Research from Hornbill as reported here indicates sluggish uptake of Version 3 of ITIL, but James West has taken a closer look and sees a more worrying reality for those invested in the best practice framework.
Many of the businesses who have moved to version 3 of ITIL are not doing so to take advantage of the latest features, rather they have migrated to stay current and in touch with the latest version. The reality as shown by the research is that most businesses use ITIL to fine tune their common actions, such as change, problem and incident management. The move to make ITIL version 3 a far-reaching business-focused tool was a very brave one and in many ways, the only sensible thing to do. ITIL version 2 had honed the work started by the original ITIL and left little room for improvement, in regards to IT services remaining as a separate entity. The logical progression therefore was to consider the wider implications of an IT service and begin considering it in context with the wider business, and this is what ITIL version 3 does. The ultimate aim of version 3 is creating an IT department fully tuned to the requirements of the business.
The trouble is, the aim is not realistic.
ITIL is built upon honing processes and it does this fantastically well. Yet for IT to be integrated into the mindset of the business, processes are not what is needed. In fact, they can be a barrier.
Let me explain. The reason why IT is still a silo department is because it fails to effectively communicate. We see a lot written about IT needing to do a better job publicising the work that it does, but equally important, it needs to listen. What does the business want? Do the services that are provided offer any value in real business terms? The answers to these questions are not hidden in a process, the process is a distraction that allows IT to close its ears to the voices of the business people it should be supporting.
ITIL version 3 will always fall short of its aim to unite business and IT because you can’t build a process which teaches effective communication.
What do you think? Has ITIL outstayed it’s welcome? Or is it still relevant? Have your say below.
Copyright © 2013 ServiceDesk360 All Rights Reserved.
But is that not where CSI and SS come in as an interface to the business? In fact, communication with the business is woven into version 3 throughout. Any initiative will fall down with sub standard communication.
There can be critisisms of v3 but the above is certainly incorrect. Processes are just an element of Service Management in ITIL and v3 does exactly what the author bemoans: it gets (especially internal) IT Service Providers to think more in business terms.
I’m not sure the community has fully grasped the concepts of ITIL Service Strategy – this volume alone asks senior IT executives to define IT terms in terms of the ‘information-based technology-enabled services’ that the business and its customers (read stakeholders for non-profits) need to be successful. Whilst ‘v1′ asked us to maange the technology better and ‘v2′ asked us to manage the processes better, ‘v3′ asks us to integrate with the business by truley understanding how the ‘IT Services’ create value for the business. IT will ‘more effectively communicate’ when it adopts a language that the business understands – that’s why reporting ’99.x% infrastructure availability’, ‘all Sev 1s fixed within 4 hours’, ‘all SLAs are green’ or ‘we have ITIL-compliant processes’ continues to baffles those that buy or consume these IT Services.
Mmm, interesting but what is there out there that could possibly replace it or, are we likely to see ITIL v4 soon?
James West is perfectly correct in his analysis but not so with his prediction.
IT will only thrive in organisations where IT professionals have truly learned how to communicate. The version 3 syllabus covers this in Service Transition and Service Design but doen’t, in my view, emphasise enough the soft-skills needed to communicate clearly and effectively and to engender a true customer-service culture within the business.
IT Managers / CIO’s need to show true leadership and articulate a vision of an IT service culture that truly supports the business. Then the processes will do their job of making sure this happend reliably and consistently.
ITIL version 3 or even version 2 for that matter does not fix all the business IT problems by just adopting the framework, the business could actually be left in a poorer state.
The business value is it provides a baseline for you to adapt to the business need, and the latter is often why ITIL fails in the eyes of the business, to many companies focus on the adoption stage when the real effort needs to be in the adaption stage. Implementing version 3 is a long and expensive task often done without consideration of the primary question WHAT NEEDS IMPROVING?
The business working with IT need to set the process priorities and establish what the ROI is going to be post implementation to agree the scope of the implementation. Only then will business buy-in be possible.
I think the person that wrote this clearly has not read or understood the concepts of Service Strategy or Design as this is all about bringing the IT “silo” into the wider business perspective and having a chance to shape what services the business provides as well as how they are delivered.
Ultimately the ITIL framework is a list of 50,000 good suggestions. Not all of them will be relevant but there will always be something an organisation can take to fine tune the way in which they operate. Only a pragmatic ITIL implementation will acheieve the right results – unless you have very deep pockets, long project timescales and a large resource pool it is extremely difficult to implement the framework verbatum.
