Re: Implementing FEMA incident procedure in Remedy ITSM

2014-02-25 Thread Tom Siegel
Thanks for the great information everyone. We are using the ICS process which 
Doug did a great job explaining. We are not dealing on the "earthquake" level, 
but we do deal with public safety systems so there is a bit more urgency than 
"I can't get to my email". Given the limited functionality that SDE has around 
the "White board" module, I think we can start out with Problem Management and 
see if it grows into its own application. I also appreciate the warnings about 
tinkering around with the Incident module. This is some good information that I 
can go back to management with and sell the concept of Incidents with different 
levels of severity, instead of going back to calling day to day break fixes 
tickets as we did in SDE

Tom

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Re: Implementing FEMA incident procedure in Remedy ITSM

2014-02-18 Thread Ben Cantatore
I bet it still has merit and was merely ahead of its time.  Having just 
recently worked at a hospital, I can see that being a huge benefit in that 
sort of environment.  They plan for those situations.  I can definitely 
understand your emotional attachment to such a product if it was well 
designed. 



Ben Cantatore
Remedy Architect
Bed Bath & Beyond
650 Liberty Avenue
Union NJ 07083-8130
Office: (908) 613-5769
Cell: (914) 263-6802




From:   "Mueller, Doug" 
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG, 
Date:   02/18/2014 03:42 PM
Subject:Re: Implementing FEMA incident procedure in Remedy ITSM
Sent by:"Action Request System discussion list(ARSList)" 




Tom,

OK, I am going to get myself into some trouble here, but I just cannot 
resist.
And it is lunchtime so I'm supposed to have a few minutes...

I assume you are talking about Incidents as in the ICS or Incident Command 
System
model and standard.

For all you out there who ask, what is ICS?  It is a set of procedures and
processes that have been defined to respond to Incidents.

Now, to avoid confusion of terms, the term Incident in this set of 
processes is
not what you are thinking.  It is not "a server is throwing errors" or 
"there is
a network storm" or "a disc drive is full".  An Incident is

   -- The building is on fire
   -- An earthquake (tornado/supply your own disaster) just hit

I mean, we are talking an INCIDENT here.

There are people with roles -- Incident Commander, Press Relations,  
There are
procedures for handover between people when they are "going off shift". 
There may
be 100s or 1000s of tasks to manage and track.  Escalations are very 
different if
someone doesn't respond.  You are talking 1 to 2 minutes before something 
escalates
to the next person if the first person doesn't respond (and then anyone in 
the
chain can respond and they have it and others are notified to never mind).

You have tasks with things like shut off the gas with details like where 
wrenches
are and attachments with blueprints to show where the gas valve is 
located.

You have the need for repeatitive task groups -- like you may have a set 
of tasks
that you do to "evacuate a classroom at a school" and you want to run that 
set of
tasks "for each classroom" all in parallel.  All with tracking and 
management and
a consolidated view of status and what has been done and what is pending.

You need to throw new tasks into the mix at a moments notice and have it 
fit into
the mix of everything going on.

Oh, and you need to be able to test things so you need a "simulation mode" 
so you
can run drills -- and with that you have automated tasks in the mix that 
you need
to be able to mark to "not really run, but pretend you did the step" IF in
simulation mode but do the real thing if this is a real INCIDENT.  (when 
is the
last time you "simulated" an IT Incident and the response to it)

OK, so this is a little different than an IT Incident we are all familiar 
with.


With all this, no, this is not the sweet spot for ITSM.  Could you use 
aspects of
things to try and manage smaller situations?  Sure.  But, there are many 
aspects
of the overall process that are not covered.



Now, I am not aware of a product on the market that helps with this. There 
are a
number that are oriented toward helping you write a disaster response plan 
(and
that is important) but nothing to help you "run a disaster response".

10 years ago, a lot of work was done to research this area and we actually 
built
a product that did all of the above.  It was called the Crisis Response 
System.
It is an AR System application that was written to follow the ICS response 
model
and allow you to encode a response to your disaster plans and to manage 
the
response.

The tasking subsystem of ITSM was a subset extracted from this product.

