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April 27, 2005

ITIL - avoiding ITIL implementation mythologies

A consensus exists that ITIL - the defacto standard reference for IT service management - is a library of descriptions of "best practices". But it is crucial to note that in those descriptions, there is content pertaining to several different issues, three of them for example being objectives, practices, and processes. Just saying "best practices" does not logically mean that all three issues are best, nor understood, nor self-fulfilling for an organization. Saying "best recommendations" is more likely to the point.

It's an understandable urge to acquire the best "solutions" that makes some organizations try to force-fit ITIL -- acquiring by forcing themselves to fit ITIL's apparent prescriptions of behavior. Unfortunately, that doesn't work unless everyone wants it to. Meanwhile, organizations can't just simply run an "ITIL.EXE" installation wizard.

This calls for revisiting the idea of "implementation" on a fundamental level. Strictly speaking, implementation means *applying* something (an implement!), as a practical function within an existing operation. Our corporate experience with most large "applications" is that they must be customized to the targeted operational environment before they can "go live" and survive to deliver ROI. But the whole trick to that is to first understand whether the application must be customized to the current environment or to a future environment, or somehow to both. The IT organization, as run by its managers, *is* the environment. The dynamics of that environment are all about people and the reasons why people will do things.

Therefore, the typical prerequisite elements of "implementation" are always "target, commit, adapt", respectively meaning (1) the goal to adopt the implement; (2) the commitment to the necessary level of operational performance; and (3) the ability to adapt to using the implement.

Put differently, the necessary trio of implementation success factors is strategy, maturity models, and change management. Without this trio there is no rational roadmap available to guide the evolution of the organization from its pre-ITIL orientation to its ITIL-orientation. To create this roadmap, organizations may or may not need outside help, but the point is for organizations to embrace the concept of ITIL-orientation as opposed to ITIL-installation.

Posted by Malcolm Ryder at April 27, 2005 10:26 AM

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