itSMF UK has announced the publication of 'Service Level Management - a Practitioner's Guide'. This is the first of a new series of guides that draw on the expertise of the chapter's network of Special Interest Groups. Offering a practical, experience-based approach to the subject matter, the guide discusses (among other things) the best way to design an SLM roadmap and implementation project plan, compile a service catalogue, and put together service level agreements, with templates and supporting material provided on an accompanying CD. itSMF UK member Steve Morgan, who chaired the working party that authored the book, said the group were delighted to be able to share their SLM knowledge with other service management professionals.

The itSMF International Board met its Chapters on Friday the 14th November 2008, at the Hilton, Warwick in the UK. Of the 53 Chapters currently chartered, 43 Chapters attended both the Annual General Meeting and Annual Chapter Meeting held over 2 1/2 days. Both meetings were preceded by the very first Chapter Leadership Conference and the UK Chapter's Annual conference.

The attendees followed a programme of workshops, presentations and fun, fraternity and fellowship all aimed at getting a greater level of understanding amongst the Chapters and a deeper understanding of how the organisation can support, develop and promote best practice on IT Service Management worldwide.

BCS is very happy to work with ITSMF International and contribute to the future development of IT Service Management. The international Forum is a key partner for BCS with regard to the future development of qualifications and professionalism in IT. BCS is looking forward to a great cooperation with the ITSMF International and the ITSMF chapters.

The itSMFI is delighted to have this agreement in place to work together with the BCS on matters of mutual interest to our members and we look forward to this agreement adding value to both our organisations in the future.

To recognize their mutual interests and work more closely together on key initiatives, the ISACA and the IT Service Management Forum International (itSMFI) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU). The MoU enables both organizations to enhance the services they provide to members, promote the complementary frameworks that are the focus of the respective organizations, and focus their efforts on practical delivery support to the global IT community for the integrated use of ITIL and the COBIT framework.

itSMF HK is delighted to announce the release of its Newsletter - itSMart. The title "itSMart" (pronounced "Ai-Tee-Smart") means "IT Service Management article for being SMARTer in the industry." The quarterly aims to propagate the art of IT Service Management good practices as well as to enrich our members' professional knowledge. The first issue was published in late September 2008.

This has been a very significant week for Kenya, in more ways than one.

The itSMF Kenya Chapter opened officially on the evening of the 4th of November, in the midst of the excitement of the US Elections that would bring a Kenyan's son to President.

The Chairman of the Chapter, Nick Wambugu, and his team have done an amazing job in preparing for this launch. Not only were there over 300 people at the launch at the Sarova Stanley Hotel in Nairobi, but there were one Silver (Knowledge Transfer Centre) and three Gold sponsors ( AXIOS Systems, Seven Seas Technologies and Lenovo ) providing very active support.

Dr. Bitange Ndemo, C.B.S from the Ministry for Information and Communication (in photo on left with Peter Brooks),

It was a splendid event, with a turn-out of 170 visitors, 11 regional VIPS, and 2 distinguished guests from itSMF UK/USA, namely Keith Aldis and Robert Stroud. Chapter Presidents from Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, South Korea and Netherlands all added to the interest and multi-national event. We also had 9 other domestic subject –matter experts who are Service Manager qualified to participate in our open panel discussions; which talked about “life before ITIL” and the continual improvement process of “life after implementing ITIL”.

We had a total of 10 speakers, and time frame was from 8:45a.m. to 6:00p.m. One interesting highlight of this event was that the turn-out was around 70:30, users against vendors. his signifies the potential of ITSM in M’sia, which has been around for 7 years in the country, but largely lies untapped due to fragmented awareness.

Though itSMFI’s umbrella ‘co-branded publications agreement’ with TSO, the Official Publisher of ITIL, itSMF UK and TSO have announced a new co-branded pocket guide, the ITIL V3 Foundation Handbook. The Handbook performs a dual role. It's a quick management-level reference tool for those interested in ITIL V3. Also - uniquely for a pocket guide - it covers the full content of the ITIL V3 Foundation Certificate syllabus and provides an ideal revision aid.

ITIL version 3 sets more focus on the people, their changing roles and on how to professionally manage the change in the organization. Therefore itSMF Finland had chosen the leading theme of this year to be the Change and also the importance of cooperation between business and IT. The event was held in Helsinki October 9-10 and attended by 180 delegates who enjoyed both the two streams of presentations as well as the accompanying exhibition with 14 vendors.

The Keynote speakers of this year's conference were three well-knows names from abroad and two interesting Finnish guest speakers. International guests included Colin Rudd, Ken Wendle and Malcolm Fry (shown in action).

The itSMF International will launch a year-long celebration of the itSMF signing up its 50th Chapter.

Each week, for 50 weeks each financial itSMF Chapter world wide will have the opportunity to contribute one promotional web-page linked to the front page of the itSMFI web-site. This promotion will consist of a URL leading to one page describing, for example; the chapter's history, with a note from a handful of its most successful company members where the CEO or Financial director says what Service Management and the itSMF has done for their company. Once the week is over, each page will be part of an archive that will record the celebration page for this great milestone in our history.