IT Consulting from the Trenches

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.