Furthermore, even if organisations only start fine tuning the old core service support modules in V2 – V3 gives people a shining light of what the future can be – something to really aim for. Wind the clock back 10 years ago and few people were event looking at Incident Management with any particular skill… the fact that awareness (even in the last 3-4 years) of problem, change and configuration management (the old corner stones) has grown to an extent where people demand such practices are in place shows that things are moving in the right direction.
Most companies will these things right and look at the rest of the publications… in 10 years time I have no doubt that outsourcing tender’s will require more specific guidance on Market Strategy etc – in fact we are starting to see it come through already!
Yes, yes, yes! Coming from a non-IT customer services environment, I have been amazed at the silo effect within IT – and I agree that changing the process does not in itself improve the communications within the organisation. ITIL has been heralded in certain parts of my own university as the way forward, the mantra which we should all be chanting – but I always believed it to be just one more passing management trend. The question should really be, not is ITIL finished, but what comes next? It’s time IMHO for some old-fashioned applied commonsense and a people- and service-centred view. Then, and only then, can IT really start to be seen as an asset instead of a lumbering weight on the back of the organisation. The ability of IT to integrate into the organisation ultimately depends on the outlook of the staff deploying and managing it. Machines are easy, people are more difficult – so let’s put our effort into managing and developing our people.
This is my own personal view, and is not necessarily the view of my employer.
Our organisation finds ITIL V2 simple, practical, and of interest and relavence to everyone in the department – and it fits us perfectly. Although i appreciate that some organisations may want to adopt it, V3 is a step to far for us (surely we should be allowed to make that decision ourselves), and smacks of trying to fix something that wasn’t “broken”. Added to this is the blatantly obvious commercial push to move everyone to V3, giving “end of life” warnings re training/accreditation continuity of V2, and trying to impart a “you don’t understand” ludite label to anyone who is actually satisfied with V2. The enforced drive to V3, ignoring the clear reluctance from the “users” is a classic case of damaging the integrity and credibility of what was a very good (and fit for purpose for a lot of organisations) framework. If ITIL does now lose it’s respect and value it will be because of those who have tried to railroad “improvements” on those who actually knew better. How can so much damage be created by so few!
In my opinion, ITIL V3 (taught through training providers) does not do justice to the excellent body of work as it stands at the moment. This may be to do with two main things:
1. The sheer volume of material now being delivered
2. The Mindset required to appreciate the lifecycle approach which could be affected by personal perceptions or job role
This is particularly relevant from the “lifecycle” and “managing across the lifecycle” streams. It may perhaps be better geared up to integration with academic courses; this could be its real future.
The “capability” route has lots of practical advice on how to organise and manage processes, which as you say, was the key strength of V2. However, to understand the strength of capability, the IT professional needs to understand the philosophy of lifecycle.
Without wishing to invent another pathway through the qualifications route, there may be a need for “lifecycle overview” which can then proactively support capability. APM Group will tell us that this exists within the scheme. Of course it does to some extent, but for those already qualified in V2, especially those who qualified at intermediary level will need to put V3 in context to sell the benefits of lifecycle without it becoming too overburdensome for them.
There is no easy answer to this one, because those involved in process management/development in their job roles will clearly see benefit of a V2 approach.
I feel that long term we need to be much more inclusive with the material and embed it into undergraduate and postgraduate courses within universities. This must be working alongside training providers who will then be able to add substance to the next generation of delivery. We may see the logical development of “skills-type training” coming off as an end result. The skills and competencies may well be those around organisational change, risk management, leadership, socio-technical issues etc, which are, if you think about it, are akin to material in MBA-type/Business Management programmes.
At the very least it would interesting to have qualitiative data on the numbers of candidates in the UK who qualified at V2 level and what stage they got to. It would also be interesting to see how many have achieved V3 qualifications and those who have taken the V3 Manager’s Bridge course and the numbers who successfully passed the exam. This way we can start to build a picture based on SWOT into the perception of the qualifications by the contemporary IT professional. This may ultimately lead us to a universally accepted route from a national perspective at one level with sensible adaptations (skills development) springing off it.
ITIL is not the only concern of any sane CIO, more likely it forms part of a portfolio of capabilities. The author clearly has not read Service Strategy or CSI which are focused on far better understanding and working with the business. Even ITIL constantly references other methodolgies and standards, and has demoted itself to a good pratice from its previous rather arogantlynaive banner of Best Practice.
