WIXLIB

WHITE PAPERITIL That Fits Your BusinessBy Bridget Conrad, VP Services and Support

ITIL THAT FITS YOUR BUSINESSTable of Contents3Introduction3What is ITIL?345Implementing ITIL56667782Adoption of ITILA moving target – The evolving ’best practices’ of ITILWhere to beginBasic questions to askStart with the most urgent processesSoftware tools – flexibility is the keyAgiloft has the flexibility you needImplementation consultants can save you time and moneyConclusionWHITE PAPER

ITIL THAT FITS YOUR BUSINESSIntroductionIn the last several years, ITIL has become a buzzwordin management circles. CEO’s and CIO’s anxiousto stay at the forefront of business trends have feltsome pressure to adopt “the most widely acceptedapproach to IT service management in the world.”1ITIL has been portrayed by some as a panacea thatwill suddenly make IT a profit center, while improvingservices, reliability, infrastructure, and accountability.WHITE PAPERITIL books investigated the actual practices ofcorporations as well as government agencies in theUK and abroad, looking for the process elementsthat led to effective IT service delivery, and they thencodified those elements. The ITIL books thereforedocumented practices already being followed tosome extent in many successful organizations.However, jumping into “implementing ITIL” withouta clear understanding of how best to go about itand what potential benefits and pitfalls you mayencounter is tantamount to jumping out of a planewith your company’s resources on your back insteadof a parachute.A significant percentage of ITIL implementations aresimply never completed, after months of training,certification tests, and effort, while it is also commonto find that an ITIL implementation has actuallyincreased the workload of IT staff members withoutimproving service or reliability.Both of these outcomes may be avoided by doingsome homework and approaching ITIL with a clearsense of priorities. This paper offers some practicalsuggestions for how to get the greatest benefits ITILhas to offer without getting lost along the way.What is ITIL?The Information Technology InfrastructureLibrary (ITIL) is a set of “best practice” guidelineson managing IT processes that were originallydeveloped for government agencies in the UnitedKingdom in 1989. The guidelines were created byan organization called the Central Computer andTelecommunications Agency (CCTA) in response towhat was perceived as the inefficiencies and failingsof IT in the British government.The purpose of the guidelines was to increaseefficiency and cost-effectiveness, reduce failure,and improve the customer service provided byIT organizations. The agency that created the1. entre/Best-Practice-Guidance/ITIL/3Adoption of ITILITIL quickly became a well-known standard in Europeand much of the world soon after its introduction,thanks in part to the IT Service Management Forum(itSMF), an international organization founded inthe early 1990s to spread the word about ITIL. TheUK and the Netherlands each created their own ITILuser certification programs in 2000 and hundreds ofthousands of individuals have been certified.ITIL has been slower to gain ground in the UnitedStates. Only in the last 5 years has it made realinroads among American corporations. The lag inAmerican adoption has been blamed by some oncultural differences. Ken Hamilton, past presidentof itSMF in the USA, explains, “Europe tends to bea qualitative environment. Process improvement interms of the quality of service delivered, these sortsof metrics were more popular in Europe-whereas inthe United States, cost savings, return on investment,hard-dollar savings were the primary drivers.”2The interest in ITIL adoption in the U.S. has beengrowing, however, as indicated by changing survey2. Chad Vander Veen, “American ITIL”, Jul 27, 2005 Government Technology, (http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/95672?id 95672&full 1&story pg 2).

