ITIL 2011: Continual Service Improvement or just the result of V3 being rushed?

The more pessimistic of us would say that the development of ITIL V3 must have been rushed to have missed some of its more beneficial “Best Practice” rules in the transition. After 4 years the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) are updating it to ‘resolve errors and inconsistencies in the text and diagrams and review processes to make training and understanding easier’. It is not out of order to ask ourselves a few questions such as: did they not peer review or audit the publications before going to print, then? Has it really taken them that long to read it all?

In any case, since the 29^th July 2011 new ITIL 2011 edition books have been available to purchase. They will:

• Resolve any errors or inconsistencies in the text and diagrams, both in content and presentation.
• Improve the publications by addressing issues raised in the Change Control Log, as analysed and recommended by the change advisory board (CAB) and approved by the Cabinet Office, part of HM Government. These are largely to do with clarity, consistency, correctness and completeness.
• Address suggestions for change made by the training community to make ITIL easier to teach.

Ok, so maybe they are genuinely following the Continual Service Improvement model and feedback from training, peers and business leaders has been managed through a formal Change Advisory Board (CAB) to improve content, make ITIL easier to understand and stay tuned to the market – it has been 4 years after all! But we still can’t help but ask if ITIL has lost its original meaning and aim or has it just turned into a mere money machine, cashing in on every update which may not have been necessary if the previous version had not been flawed.

The good news on the back of all of this is that we are assured by the OGC that a free downloadable “Summary of Updates” will be made available and, although new examinations and a training syllabus will be available from 8th August 2011, we will not need to re-qualify as ITIL 2011 is not a new version, just a new edition. ITIL V3 as we know and love it will simply become the ITIL 2007 edition!

Helen Steggall, Senior Service Management Consultant

ITIL V3 – should you bother?

With the retirement of version 2 of ITIL, the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, organisations across all sectors are considering the implications of this change and whether they should think about a possible move to version 3. A reoccurring question is about not just the value of moving towards a V3 aligned approach, but also querying the overall value of the ITIL discipline itself.

There are many doubts regarding the Good Practice framework which is one of the most widely adopted worldwide, and it is not only the CEOs and financial directors who question its effectiveness, ROI and ability to deliver – even many CIOs, IT directors and unfortunately, in some instances, service management professionals themselves have started to look at ITIL with scepticism.

In this current climate of austerity, organisations are being extra cautious regarding their spending. This is leading both those who are considering the step up from V2 and those considering whether to start on the service management journey to wonder: what can V3 possibly add, and isn’t ITIL overrated anyway?

Let’s take the last question first. Like a lot of challenges within business, rather than deciding on a solution and then trying to relate everything back to it, look at what overall objective is and which issues need to be resolved. ITIL, which ever version you choose, is not a panacea. It won’t fix everything, but it may be able to help if you take a pragmatic and realistic approach to activities.

ITIL’s approach to implementation in the early days was described as “adopt and adapt” – an approach that still rings true even with V3. However, this appears to have fallen out of the vocabulary recently. Adopting all processes regardless of their relevance to the business and following them religiously will not add any value. Nor will implementing them without ensuring that there is awareness and buy-in across the organisation; treating implementation as a one-off project rather than a continuously evolving process or expecting the discipline to work on its without positioning it alongside the existing behaviours, culture, processes and structure in the organisation.

ITIL’s contribution to an organisation is akin to raising children, where one asks oneself: is it nature or nurture that creates the well rounded individuals, and what parenting skills work best? You need to find the most compatible match, one that will in part depend on what that particular business wants from a Best Practice framework and if they really understand how it works. Do they want to be told what to do or find out what works and what doesn’t and why, so they can learn from it?

All activities in a Best Practice framework have to be carefully selected and tailored in order to create some value. Moreover, adoption of tools and processes must be supported by an appropriate amount of education and awareness sessions, so that any involved staff, including senior management, will fully understand their purpose, usefulness and benefits and will therefore collaborate in producing successful results.

The other question raised by many organisations is: why should I move to V3 – isn’t V2 perfectly fine? It is hard to come up with a perfect answer as there are a number of considerations to take into consideration, but in part it can come back to what the overall objective was for the business. Looking at the move from V2 to V3 as an evolution, a number of the key principles expanded on in V3 exist with V2, so there will be some organisations for whom the expanded areas relating to IT strategy and service transition are not core to their IT operation. However, the separation of request fulfilment from incident management and the focus on event management may lead an organisation to alter the way they deal with the day-to-day activity triggers into the IT department.

My personal view is that anything that helps organisations to communicate more effectively is a benefit. V3 provides more suggestions that can help with these objectives, as well as helping the IT department to operate with more of a service oriented approach, again something that can help cross the language gap between technology and business. V3 provides a lifecycle approach to IT service, recommending continual review and improvement at organisation level.

So, is V3 essential if you have already successfully adopted and adapted V2? For organisations that do not require maximum IT efficiency because IT is not strategic, V2 is probably enough to keep them doing well. For those that, instead, gain real competitive advantage from efficient IT, any improvement that can make their business outperform others in the market is one worth embracing.