Unfortunately, this application is no longer offered.  We got good 
response to the
capabilities from customers but they came back with "can you help us write 
our
disaster plan" as the request.  They were struggling to get it written and 
to have
a response plan at all much less automating the response.  We got good 
feedback
that the tool solved the response problem, but they struggled (and still 
do) with
what actually are the steps and what should the do.

A couple of copies of this are out there -- someone reading this note may 
be one
of the customers who have the solution.


This is the type of solution you are looking for if you are looking for an 
ICS
Incident response system.

It was a cool application that did many things that were very advanced 
with the
system 10 years ago.  Most of which would hold up today -- although I 
would
probably replace the form and fields that were used to show the people and 
assigned
responsibilities with a DVF plugin that was a bit more dynamic than 
showin

Re: Implementing FEMA incident procedure in Remedy ITSM

2014-02-18 Thread Lee Cullom
Doug - I showed a demonstration of that sweet product to the Georgia Department 
of Transportation.  They didn't buy it at the time, but they did buy Remedy.  
It was sad to see that product go...   You got me on board.  I was a believer!  


Lee Cullom | Northcraft Analytics
IT Metrics Specialist | Business Intelligence for ITSM
Direct - 678-438-7244 | http://www.northcraftanalytics.com
Main - (678) 664-ITSM

What is Northcraft Analytics? Find out in 87 Seconds.  


THE CONTENTS OF THIS EMAIL, INCLUDING THE CONTENTS OF ANY ATTACHMENTS HERETO, 
CONSTITUTES “CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION” AND IS SUBJECT TO A CONFIDENTIALITY AND 
NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE RECIPIENT AND NORTHCRAFT ANALYTICS LLC (If 
such an agreement is in place).

-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) 
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Mueller, Doug
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2014 3:43 PM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Implementing FEMA incident procedure in Remedy ITSM

Tom,

OK, I am going to get myself into some trouble here, but I just cannot resist.
And it is lunchtime so I'm supposed to have a few minutes...

I assume you are talking about Incidents as in the ICS or Incident Command 
System model and standard.

For all you out there who ask, what is ICS?  It is a set of procedures and 
processes that have been defined to respond to Incidents.

Now, to avoid confusion of terms, the term Incident in this set of processes is 
not what you are thinking.  It is not "a server is throwing errors" or "there 
is a network storm" or "a disc drive is full".  An Incident is

   -- The building is on fire
   -- An earthquake (tornado/supply your own disaster) just hit

I mean, we are talking an INCIDENT here.

There are people with roles -- Incident Commander, Press Relations,   There 
are procedures for handover between people when they are "going off shift".  
There may be 100s or 1000s of tasks to manage and track.  Escalations are very 
different if someone doesn't respond.  You are talking 1 to 2 minutes before 
something escalates to the next person if the first person doesn't respond (and 
then anyone in the chain can respond and they have it and others are notified 
to never mind).

You have tasks with things like shut off the gas with details like where 
wrenches are and attachments with blueprints to show where the gas valve is 
located.

You have the need for repeatitive task groups -- like you may have a set of 
tasks that you do to "evacuate a classroom at a school" and you want to run 
that set of tasks "for each classroom" all in parallel.  All with tracking and 
management and a consolidated view of status and what has been done and what is 
pending.

You need to throw new tasks into the mix at a moments notice and have it fit 
into the mix of everything going on.

Oh, and you need to be able to test things so you need a "simulation mode" so 
you can run drills -- and with that you have automated tasks in the mix that 
you need to be able to mark to "not really run, but pretend you did the step" 
IF in simulation mode but do the real thing if this is a real INCIDENT.  (when 
is the last time you "simulated" an IT Incident and the response to it)

OK, so this is a little different than an IT Incident we are all familiar with.


With all this, no, this is not the sweet spot for ITSM.  Could you use aspects 
of things to try and manage smaller situations?  Sure.  But, there are many 
aspects of the overall process that are not covered.



Now, I am not aware of a product on the market that helps with this.  There are 
a number that are oriented toward helping you write a disaster response plan 
(and that is important) but nothing to help you "run a disaster response".