As for the future? There will be a lot less of us pedalling good practice as IT moves to utility model and CIOs finally get to buy IT on demand as we start to migrate off our cumbersome, inefficient infrastructures and onto mega datatcentres managed by a handful of techies and managers. Innovating new efficient profitable business processes is where it will be at….and I am not sure no matter how much version 3 you read, how innovative you will make yourself!
Who is James West anyway!
The comments show a fundamental misunderstanding of what ITIL and Version 3 is about.
I can only suggest that the writer educates himself as he is certainly no authority.
Well I am not a big fan of ITIL V3 and i dont recommend it to any business at this time. As there are alot of errors in their official books. Although that doesnt mean that this is the end of the road for ITIL, I have to disagree on that with the editor. There is a Continual Improvement planned by the OGC to fix those errors for example:link
As mentioned in the topic ITIL V3 is more business focused so the IT staffs at organizations that adopt ITIL v3 are less focused on technology; they are more focused on the business and the business outcomes, and linking those back to the technology. However there will always be a layer of technology managers whose main focus is technical, but the number of those people overall will decrease.
As for the disadvantages. Tool vendors may be scratching their heads for a bit trying to figure out the impact (if any) on their product sets to implement ITIL V3 – the process integration focus in V2 was a boon towards getting vendors to integrate their tool sets and the development of solution suites.
Implementation efforts shouldnt be impacted – if anything – there is more guidance than in V2.
Last point is that V3 does not resemble the ISO20000 standard – Although V3 committee has stated they will liaise with the ISO working group representative to get that sorted. It is still too early to judge ITIL V3. In my own opinion V3 will succeed as it enhances and builds on V2 its just a matter of time until people start accepting the transition, including my self.
An interesting view point on ITIL given that Hornbill’s own website says “According to Hornbill’s recent “ITIL: State of the Nation” Survey, ITIL v.3 processes are seeing increasing volumes of uptake and planning”
That seems to suggest a surge rather than a decline but maybe I am reading it wrong? If there is a sluggish uptake in V3 I am not surprised but would suggest that this might have more to do with the investment required vs the current financial hardship across the industry. It may be that uptake is measured in purchases and training courses booked but I am sure that many organisations are already benefitting from the content of V3 and the numerous internet discussions around it.
Could V3 be the last version of ITIL – who knows? However I dont believe that either the need for a framework or the concepts introduced and refined through the ITIL process will be going anywhere anytime soon. It is best practice for a reason in that its collaborative approach is designed to reflect the common consensus within the industry rather than a way-out theory of one individual and there are countless people and organisations who see value in that.
I also believe that seeing a globally adopted best practice frame work within their IT department is a communications enabler for the business. I say this because one of the silo makers in the past was that IT were a secrety society doing their own thing. Using ITIL we can, through process measurement and continual service improvement, demonstrate our value to the business, strive for improvement in a controlled way and prove that we are not completely self-governing with a lack of understanding of the big picture. This can only go to strengthen our credibility and therefore open channels of communication further.
Where ITIL V3 has missed the mark for me is that it has failed to address the fact the more IT organisations are smart sourcing IT services from external organisations. Neither V2 or V3 was written with the external Service provider in mind, V3 missed the opportunity to address this and provide CIO’s / IT Directors with a framework from which they can better manage their chosen suppliers.
In addition, these Service Providers need a framework which is more in line with delivering services to customers that are external rather than trying to work with a framework that is clearly written with the internal IT department of a large corporate in mind.
I disagree that v3 has not been written with the external service provider in mind. The traditional IT approach, especially from internal providers, has been to concentrate on IT as a cost and many of the stories from fellow delegates on my ITIL courses concern services being outsourced to reduce costs. Service Strategy tries to address this by moving the focus to ‘value’, but the problem is that for many IT staff, value is too abstract a concept for people working in what is often a very black and white industry.
With the current trend towards SaaS, utility computing, etc… internal IT functions need a framework such as v3 more than ever to help them and their organisations accurately assess the best service delivery options.
First, a point on who James West is – he’s been in this industry, specialising in IT support for, must be a decade? He’s edited the leading journals of this little sector and he knows everybody on the vendor and ‘expert’ side, their views and why they hold them. Without actually being a helpdesk manager, in my view he is probably one of the most knowledgeable and unbiased people on IT support the UK has to offer and importantly, he has no axe to grind.
As regards ITIL 3 and its potential failure – if so, it only has itself to blame. From its birth in the eighties through the two refreshes I have seen, ITIL has moved consistently further away from grass roots support delivery and more toward the business, thus becoming decreasingly relevant to the day-to-day. It has triaed to become more strategic, more esoteric and appealing to the ever decreasing elite of companies who actually can use all of its subtleties.
