November Meeting: ITIL, The Application
Lifecycle, and Technical Communication
with Lorretta Morgan

by Jim Korth, PR Committee member

Perhaps you’ve heard of Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and the application lifecycle. But what are they and what do they have to do with technical writing?

Lorretta Morgan of Ryder Systems will talk about “IT Application Lifecycle from a Change Management Perspective.” She works daily with the

management issues faced by large organizations including version control, release management, distribution of hotfixes, and handling requests for changes. Every change made by the enterprise requires meticulous documentation before, during, and after the change is rolled into production. “Change affects every aspect of the software development lifecycle including documentation,” Ms. Morgan said. “Managing change in the application lifecycle reduces documentation failure and is critical to successful IT service delivery.” Ms. Morgan will discuss ITIL and IT

Details Thursday, November 8, 2007, 6:15 to 8:00 p.m. Crowne Plaza Hotel North Dallas-Addison 14315 Midway Road Addison, Texas Need directions! Reservations (Reservations made after 5pm on November 5 are subject to a $5 penalty) Click to register for the meeting now! Dinner (with reservations): $20 STC members or Students with student ID $25 non-members Program Only Attendance (with reservations): $5 for STC $10 for non-members FREE for students with valid student ID

acronyms at a high level, then explain the IT application lifecycle and relate it all to technical writing.

ITIL is a set of concepts and techniques for managing information technology infrastructure, development, and operations. Originally developed in the United Kingdom to foster structure for IT technical support and service activities, ITIL has now earned international recognition by the business process community and is widely accepted by most large enterprises.

This session will introduce the basic concepts of the ITIL, IT service management, service delivery, the standards for IT implementation, and ATLAS™” (an ITIL deployment tool). According to Ms. Morgan, “Beyond a basic understanding of the concepts and terminology, you will receive links to valuable resources and learn where to obtain further information. From decrypting acronyms to demystifying the IT application lifecycle, this discussion will show the relationship between change management and technical communication.”

Lorretta Morgan has more than 30 years of IT experience including operations, programming, building and deploying systems, and supporting transportation management and warehousing applications. She came to Ryder as Senior Systems Administrator and progressed to change and version control management. Ms. Morgan has supervised change control processes at Ryder for over six years, supporting customers like Philips Electronics, Lucent, Cisco, and Applied Materials. Lorretta Morgan is ITIL certified for both “Foundations" and "Release, Configuration and Change Management."