10 years ago, a lot of work was done to research this area and we actually 
built a product that did all of the above.  It was called the Crisis Response 
System.
It is an AR System application that was written to follow the ICS response 
model and allow you to encode a response to your disaster plans and to manage 
the response.

The tasking subsystem of ITSM was a subset extracted from this product.

Unfortunately, this application is no longer offered.  We got good response to 
the capabilities from customers but they came back with "can you help us write 
our disaster plan" as the request.  They were struggling to get it written and 
to have a response plan at all much less automating the response.  We got good 
feedback that the tool solved the response problem, but they struggled (and 
still do) with what actually are the steps and what should the do.

A couple of copies of this are out there -- someone reading this note may be 
one of the customers who have the solution.


This is the type of solution you are looking for if you are looking for an ICS 
Incident resp

Re: Implementing FEMA incident procedure in Remedy ITSM

2014-02-18 Thread Mueller, Doug
Tom,

OK, I am going to get myself into some trouble here, but I just cannot resist.
And it is lunchtime so I'm supposed to have a few minutes...

I assume you are talking about Incidents as in the ICS or Incident Command 
System
model and standard.

For all you out there who ask, what is ICS?  It is a set of procedures and
processes that have been defined to respond to Incidents.

Now, to avoid confusion of terms, the term Incident in this set of processes is
not what you are thinking.  It is not "a server is throwing errors" or "there is
a network storm" or "a disc drive is full".  An Incident is

   -- The building is on fire
   -- An earthquake (tornado/supply your own disaster) just hit

I mean, we are talking an INCIDENT here.

There are people with roles -- Incident Commander, Press Relations,   There 
are
procedures for handover between people when they are "going off shift".  There 
may
be 100s or 1000s of tasks to manage and track.  Escalations are very different 
if
someone doesn't respond.  You are talking 1 to 2 minutes before something 
escalates
to the next person if the first person doesn't respond (and then anyone in the
chain can respond and they have it and others are notified to never mind).

You have tasks with things like shut off the gas with details like where 
wrenches
are and attachments with blueprints to show where the gas valve is located.

You have the need for repeatitive task groups -- like you may have a set of 
tasks
that you do to "evacuate a classroom at a school" and you want to run that set 
of
tasks "for each classroom" all in parallel.  All with tracking and management 
and
a consolidated view of status and what has been done and what is pending.

You need to throw new tasks into the mix at a moments notice and have it fit 
into
the mix of everything going on.

Oh, and you need to be able to test things so you need a "simulation mode" so 
you
can run drills -- and with that you have automated tasks in the mix that you 
need
to be able to mark to "not really run, but pretend you did the step" IF in
simulation mode but do the real thing if this is a real INCIDENT.  (when is the
last time you "simulated" an IT Incident and the response to it)

OK, so this is a little different than an IT Incident we are all familiar with.


With all this, no, this is not the sweet spot for ITSM.  Could you use aspects 
of
things to try and manage smaller situations?  Sure.  But, there are many aspects
of the overall process that are not covered.



Now, I am not aware of a product on the market that helps with this.  There are 
a
number that are oriented toward helping you write a disaster response plan (and
that is important) but nothing to help you "run a disaster response".

10 years ago, a lot of work was done to research this area and we actually built
a product that did all of the above.  It was called the Crisis Response System.
It is an AR System application that was written to follow the ICS response model
and allow you to encode a response to your disaster plans and to manage the
response.

The tasking subsystem of ITSM was a subset extracted from this product.

Unfortunately, this application is no longer offered.  We got good response to 
the
capabilities from customers but they came back with "can you help us write our
disaster plan" as the request.  They were struggling to get it written and to 
have
a response plan at all much less automating the response.  We got good feedback
that the tool solved the response problem, but they struggled (and still do) 
with
what actually are the steps and what should the do.

A couple of copies of this are out there -- someone reading this note may be one
of the customers who have the solution.


This is the type of solution you are looking for if you are looking for an ICS
Incident response system.

It was a cool application that did many things that were very advanced with the
system 10 years ago.  Most of which would hold up today -- although I would
probably replace the form and fields that were used to show the people and 
assigned
responsibilities with a DVF plugin that was a bit more dynamic than 
showing/hiding
fields as one example of a change.


