that we can apply to life (Think “Agile” for life or “Scrum for life” and the value of personal kanbans, timeboxing, etc.)

In related news, Getting Results the Agile Way will be featured in an upcoming article in a magazine with a reader base of three million.

Probably the biggest request I get now is training.   I’m exploring different ways to share and scale training in a more effective way.  I’ll be experimenting and testing approaches in the near future.   While I’ve done one-off sessions and Webinars, I’d like to better package it up and productize it.   I’m a fan of building information products to share and scale information and empower people.

What do great managers do?   To put it simply, they bring out your best.   Whether it’s fire you up or get on your path or help you overcome your personal challenges, they help you flourish.

Aside from all the managers I’ve had before Microsoft, I’ve had 14 managers at Microsoft.  I also regularly mentor people from different teams, so I get exposed to a lot of different management styles and patterns.   If I take a look from the balcony, what ten things do the best of the best managers do?    Here’s the list …

1. Know the priorities.   The best managers know what’s important.   They make priorities clear and trade-offs make sense.   They help you and the team know what counts.   They focus on the vital few.   When the priorities are clear, a lot of things fall into place, and the work becomes meaningful.    The opposite is when everything is a priority.   The worst is when the priorities aren’t clear.   Without clear priorities, you don’t know what to optimize for or what success looks like.   You don’t even know whether you are even on track.  It leads to confusion, churn, and waste.     
2. Focus on goals.   Focusing on the goals sets the stage for collaboration, focus, and priorities.   When the team knows the goals, it’s easier to know what success looks like.  It’s also easier to stay motivated.   It’s also easier to focus on the bigger picture and see the forest for the trees.   The opposite is “The How Trap.”   The How Trap is when a manager focuses on how people do their jobs.   Whether you call it micro-management, or too many cooks in the kitchen, or “my hands are tied”, it gets in the way of people playing their best game.   The best managers pair with you on setting the goals and give you the room to do what you do best.
3. Know the capacity.   The best managers know the capacity.   They don’t overload you or the team beyond capacity.   They plan and design for smart work, rather than heroic efforts.   If all the work is dependent on long hours and going above and beyond, then it’s a risk to the business.   It’s not smart or effective execution.     
4. Focus on learning and growth.    The best managers are great coaches.   They coach for growth.   They know when to provide direction, and when to back off.   They provide actionable feedback.   They don’t make things permanent, personal, or pervasive.   They focus on the challenges or the goals and they provide specific and actionable recommendations to bring out your best.   Call it “tough love”, but the best of the best managers here, tackle the tough stuff.   They do it with your best intentions.   They do it in a way that makes it safe to be vulnerable.   They use a language that’s empowering.   When something goes wrong, it’s not about blame, it’s what’s the learning and how to move forward.   The opposite is a critic that is only good at finding the flaws.
5. Acknowledge the wins.   The best managers acknowledge the wins.   They catch you doing something right.   The best managers are aware of the tough stuff and the key challenges.   They know when you make progress, jump a hurdle, or scale a wall.   The opposite is a manager that only pays attention when something is wrong.
6. Champion the work.   The best managers evangelize the work.   They are your champ.   They tell and sell your work so that it’s recognized and rewarded.   They amplify the impact by spreading the word.   They get the charter and defend the work so you don’t have to.   The opposite is when your work lacks any meaningful visibility or acknowledgement.
7. Build vulnerability-based trust.      The best managers make it safe to fail.   It’s OK to bring your problems and challenges to them, and get open and honest feedback, without it being thrown back in your face.   It’s OK to go out on a limb, as part of driving for stretch goals and learning the ropes, and growing your skills.   In a nutshell, the best managers have your back.   The opposite is when a manager is waiting for you to step out of line or do something wrong.  Anything you share with them gets used against you.   Rather than go out on a limb or go the extra mile, you spend more energy defending or protecting yourself.
8. Focus on strengths.   The best managers have you spend more time in your strengths.   They find the work that challenges you and grows your strengths.   The opposite is a manager that has you spend more time in your weaknesses or doing things outside your passions or strengths.    The secret that great managers know is that when people do what they love and they do what they’re great at, they do great work.   And it’s doing more great work that creates an arena of high-performance teams.  
9. Lead with principles.   Rather than have a bunch of rules, great managers have a set of principles that establish the working environment.   The beauty of establishing principles is that people are empowered, but are governed with principles.   The principles help find the way forward within boundaries, while embracing and enforcing the values.   The opposite is chaos where there are no rules, or the other extreme where there is a rule for every little thing, and sometimes the rules aren’t shared.   A principle-driven leader helps create a work context where people are empowered and share a set of operating principles to guide and shape the way forward.
10. Inspire action.   Great managers don’t use a bunch of carrots and sticks.   They inspire action.   There is a lot to say here.   Sometimes this means having a compelling vision that you connect with and want to be a part of.    Great managers know what fires you up and how to connect the work you do, with your unique talents and passions.   The best managers help you connect the work to your values.     The best managers help you internalize the rewards so that you are driving from your values and your passions and your strengths.     The best managers fan your flames by helping your see meaningful progress and they make the journey as rewarding as the destination.   They find a way to make the work something you would do for free.   The opposite is a manager who drives from fear, uses threats, or relies on extrinsic rewards and penalties.

