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Making ITIL Work

2 Replies Last post: Mar 18, 2009 4:03 PM by CarlMattocksCEOCheckMi  
Ann All   9 posts since
Oct 3, 2008
Reply

Dec 16, 2009 1:58 PM

Making ITIL Work

I recently wrote an article and a follow-up blog post based on discussions I had with several IT analysts and with IT professionals on the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). They offered lots of great advice on how to effectively implement ITIL, only some of which made it into the article. I'd like to recap some of the advice in the article and mention some of the suggestions that didn't make it. Hopefully other folks with ITIL experience will join the discussion and share some suggestions of their own.

 

  • Start with realistic expectations. If you start out thinking ITIL will help you cut IT costs in half, you will be disappointed.
  • Begin with a solid baseline, looking at unit costs, quality and productivity.
  • Measure in granular enough detail so improvements can be tied directly to an ITIL process or tool.
  • Concentrate on your most critical business processes. Ask users to help you determine which processes are the strongest candidates for improvement.
  • Enlist a strong executive-level sponsor.
  • Invest time in educating users about ITIL's benefits, preferably with diagrams showing how workflows can be streamlined.
  • Reassure staff that their roles won't be automated out of existence. Rather, ITIL will allow them to apply their time and energy to more strategic issues. They shouldn't have to spend as much time firefighting, and firefighting will become less stressful for them, when necessary, if processes are better defined.
  • Focus on achieving small, incremental wins, and the momentum will take care of itself.
  • ITIL is an organizational effort and thus cannot be confined to IT.
  • Training is important. Make sure users understand how to use ITIL tools and processes.
  • Change management can get costly if and when users try to circumvent ITIL processes. With the CIO's blessing, send a weekly e-mail listing all of the 'emergency' changes made the prior week.
  • Pick and choose the ITIL principles that will benefit your organization. You don't have to adopt them all.
  • Promote posiitve results to create enthusiasm.
GrantLeathers   1 posts since
Mar 11, 2009
1. Mar 11, 2009 2:33 PM in response to: Ann All
Re: Making ITIL Work

Great, Post Ann. I had a few points that I wanted to make/enforce.

 

1. I agree with what you said about focusing on small, incremental wins. Identifying a specific project or application to implement ITIL processes and then showing the practical benefits acheived by the implementation will help you justify the time/costs involved and show other groups and exec mgmt the benefits for continuing to march forward.

 

2. Sponsorship is a must. ITIL is not a project, it is a way of being. I don't mean that to be zen-like, but it will transform the organization if impelemented properly and must have executive level sponsorship in order to succeed.

 

3. Training is absolutely critical to success. We often found that groups were willing to adopt the tools/processes that we were advocating and just needed the proper training in order to come onboard.

 

4. Don't try to implement ITIL by the book. Instead, start small (incident, problem, change) and then adopt what works best for your organization. ITIL is a framework, not a one-size fits all process structure. If you try to hit people over the head with ITIL processes that don't fit inside your company, the effort will fail.

 

Great discussion!

Grant

CarlMattocksCEOCheckMi   1 posts since
Oct 3, 2008
2. Mar 18, 2009 4:03 PM in response to: Ann All
Re: Making ITIL Work

Yes, yes and yes good PLAN. and then as you DO those things CHECK that are they are the correct things before you ACT again. Which is best done by having metrics showing you generated Value

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