ITIL: MY INTRODUCTION. PART-2 OF 3

Earlier I mentioned how impressed I was with the value that ITIL can bring to any organization. My positive impression led me to research it a little more—just enough so that I would get the big picture.

The beauty of ITIL, as mentioned previously, lies in its customizability. It specifies the framework, which means that while ITIL reveals the main outline of each best practice, it leaves substantial parts of the solution for you to fill in.

It should be possible to implement ITIL’s best practices using nothing more than Microsoft Office and a team of really dedicated evangelists. In order to implement these best practices, an organization needs a software tool, a team of evangelists, and a project plan.

ITIL needs a central repository for the knowledge and lessons learned by the organization. This repository takes the form of a database called the Configuration Management DataBase (CMDB). It is conceivable therefore, to use MS Office’s Access database for the CMDB. Of course, you should at least have a back-end SQL server to support it.

But don’t do it unless you have a small organization like a medical practice that has 10 physicians working together in one, maybe two, locations. Or, to put it another way, don’t do it unless the organization has an IT staff of two or three. I’m titillated by the idea but that would be a shoestring operation and wages may outweigh the cost of purchasing a dedicated ITIL software package. In short, I think it is feasible even though I have never heard of an implementation in such a small scale.

In order to implement ITIL effectively, the organization must maintain that CMDB and leverage it aggressively to share information to everyone in the organization about changes to existing processes, best practices that were adopted, standards that were set, timelines, etc. It is also important for the project team to roll out ITIL’s best practices in a sensible manner. The best practices should target related functions so that the improvements are quickly felt by the user organization. That will make it easier to adopt and, ultimately, shorten the time before the organization reaps the benefits.

WHAT ARE BEST PRACTICES ANYWAY?

If a user’s desktop starts malfunctioning, does the organization have a procedure that the user can follow confidently? In other words, can the user pick up the phone and call a service desk to report that her desktop isn’t working? And, when someone from IT picks it up, will she receive a loaner until her desktop is fixed and returned to her? Will the majority of her files be accessible through that loaner because the staff has been trained to save all of their files to a central server?

Those are all practices. In fact, those are all best practices. Note several things. First, the user has confidence in the procedure. Second, the process of receiving the loaner and setting it up for the user should take an hour or two—a quick response, in other words. And third, the user’s ability to access her files is possible only because of another practice, namely, saving user files to a central server.

None of these practices need special software to implement, correct? But how many organizations can execute this process consistently? Not many, would you agree?

This is why ITIL was developed. It is a compilation of the best practices for each conceivable function of the IT organization. These practices have one common goal—maximizing the value of IT’s services to its parent organization. ITIL accomplishes this by establishing a common language of terms and a set of service standards.

THE BIG PICTURE

The big picture I mentioned earlier consists of five major domains:

Service Support, which includes

1. Service Desk
2. Incident management
3. Problem management
4. Change management
5. Configuration management
6. Release management

Service Delivery

1. Service Level management
2. Financial management of IT services
3. Capacity management
4. Availability management
5. IT service continuity management

Business Perspective

Information & Communications Technology Infranstructure management

Software asset management

See Part-3 of 3 for an overview of the individual components.

ITIL: WHAT SURPRISED ME ABOUT IT. PART-1 OF 3

ITIL stands for the Information Technology Infrastructure Library. I’ve been involved with IT infrastructure for most of my career. After my introduction to ITIL last year, I realized how much better our past implementation of various systems could have been. That is how useful ITIL is, in my opinion.

ITIL is a compilation of what we now call “best practices.” The practices were compiled by a government agency of the United Kingdom. The agency, originally called the Central Computer & Telecommunications Agency (CCTA), began a library in the early 1980s of processes that computer departments should use in order to maximize the contribution of their services to the parent organization. ITIL provides a systematic approach to delivering IT services.

The beauty of ITIL lies in its customizable framework.

I was involved in a subset of the second version of ITIL, namely Service Support. This domain focuses on the process required to keep operations running on a day-by-basis.

It explains how the Service Desk owns and supports Incident Management. It is the foundation for supporting user issues and requests.

Problem Management is the other half of Service Support. It analyzes the root cause of problems to eliminate or mitigate them, once and for all.

Change Management uses a structured process to ensure that changes meet business and technical criteria. This reduces risk and minimizes the impact of change on the organization.

Release Management provides a framework for coordinating, controlling, and physically introducing change to the organization.

Configuration Management provides the foundation for all Service Support and Service Delivery processes. It uses a database (called the CMDB for Change Management Data Base) to track and monitor the organization's software, infrastructure, and documentation. It also documents the relationship between incidents, solutions, changes, and releases.

A COMMON SENSE APPROACH

ITIL uses as common sense approach to delivering IT services. It synchronizes the delivery of all IT services towards the common goal of delivering service value to the organization. ITIL is currently in its third version. Its content revolves around five core competencies:

1. Service Strategy
2. Service Design
3. Service Transition
4. Service Operation
5. Continual Service Improvement.

BENEFITS TO THE ORGANIZATION

ITIL benefits its parent organization in these ways:

1. reduced costs
2. improved IT services through the use of proven best practice processes
3. improved customer satisfaction through a more professional approach to service delivery
4. standards and guidance
5. improved productivity
6. improved use of skills and experience
7. improved delivery of third party services through the specification of ITIL or ISO 20000 as the standard for service delivery in services procurements.

TYPICAL ADOPTION PATH OF ITIL BY ORGANIZATIONS

Gartner is a respected name in the field of technology consulting and research. According to Gartner, most organizations dip their toes in ITIL in the domain of Service Support, as our client did. Its involvement began in the area of resolution management. Managing resolutions, i.e., issues aka problems, has two disciplines: incident management and problem management.

After becoming comfortable with resolution management, companies typically add control processes, namely, change management and configuration management. From there, companies move on to release management, and as the organization matures, it shifts its focus on the processes of delivering services and improving services, i.e., service level management and availability management. This, according to Gartner, is the typical path followed by many companies in their adoption of ITIL practices:

1. Resolution Management
2. Change Management
3. Configuration Management
4. Release Management
5. Service Level Management
6. Availability Management

Companies typically follow an evolutionary process in adopting any new technology or set of practices. It is well worth it. ITIL fulfills an important need. In most organizations, IT processes are chaotic and ill-defined, poorly or not documented, nor standardized. The ultimate reward, as the individual company matures along the ITIL path, it begins using basic repeatable processes to maintain and improve its service delivery functions.