Now it’s your turn … In your experience, what are the best principles, patterns, and practices that great managers do?

This is a mental model we often use when connecting business and IT.

The big idea is that IT exposes it’s functionality as “services” to the business.   When speaking to the business, we can talk about business capabilities.  When talking to IT, we can talk to the IT capabilities.  

In this model, you can see where workloads sit in relation to business and IT capabilities. Business capabilities (i.e. “what” an individual business function does) rely on IT capabilities. The IT capabilities, together with people and processes, determine “how” the business capability is executed.

The beauty of the model is how quickly and easily we can “up-level” the conversation, or drill-down … or map from the business to the IT side or from IT to the business.

If you want to nail your goals for 2012, here are some guidelines, checklists, and tools to help you do it.  It's a new year and  fresh start, so now is a great time to start off on the right foot, or tune and prune your skills for action, focus, goals, motivation, and time management.

At the end of the day, it's these skills that will serve you for the rest of your life, in whatever you try to achieve.  They are your personal tools for empowerment and impact your ability to execute.  It's these skills that limit or enable you.

A Time-Management System
If you don’t have a time management system, get one.  Time management is the one resource that we just don’t get more of.   The best we can do is invest our time well and spend more time in our values and balance our priorities.  An effective time management system will help you do that, as well as balance what’s right in front of you along with your long term goals and ambitions.

• Getting Results the Agile Way – Agile Results is a simple system for meaningful results.   You can use it as a personal results system for work and life.  This is the same system I’ve used to lead distributed teams around the world for major projects at Microsoft, and to coach teams on execution … and it’s the same system my Mom uses to get things done around the house.

Agile Results is principle-based so you can use it with any time management system you already use to get more out of it.  The big idea in Agile Results is to define three wins each day, each week, each month, each year, and use these to guide your actions.  Another big idea in Agile Results is to focus on Hot Spots.   Think of your life as a heat map with hot spots of what matters and invest more time in what counts.  The most important idea in Agile Results is to have a pattern to drive your week.  In Agile Results, this is the Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection pattern.   This helps you get a fresh start each week and each day, and bring out your best, while focusing on meaningful results.  You can use stories to drive your day, connect to your values, and light up your life.

Guidelines, Checklists, and How Tos
Here are some guidelines, checklists, and tools you can plug in to Agile Results and make thins happen.   I created these the same way that I’ve written patterns & practices guides at Microsoft for more than 10 years.   It’s hard-core prescriptive guidance to help you be YOUR best.  As a quick example, some people I know are using the Focus Guidelines to help build coping skills for ADD and get off their medication.  If you read just one thing, read the Motivation Guidelines so that you fully understand how to push your own buttons, light your own fire, and stoke the fire in your belly.   Your motivation, combined with goals, focus, and taking action will give you an unfair advantage against your toughest challenges.   Life’s not fair, so stack the deck in your favor

Guidelines

• Action Guidelines
• Focus Guidelines
• Motivation Guidelines
• Time Management Guidelines

Checklists

• Action Checklist
• Focus Checklist
• Getting Results Checklist
• Motivation Checklist
• Time Management Checklist

How Tos

• How To - Achieve Peaceful Calm
• How To - Design Your Week
• How To - Have a Strong Week
• How To - Set Goals and Achieve Them
• How To - Use Timeboxing for Getting Results

If you want to find out more about the book, Getting Results the Agile Way, and the Agile Results system, be sure to explore Getting Results.com.   You can read the full book online in HTML, and there is a rick knowledge base with templates and tools to help you bring out your best and deal with changing times.   Be sure to read the stories of people getting results and watch the video on how a non-profit uses Getting Results the Agile Way to help doctors and patients around the world.

Here’s to your best year – Happy New Year 2012!