ITIL THAT FITS YOUR BUSINESSresults. In October 2005, a U.S. survey on theComputer Economics website showed that 56%of respondents weren’t even familiar with ITIL andanother 11% had no plans to implement it:3Current State of ITIL AdoptionNo Plans11%Researching16%ImplementingIn Place12%6%“What is ITIL”56%0%20%40%60%Percent of RespondentsSource: Computer EconomicsFigure 1By February of 2008, a survey of 370 CIO’sworldwide (100 of them American) by DimensionData found that almost 59% of American CIO’ssaid they had “engaged with” ITIL, but only 8%of them “deemed themselves aligned to the ITILframework).4 Contrast that with 66% of organizationsoutside the U.S. engaging with and 17% consideringthemselves to be true practitioners of ITIL.The main barriers to adoption cited by the surveywere the costs associated with training, certification,and implementation. 31% of U.S. CIO’s reported thatthe framework should be more actionable, while 25%complained that it should be more flexible. 40% ofAmerican CIO’s believed that ITIL would facilitateinnovation by freeing IT departments from routinetasks.Most U.S. companies implementing ITIL havebeen large corporations. This is not surprising,since ITIL was originally developed to addressthe problems of large organizations, and many ofthese problems may not even exist for small tomidsized organizations. For instance, a processaimed at improving communication between largedepartments will make little sense in a business withfewer than twenty employees. Moving to a tightly3. “ITIL Adoption: 2006 Could be Watershed Year in U.S.”,October, 2005, Computer Economics Metrics for IT Management, http://www.computereconomics.com/article.cfm?id 10684. “Dimension Data Survey Shows More than Half of U.S.Organizations Have Engaged with ITIL”, Feb. 28, 2008, veyShowsMore ThanHalfofUSOrganizati.pdf)4WHITE PAPERstructured, standards-based approach is mostlikely to pay off for companies juggling a variety ofindependent systems in separate departments thatdon’t talk to each other.However, many small and medium-sized businessescan benefit from implementing the parts of ITIL thatapply to them. The key is to find an approach thattakes into account an organization’s individual needsand goals. For example, in a small business with onlya few hundred computers, one or two people maybe responsible for all computer support issues. Theymay have little time to focus on higher-order issueslike service strategy when they spend the workdaymanaging incidents on a case-by-case basis.Implementing certain ITIL practices such as incidentmanagement in the early stages of a business canprepare the IT department for its eventual growth.Additional processes, such as change management,can be added as the business need arises.A moving target –The evolving ’best practices’ of ITILFirst published in several hefty volumes, the initialITIL library has continued to evolve as real worldexperience suggested some changes of emphasis.ITIL V2, published in 2000, is the foundation used bymost companies who have implemented ITIL to date.Of the 8 main books, the two most widely used werethose on Service Support and Service Delivery.5The latest revision, known as ITIL V3, was intended toremedy the “one-size-fits-all” approach of V2, and toprovide more practical advice. It was an internationaleffort, with input from vendors, governmentagencies, and industry stakeholders. Published inMay 2007, V3 was intended to be more flexible andadaptable to different business models. While V2focused on processes, V3 emphasizes the way inwhich services are delivered to the business.The five core titles of ITIL V3 outline a theoreticalapproach to effective IT practice using the conceptof a service lifecycle:5. Paula Klein, “ITIL V3 – The Reality Check,” Smart Enterprise:Instights and Perspectives for the CIO, nter/bestpractices.jhtml)

ITIL THAT FITS YOUR BUSINESSWHITE PAPERService StrategyHelps IT organizations create strategies toimprove and develop services over timeService DesignProvides best practices for the designof IT services and processesService TransitionDemonstrates how IT organizations can best deliverservices required by the end-user, and manages thetransition of new, modified services to productionService OperationProvides a methodology for delivering effective,consistent levels of service to end-usersContinual Service ImprovementOffers best practices for anticipatingthe end-user’s needs and making appropriateservice changes over timeFor those who have already begun the certification orimplementation process under V2, it is helpful to seehow the services described in V2 map into ITIL V3:6Implementing ITILWhere to beginOne of the challenges with implementing ITIL is thatthe processes described in the ITIL volumes aredescriptions of strategies for system effectiveness,rather than prescriptions for how to implement them.As a result, even after sending people to expensiveITIL certification and foundation training courses,your organization may still not have a clear idea ofexactly how to implement ITIL.6. Paula Klein, “ITIL V3 – The Reality Check,” Smart Enterprise:Instights and Perspectives for the 08winter/bestpractices.jhtml)5It is a mistake for most companies to try toimplement all the ITIL components at once. Thisis likely to result in endless process debates anddeadlocks, a lengthy and costly implementationproject, and an unfinished or unsatisfactoryresult. While it is certainly beneficial to plan along term ITIL roadmap, it is essential to prioritizethe implementation, and then proceed todesign and implement process improvement inmanageable chunks.