What is ITIL (and what it's not!) by:Robin Yearsley

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As a qualified and experienced ITIL Consultant - I'd like to set the record straight on a few points.

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is an excellent set of best practices, carefully organized and edited to provide readers with information and structure for how to plan, implement, maintain and improve the service delivered to an organizations customers.

ITIL is owned by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) and is copyright and trademark protected. The IT Service Management Forum (itSMF) is the leading, independent, not for profit, organization that is owned and run by it's worldwide members - to promote and exploit the benfits of ITIL.

Oftentimes, when people first read one of the core ITIL books; ITIL is always classed as 'common sense' particularly by so called practitioners that say to themselves, "yeah, we do that already - so what?"

Well guess what. It IS common sense - but unfortunately it is found all to UNCOMMONLY.

At the heart of ITIL are a set of processes and procedures that any organization can review, customize and configure to their own content. These have been written and enhanced over 15 years from a variety of ITIL/Service/Process experts. This is the whole point of ITIL - it's a best practice starting point - to be considered, re-worked and carefully implemented into an organization to match that businesses needs. No verbatum, to-the-letter-of-the-book, style implementation will ultimately be more than 50% effective for any organization. Every place is different. Every Business is different. Every customer is different.

Over the last ten years, many thousands of IT Service professionals have provided feedback and helped to enhance the core OGC ITIL texts - so you can rest assured that it is THE #1 place to start when implementing strategic IT Service Management.

Moreover, recently, ISO20000 has been 'fast tracked' through the International Standards Committee to become the worldwide standard for IT Service Management. A lot of ISO20000 requires key aspects of ITIL to be implemented, namely IT Service Support and IT Service Delivery processes. Note: ISO20000 does NOT specify that ITIL is a pre-requisite for certification - but it is the logical starting place for best practice adoption.

A few home truths about ITIL - having observed its implementation in various guises into many clients over the last 10 years:-

- It requires investment in time, effort and people's energy - therefore there's a cost

- It requires capable and experienced people - people who are ITIL foundation and ITIL managers certified

- It requires a transformation programme to own and guide the effort of many smaller, but still significant projects.

- It requires active, senior buy-in. No buy-in - no ITIL. It's that harsh.

- It therefore requires to be understood at a senior level and therefore the ROI in ITIL must be deliberately planned and realized

- It's 'transformational' change - so that means people change roles; people have new ways of working and communicating; the organization begins to hardwire the voice of the customer into the heart of IT/Technology

Some further considerations:-

- It's tough to do; people play politics with their empires; people protect their functional silo's; people resist change

- It takes time; to plan, to design, to build, to test; to 'DO'

Essentially you have to change the 'planes engine whilst the 'plane is still in flight - meaning - YOU have to transform the way Technology delivers service - without impacting the quality and availability of Service.

ITIL's all about Service. Not Tools. Not Technology. Not Process. In my opinion, they are just by-products of what the end goal is.

[Incidently - there's NO such thing as an ITIL compliant tool. ITIL is a set of best practices - not a 'standard' that can be complied to. Vendors always incorrectly say their tool is 'compliant'. Gartner agrees with me on this.]

ITIL makes you think deeply about who's doing what, when, how, with what tools, how well are they doing, could they do better, how does the customer perceive us... these are just some of the constant questions that are raised EVERYDAY when you are implementing and running an ITIL based Organization.

These are the RIGHT questions for IT Service Success!!

The benefits of ITIL are many - but here are a few of commonly reported ones:-

- ITIL breaks down functional silo's, gets people and information flowing; gets people talking; all for the benefit of the Customer (service recipient).

- ITIL helps to re-organize IT/Technology to be Customer focussed. The roles, responsibilities, information and reporting requirements all converge to push meaningful and timely information towards the right Customer interfaces.

- ITIL makes people think from a Service perspective; not a technology silo perspective.

- ITIL reduces costs and helps with automation to further reduce cost. ITIL also lets you do more with less over time - avoiding future staffing cost increases.

- ITIL can be rolled out in 'groupings' of best practice to achieve organizational 'quick wins'

- ITIL should be fun. A way of doing things around here with people fully involved and included in key decisions.

It boils down to this...

Will the person sitting on a seat do the right thing at the right time at the lowest possible cost - in order to play their part in delivering the service that the customer pays for - keep on doing it right first time - and improve things where-ever possible?

Holy Grail?

No.

Already being achieved?

Absolutely! In lot's of different companies around the world. ITIL's been around for years!!

For a free 60 minute Podcast about ITIL Implementation - please visit:

http://www.AskTheServiceExpert.com

About the author

Robin Yearsley is a qualified and experienced ITIL Consultant who continues to provide practical and insightful wisdom to anyone who is considering ITIL for their Organization. Robin has presented at several itSMF events and enjoys nothing more than applying good old fahioned common sense and enthusiasm to assist the Clients he helps each year. Common in all of Robin's articles is the need to express how important people are to the planning, implementation and ultimate success of any ITIL Programme. It's people that make the ultimate difference.

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