As conference season kicks off across Europe, Barclay and Ian share stories from recent events in Utrecht and Copenhagen, and discuss what’s coming up on the calendar: from Service North and itSMF UK to Service Management World in the US, reflecting on the trends shaping the conversations this year, from AI risk to human-centered IT. Plus, in true Enterprise Digital fashion, the episode also starts with a slice of trivia: the UK’s record-breaking giant pumpkin.
In this episode, Barclay Rae and Ian Aitchison are joined by Roman Jouravlev and Kaimar Karu to discuss the brand-new ITIL publication How to Implement – or, more accurately, how to make transformation work.
They explore what’s behind the new book, why “implementation” isn’t about installing ITIL, and how its flexible model helps organisations choose the right approach for their own environment. From governance patterns and practical tools to cooking analogies, failed transformations, and even the return of the dodo (yes, really, in this week’s trivia), this is an engaging conversation about evolving ITIL for a VUCA and AI-ready world.
Barclay Rae and Ian Aitchison take a closer look at Gartner’s new Magic Quadrant for AI in ITSM: what it really measures, which vendors stand out, and why adoption matters more than flashy features. They discuss virtual agents, guided triage, and the move toward agentic AI that fixes problems instead of just chatting about them.
And in this week’s trivia, we head to Telford Exotic Zoo, where eight baby iguanas were born without any male involvement.
Ian and Barclay discuss the big announcement that Salesforce is moving into ITSM, bringing serious capability and its huge Slack customer base. How will they gain credibility and position themselves? And what does this mean for the rest of the market?
They dig into risks, costs, architecture, culture, and organizational change, showing why this is more than just a financial option. Disruption is always fascinating, and it will be interesting to see how Salesforce plays it.
There’s also news of fresh financial models already emerging, for example from Halo. This week’s trivia is all about the value of dozing… zzzz.
Barclay and Ian pick up the conversation on Vibe Coding, exploring new insights and opinions that have surfaced. They review a recent MIT report on AI failure and what lessons can be drawn from it. The discussion also touches on the Enterprise Digital app game at enterprisedigitalmousevibe.replit.app, where mice, cockroaches, and drinks make an appearance. The real value here is showing how quickly usable prototypes can be created without technical skills, though initially outside governance controls. One key research finding highlights that real success often comes from existing tools with AI built in, rather than starting with AI itself.
And the other scary things? Radioactive wasps, of course.
This week we dive into VIBE Coding – what it is, why it matters, and where it could take us. Barclay confuses it with the Bee Gees, while Ian explains the concept with real examples and possibilities. Imagine completing an entire set of activities simply through AI... the potential is huge.
Of course, there are challenges too. Barclay raises practical concerns about security, governance, and the risk of “Vibe hacking,” while Ian emphasises the positive use cases. We explore both the opportunities and the risks, from duplication and business impact to broader issues such as the cost of AI on the environment, the state of democracy, and even the future of humanity.
And this week’s trivia? Data storage via birds. Yes, really. BS = Bird Storage.
What do we really mean by ‘end to end’ processes and value streams – and why do they matter?
Ian and Barclay break this down at a practical level, exploring what’s needed to ensure people work together rather than as disconnected, self-serving units. They highlight the importance of transparency, communication, and visualisation – particularly for engagement, service catalogues, and TOM.
There’s also a call to stay curious and avoid unchallenged assumptions. Plus, some strong points about why trying to do everything with a single tool usually isn’t the answer.
In this short but packed episode, Ian Aitchison and Barclay Rae start with a surprising bit of orthodontic trivia (grow your own teeth!?) before diving into the serious business of how organizations gather, manage, and act on feedback and improvement ideas.
They explore the overlaps between experience management, product management, and service management, discussing what it takes to turn good intentions into meaningful innovation. Along the way, there are a few questionable analogies, but the conversation flows with plenty of practical insights.
In this episode, Ian Aitchison and Barclay Rae delve into significant themes, particularly those surrounding risk and the relentless pursuit of rapid success with AI. They explore the palpable divide between cautious, regulated approaches and a less regulated, higher-risk mindset focused on rapid reward and return. Many corporate mechanisms, often with good intentions, find themselves in the middle, slowing and delaying AI adoption, frequently out of sync with current demand and new capabilities.
The discussion also touches on new developments in lab-grown food. Another emerging story highlights the concerning fact that the AI world is becoming a self-serving soup of regurgitated materials, much like our oceans filling with plastic. As always, there's a lot crammed in, including plenty of trivia!