So, can this type of thing be done with the system -- ABSOLUTELY and it has been
done before.  This is a specialized process that is quite different from a 
standard
ITSM process in many ways and so deserves a separate process to fully do it 
justice.



Now, maybe you are looking for something that is a bit less than "earthquake" or
"building on fire" type incidents or something a bit less than the full ICS 
model
response and then it is a matter of what are you looking at and what level of
features and capabilities are needed to model your process.  Then, what portions
of ITSM most closely match the model and can they fit within the vision without
warping the system too dramatically.


Anyway, I have discussed my pet application enough for today.  I still have a
fondness for 

Re: Implementing FEMA incident procedure in Remedy ITSM

2014-02-18 Thread Lee Cullom
Shawn is absolutely right.  This will create years of misery.  Don't forget to 
use the priorities in context as well.  Critical Incident is when everyone gets 
in a room in IT.  Some people refer to it as Major Incident Management.  Also, 
if it's helpful, use Request Management terminology where applicable in the 
Service Type field.  User Service Request, User Service Restoration, 
Infrastructure Event, Inf. Restoration... etc...

Let them get through their pain.  And if you need to add some qualifying 
terminology to distinguish between Hurricane Sandy and a Production System 
outage... use what's the in incident management if it all possible!

Lee Cullom | Northcraft Analytics
IT Metrics Specialist | Business Intelligence for ITSM
Direct - 678-438-7244 | http://www.northcraftanalytics.com
Main - (678) 664-ITSM

What is Northcraft Analytics? Find out in 87 Seconds.  


THE CONTENTS OF THIS EMAIL, INCLUDING THE CONTENTS OF ANY ATTACHMENTS HERETO, 
CONSTITUTES “CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION” AND IS SUBJECT TO A CONFIDENTIALITY AND 
NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE RECIPIENT AND NORTHCRAFT ANALYTICS LLC (If 
such an agreement is in place).

-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) 
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Pierson, Shawn
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2014 1:43 PM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Implementing FEMA incident procedure in Remedy ITSM

You may not have much pull on the decision, but I'd make sure whoever the 
decision maker is understands that calling Incident Management something else 
would result in some major (and unnecessary) changes in the system, potentially 
destabilizing it as you modify all references to Incidents, change the emails, 
etc.  You also are going against the international standards of ITIL, which tie 
directly to ITSM, as opposed to the non-I.T. standard term of an Incident used 
by FEMA.

As a result, my suggestion would be to just use the term "FEMA Incident" to 
track those wherever you need to.  Not knowing enough about the requirements, 
I'd suggest either making it a categorization of some sort, or a template, or 
if the process doesn't map to ITSM, just build a custom app with hooks into the 
rest of ITSM as needed.  We have a couple of CRM applications that I've built 
on Remedy that are used by non-I.T. in our environment that work great because 
ITSM wouldn't have been a good fit for their business needs.  AR System is a 
great rapid application development tool.

Thanks,

Shawn Pierson 
Remedy Developer | Energy Transfer


-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) 
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Tom Siegel
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2014 11:30 AM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Implementing FEMA incident procedure in Remedy ITSM

Hi - All
We are moving from BMC SDE to Remedy ITSM and I had a question. In my company's 
world the word "incident" has a whole different meaning than the ITIL help desk 
world. When we "declare and incident" folks gather into a room and follow the 
FEMA incident management protocol for resolving the issue. In SDE this meant 
replacing every instance of the word "incident" with the word "ticket", to 
avoid confusion. We then tracked our FEMA style incidents in the White Board 
module. I was hoping that there was someone out there in the Remedy ITSM world 
who has integrated FEMA type incidents into their system. Being brand new to 
Remedy, the only path that I can see is to highjack the Problem module for our 
FEMA type incidents and use the Incident module for our "tickets" as we did in 
SDE.

Thanks,

Tom

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Re: Implementing FEMA incident procedure in Remedy ITSM

2014-02-18 Thread Pierson, Shawn
You may not have much pull on the decision, but I'd make sure whoever the 
decision maker is understands that calling Incident Management something else 
would result in some major (and unnecessary) changes in the system, potentially 
destabilizing it as you modify all references to Incidents, change the emails, 
etc.  You also are going against the international standards of ITIL, which tie 
directly to ITSM, as opposed to the non-I.T. standard term of an Incident used 
by FEMA.