In practical terms, Megacorp PLC will probably find it attractive and adopt it, while Joe Helpdesk, making up the majority of our industry’s members numerically and over half by corporate value, gets comparatively little out of it that’s of practical use and has in any case neither the time, the resources nor the influence to implement it.
Nevertheless, ITIL has its place – but it now appears that even that place is no longer assured.
I’m currently studying ITIL V3 and I find it just a disappointing glitzy version of V1. Version 1 smacked to me as more of a tool for governmental IT purchasing and way to top heavy with respect to the amount of parties involved with the resultant communications problems. I was going to write a diatribe but instead speaking as an ISO9000 Lead Assessor the short version is that if a company is ISO9000 accredited then the IT department should be within the scope and therefore unable to be insular or unaccountable. ITIL is merely papering over the cracks. As for outsourcing in my experience, “to err is human, to really mess up – outsource.”
I think to suggest the end to ITIL and to blame it on IT’s shortcoming in not fully understanding and integrating to the Business, is rather naive. Remember ITIL is in essence just a framework and a set of suggestions; it is still beholden on the adopter to ensure that processes are underpinned by procedure, governance and function.
I have found that whilst many customers have “uplifted†many of the v2 processes into v3 it is not merely to keep up with the new version but rather to take advantage of the improvements within v3 and also position themselves for adoption of the newer elements (such as Service Design).
An earlier point made regarding communication is a good one, and must be addressed with regards to any implementation and improvement programme. It is always interesting to me that many ITSM books talk about culture and its influence (mostly negative it seems!) but none have a chapter dedicated to how to manage and align/improve it.
ITIL is not the Panacea to all IT department ills, people remain the key and their ability and desire to truly work towards the ethos of delivering a first class service.
Thanks to everyone for your comments on this subject. I shall be following up this topic over the next few days and will be delivering a follow up article, especially looking at the plans by the OGC to amend and update some of the ITIL text.
Most of what I had to say has been addressed in the other responses. I would just add that the author is of the same mind that effectively turned V2 into just two books. A whole other discussion is the way the certification and training industries neutered V2. However, V3 is presented in a way that facilitates the bigger picture and until I read this article I thought it made the bigger picture inescapable. If your purpose for considering ITIL is about processes you can pick the book that meets your need, be it Operations or whatever. That will indicate your place in the lifecycle and that is fine and appropriate. But V3 clearly, albeit sketchily, insists that the big picture be considered. In reality this presents a two edged challenge: not only does IT have to act like a strategic asset the business must learn to see and interact with IT as a strategic asset. ITIL V3 does facilitate this but only in the hands of the appropriate resources and in a receptive culture.
I am totally amazed by some of the negative comments above. Some people appear not to have read all 5 core books, but lay into ITIL v3 as thouigh they are an expert. I have been teaching ITIL for 8 years, both v2 and v3 since it was first released (or should I say escaped)…. ITIL wether it be v2 or v3 is something that you need to adopt and adapt and is equally applicable for small or large organisations.
ITIL did not invent or discover the Service LIfecycle, believe it or not its been there all along and so have the underpinning processes, its just that they have not been documented so fully. I agree that the books could have been better written, but they are better than what we had. At Foundation level I teach about the big picture of IT, the concepts of providing value to the business. As regard IT being a silo, it was and in some organisations continues to be a ‘dark art’, or an expensive overhead, but show me an organisation that can do without it. I have been in the IT industry for over 30 years and believe me what we have today is light years away from where we were, but we still have a long way to go. ITIL helps us set our course, it is not our destination.
Regards Steve
More ITIL bashing. What you are talking about here is not a fault with the framework but a people problem and there are parallels in all industries. I agree there are many ICT departments who see ITIL as some sort of panacea but ultimately if you have the right people they will understand that communication is key and that only processes, actions and initiatives that can be demonstrated to add value should be undertaken.
Actually this article seems to be written to appeal to the type of person who has damaged ITIL’s reputation in the first place by not having the common sense, or business awareness, required to be effective in the service management arena in the first place.
I agree with Matt, ITIL is a toolset / framework. what i’m seeing here is what as always been the topic communication.
I agree there are many IT departments and orgs who see ITIL as some sort of redtape but if you have the right people they will understand that communication is key and that only processes, actions and initiatives that can be demonstrated to add value should be undertaken.
Its the same old story good old fashion customer care and how we can design services which add value to your clients delivery.