This episode IA and BR review some news about a firm re-hiring its staff after thinking that they could replace them with AI… This leads to a discussion around the value of the new and shiny and why we shouldn’t also just throw away the good stuff when some new shiny stuff comes along. This also relates for ITSM to some recent industry criticism, but is this actually a category mistake..? As usual we drift from trivia to philosophy with some service management in between…
This week Ian Aitchison and Barclay Rae discuss the recent SITs show and the current themes that can be identified for the industry. Of course there is some trivial discussion about mice being given life enhancing substances… There is also some discussion around how new shiny things become mature and embedded, and that’s a good thing. ‘Agentic’ seems to be the current word of the moment although AI is now becoming more practical and specific. There is also discussion around how experience management and DEX are becoming part of the normal way of doing things.
This episode is a quick SITS and MSP show preview – the show runs on 14th and 15th May at Excel London – it’s free to attend. Our trivial intro this week includes AI Equestrianism (yes) and some grammar-police ranting. Ian Aitchison and Barclay Rae run through some of the key points and expectations for this year’s show. The MSP part of the show is definitely evolving, and the show looks to be a good mix of vendors and types. They also discuss the speaker programme which looks to have a good blend of topics – and not just all about AI..! Look out at the show also if you can spot the podcast mouse and cockroach (podroach) – representations of these will be visible somewhere…
This week Ian Aitchison and Barclay Rae discuss fungi, taxonomy and what we really mean by ‘Metadata’. The discussion also looks at the complexity of some systems and how we could get more work done with a simpler approach to using tools. Just because we have great tools doesn’t mean we’ll deliver great services and we need to be clear on what we really need from our systems. We also encourage more passion in the ITSM world, and there’s also some talk about how mushrooms use language…
The podcast resumes discussing trivia, although this time its ‘serious trivia’. We also await news on the fate of the podcast cockroach…. Our guest is Martin Sadler an experience CIO, who currently runs a large public sector IT organisation. Martin also has written a book about being a CIO – Aspirationally Idle. This includes a number of useful tips and guidance about running IT, presented with jargon-free examples and cartoons. It’s funny and can be used as a general management guide as well as specific tips to IT leaders. We discuss the equation ‘anger=frustration x time’ and many other simple nuggets of wisdom.
This episode covers a few aspects of where the current Service Management industry is and is going – with feedback on THE SDI SPARK event and the sorts of topics and trends emerging from that. Ian Aitchison and Barclay Rae also have eschewed trivia this week – apart form ‘meta trivia’ – although we will resume this in the next episode surely… There’s some good stuff in this episode on the difference between IT success and business value, as well as feedback on the SPARK event.
This weeks guest is Simone Moore, who is, amongst other titles, is AI ethicist, Woman tech ambassador, sassy minds and - Neurospicy… And indeed we get spicy talking about truth, data, empathy and many other aspects of how we build up knowledge and can make decisions. The conversation clarifies narrative from storytelling, and woolly mice from empathetic mice.
This is a brilliant chat and well worth a few moments of your spicy time…!
This week’s special guest is Stephen Mann from ITSM.tools, discussing the latest piece of research published with @peoplecert and @atomicwork. There’s some great discussion and insight into finding including the level of trust in AI – which is not complete but is increasing, as well as some practical insights into Governance and Risk –which are areas of increasing focus and which are more about doing the right thing than just enforcing controls… Somehow also we manage to include reference to headless, speeding cockroaches.
Here’s the link to the report: AI in ITSM 2025: The State of AI in ITSM 2025 - ITSM.tools
We have a mascot for the podcast! This is a hissing cockroach that needs a name – please send your suggestions…. Ian Aitchison and Barclay Rae also discuss the key elements of ‘Discovery’ as used in consulting and product management. There’s also some sage advice on how to build up a good summary and clear analysis of the information that you might capture – and move projects and operations and people to the next level… This follow the last episode where we discuss the Art of Listening – how can we use these skills in ITSM and beyond..? Listen in and learn more…
This week’s discussion begins with some forgetfulness from Barclay Rae and some weird stuff about animal spies from Ian Aitchison. The main topic is about how we can improve our analysis and understanding, communication and engagement from – listening… Lets not talk to our users rather listen and talk with them, lets practise active listening – a key negotiation skill. There is some good advice here around how to hone and tune our ability to listen and engage more with our various stakeholders, colleagues, users and customers.
No, not Tom your workmate or friend, but TOM - Target Operating Model. After all the ‘excitement’ of the 100th episode, Barclay and Ian settle down for some typically practical conversation, peppered with tales of eels – mating and being used as currency – ‘eelcoin’ perhaps… There is some good discussion on the need to define, visualise and project clear simple images of plans and ways of working, and this brings TOM into the conversation. Listen in for some initial insights on this, as well as eels...
As a reference the Andrew Campbell publication on operating model canvass is an excellent resource. Operating Model Canvas by Andrew Campbell | Goodreads