As a result, my suggestion would be to just use the term "FEMA Incident" to 
track those wherever you need to.  Not knowing enough about the requirements, 
I'd suggest either making it a categorization of some sort, or a template, or 
if the process doesn't map to ITSM, just build a custom app with hooks into the 
rest of ITSM as needed.  We have a couple of CRM applications that I've built 
on Remedy that are used by non-I.T. in our environment that work great because 
ITSM wouldn't have been a good fit for their business needs.  AR System is a 
great rapid application development tool.

Thanks,

Shawn Pierson 
Remedy Developer | Energy Transfer


-Original Message-
From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) 
[mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Tom Siegel
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2014 11:30 AM
To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG
Subject: Implementing FEMA incident procedure in Remedy ITSM

Hi - All
We are moving from BMC SDE to Remedy ITSM and I had a question. In my company's 
world the word "incident" has a whole different meaning than the ITIL help desk 
world. When we "declare and incident" folks gather into a room and follow the 
FEMA incident management protocol for resolving the issue. In SDE this meant 
replacing every instance of the word "incident" with the word "ticket", to 
avoid confusion. We then tracked our FEMA style incidents in the White Board 
module. I was hoping that there was someone out there in the Remedy ITSM world 
who has integrated FEMA type incidents into their system. Being brand new to 
Remedy, the only path that I can see is to highjack the Problem module for our 
FEMA type incidents and use the Incident module for our "tickets" as we did in 
SDE.

Thanks,

Tom

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Re: Implementing FEMA incident procedure in Remedy ITSM

2014-02-18 Thread Roger Justice
This could be an example of how a Problem could be used to fix a FEMA Incident.



-Original Message-
From: Tauf Chowdhury 
To: arslist 
Sent: Tue, Feb 18, 2014 12:46 pm
Subject: Re: Implementing FEMA incident procedure in Remedy ITSM


Tom,
ou could use the Work Order module as well. 
he other way would be to maybe change the wording of your FEMA "incident" to 
major incident" but that would be a culture change. 
Sent from my iPhone
> On Feb 18, 2014, at 12:29 PM, Tom Siegel  wrote:
 
 Hi - All
 We are moving from BMC SDE to Remedy ITSM and I had a question. In my 
ompany's world the word "incident" has a whole different meaning than the ITIL 
elp desk world. When we "declare and incident" folks gather into a room and 
ollow the FEMA incident management protocol for resolving the issue. In SDE 
his meant replacing every instance of the word "incident" with the word 
ticket", to avoid confusion. We then tracked our FEMA style incidents in the 
hite Board module. I was hoping that there was someone out there in the Remedy 
TSM world who has integrated FEMA type incidents into their system. Being brand 
ew to Remedy, the only path that I can see is to highjack the Problem module 
or our FEMA type incidents and use the Incident module for our "tickets" as we 
id in SDE.
 
 Thanks,
 
 Tom
 
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Re: Implementing FEMA incident procedure in Remedy ITSM

2014-02-18 Thread Tauf Chowdhury
Tom,
You could use the Work Order module as well. 
The other way would be to maybe change the wording of your FEMA "incident" to 
"major incident" but that would be a culture change. 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 18, 2014, at 12:29 PM, Tom Siegel  wrote:
> 
> Hi - All
> We are moving from BMC SDE to Remedy ITSM and I had a question. In my 
> company's world the word "incident" has a whole different meaning than the 
> ITIL help desk world. When we "declare and incident" folks gather into a room 
> and follow the FEMA incident management protocol for resolving the issue. In 
> SDE this meant replacing every instance of the word "incident" with the word 
> "ticket", to avoid confusion. We then tracked our FEMA style incidents in the 
> White Board module. I was hoping that there was someone out there in the 
> Remedy ITSM world who has integrated FEMA type incidents into their system. 
> Being brand new to Remedy, the only path that I can see is to highjack the 
> Problem module for our FEMA type incidents and use the Incident module for 
> our "tickets" as we did in SDE.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Tom
> 
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