PDCA Consulting
Making the Deming cycle real, helping you build the self-improving organisation
Monthly Newsletter: August 2026
Hello,
July was a month of two halves. The first week closed out a German language ITIL (Version 5) Foundation cohort for Aenova, then I took ten days offline in Rome, genuinely offline, no laptop, which is rarer for me than it should be. I came back to three days of ITIL (Version 5) Foundation training for a PwC and Zurich cohort via Omnicom, an invitation to speak at PeopleCert’s ITIL Community Summit in October, and a new affiliation with Diane Faben’s Mentors for Women initiative.
As always, the update below is a transparent look at what has been keeping me busy and what is ahead. If any of it resonates with challenges in your organisation, I would love to hear from you.
Training Delivered
July delivery
July covered five days of accredited delivery, split between the closing days of a German cohort and a multinational online group.
- Aenova Group via d-ploy and xprnc.it: ITIL (Version 5) Foundation German cohort, final two days on 1 and 2 July.
- Omnicom for PwC and Zurich: ITIL (Version 5) Foundation online delivery, three days from 21 to 23 July.
The Omnicom cohort brought together delegates from PwC teams in several countries plus Zurich. There was a wide spread of experience levels, which made the examples and discussions especially useful.
The value chain remains one of the hardest parts of ITIL (Version 5) to explain well and link back to the management practices. That is not a weakness of the framework. It is a reminder that the most central ideas often take the most careful teaching.
Partnerships and Business Development
New conversations, and a few resumed ones
- PeopleCert: invited to a case study discussion with the PR team and separately invited to submit a session for the ITIL Community Summit in October.
- Prospect Engine: continued work on the PDCA transition and sales system project.
- Diane Faben: pleased to be joining as an affiliate for the Mentors for Women initiative, with more to follow soon.
- Clorient: client status check scheduled with Henri Lindström in early August.
Content and Thought Leadership
A summit invitation, and staying close to the PeopleCert community
My article ITIL, AI and Service Request Management went live on the PeopleCert Community blog this month, with three more pieces in the pipeline.
The bigger news: PeopleCert has invited me to speak at the ITIL Community Summit in October, on a session provisionally titled ITIL, AI and the service request manager. I am putting the abstract together now.
I also stayed close to the PeopleCert Ambassador community this month, joining the ITIL and PRINCE2 Ambassador Lean Coffee sessions, the webinar Beyond IT, Managing the Product and Service Duality Across the Enterprise, and two further PeopleCert webinars on AI readiness and ticket free service. On top of that, I have put my name down to beta test the upcoming ITIL Managing Professional Transition eLearning course.
“Frameworks are never the goal. They are tools in service of something larger: helping people work better together, and building organisations that improve in a way that lasts.”
Robert Pinnington, PDCA Consulting
LinkedIn Thought Leadership
July post links by topic
The LinkedIn posts below are grouped by topic. Each post title links directly to the original LinkedIn post.
ITIL service management and the PeopleCert community
- My latest PeopleCert article is live.
- Every organisation has a Boston hidden somewhere in its process estate.
- I took a 1954 management book on holiday. Of course I did.
- A service catalogue should not be built from guesswork.
- The most useful question is not, can AI handle service requests?
- I am pleased to be a guest speaker for the ITIL Community Summit.
PRINCE2 project management
- General Motors did not have a people problem at Fremont.
- Most enterprise software disasters are sold before they are delivered.
- The third stonecutter is the one every project needs.
PRINCE2 programme management
What’s Coming Up
August and beyond
7 August: ITIL Strategy (Version 5) resit exam
Retaking one module to lift my own ITIL (Version 5) Master score and keep my own certifications as current as the ones I teach.
7 August: Client status check with Clorient
Catching up with Henri Lindström on ongoing work.
13 August: EZMaster webinar, Exploring ITIL (Version 5) Foundation
Guest speaker slot on a public introduction session, now rescheduled to 13 August.
October: ITIL Community Summit speaking session
Submitting the abstract for ITIL, AI and the service request manager this week.
To find out more about PDCA Consulting:
- Contact us via the contact form at pdcaconsulting.com
- Book a 30-minute meeting at Robert Pinnington’s calendar
- Connect with PDCA Consulting on LinkedIn
- Call us on +49 172 5794719