As for all the organisations in the middle, a move to V3 is probably not essential in the immediate future – however, as publications and examinations are substituted to match the latest version, and the way in which their suppliers are providing service changes, it will soon become a necessary thing to do in order to keep up-to-date and in turn competitive within the market.

Samantha-Jane Scales, Senior Service Management consultant and ITSM Portal columnist

Find the column on ITSM Portal:  http://www.itsmportal.com/columns/itil-v3-%E2%80%93-should-you-bother

Life after ITIL – creating a culture of Continual Service Improvement

Picture the scene: your organisation has decided to improve its IT department through the introduction of ITIL Best Practice. Some external consultants from an IT service provider came in to do a review and mapped out the project. They then implemented the agreed Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) processes while delivering awareness sessions to various members of staff. Perhaps you even got a few of your people v3 qualified. At last, your Best Practice project has been delivered and has finally gone live. But what now?

The Service Management experts are long gone and you find yourself alone in managing the improved environment. Things somehow seem to be slowly regressing to their previous state – as if the project never happened. But how can such a promising project prove so ineffective?

Unfortunately, many organisations don’t seem to truly realize that Best Practice is not a one-off implementation, nor is it self-sustaining. As Version 3 of ITIL underlines, there should be an iterative and interactive lifecycle approach to the various processes. Best Practice is an ongoing commitment, and not a time-restricted project.  It’s essential to continually revise, reassess, and improve the people, processes and technology in order to produce real benefits, especially in the long term. To do this, several elements must be taken into consideration – post-implementation support from service providers, ownership within the organisation and understanding and commitment of staff at all levels.

Post-implementation support

It is undeniably important that the consultants who have implemented the processes make themselves available for further support, to embed the discipline in the organisation. The service provider should come back regularly after the project has gone live to see if the new ways of working have been adopted across people, process and technology, and to help the organisation find ways of measuring the effects, evaluating the benefits and identifying the areas for improvement. But it’s not only up to the consultants to drive through improvements and focus the internal efforts. Ultimately, they will have to hand over ownership and responsibility to the client.

Commitment of staff

It is essential then that the people, processes, and technology in the environment are subject to Continual Service Improvement: the discipline must be understood, accepted, structured and well supported by senior management as well as staff at all levels. CSI is the wrap that allows all other processes to maintain their effectiveness, through ongoing reviews aimed at identifying inefficiencies followed by improvement actions. Actually, the CSI process itself must be continually evaluated and adapted to remain relevant, up-to-date and constantly aligned to the IT and the business objectives.

Senior management buy-in

Senior management, on the other hand, has to really understand the value of ITIL and be able to deal with any resistance to change found across the organisation. They have to ensure that the various members of staff at the tactical and operational levels understand how the new processes, technologies, and roles will affect the way they work. They have to clarify what efficiencies can be achieved not only by the organisation, but in the individuals’ everyday work as well.

For many people, change means stepping out of their comfort zone. Many are wary of, or simply not interested, in doing that. Communication is therefore essential: employees need to be shown the changes and benefits concretely and clearly, perhaps through awareness or experiential learning sessions. Management has to be able to justify the importance and usefulness of changes and how ITIL can support and deliver efficiencies. If this isn’t possible, then the project alone cannot produce the desired effects. If people don’t understand the need to change and don’t adopt the new processes and tools, the organisation will not reach what it aims to achieve and in some cases, may even go back to the previous state.

It’s the people across the organisation that will ultimately determine whether the ethos of CSI will be embedded. The key to making ITIL a framework that adds value and not just a nice-to-have is not solely in the technology or the processes, but the cultural change produced across the organisation.

It’s through regular assessment and review that the benefits of ITIL can be realized. To ultimately create a shared culture of Continual Service Improvement, management has to take ownership and highlight the benefits of change.

Steve Connelly, Head of Service Management

This article is featured on Tech Republic: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-manager/?p=4106

Is your IT Service Desk future proof?

Organisations across all sectors have more than realised that the unstable economic climate has brought along an increased need for flexible solutions, not only in the case of downsizing but in upsizing the business as well. While some companies are still struggling with budget cuts, others are looking at growth or re-expansion in the near future; regardless, both have reason to consider an improvement of their IT Service Desk with the help of the right service management solutions, in order to obtain a number of efficiencies. An efficient service desk can reduce IT-related costs, improve customer satisfaction and make business operations smooth and responsive – however, these outcomes cannot be reached by using an off-the-shelf solution which is only fit for present conditions. Organisations should adopt a solution that can remain solid and efficient both in the case of downsizing and cutbacks due to a recession, and as it replicates and extends to a new business dimension in the medium term as the company grows, something everyone is wishing for now that the economy seems to be slowly recovering.

As Best Practice identifies, people, processes and technology are all factors that need to be looked at and adjusted in order to obtain an IT Service Desk which is both flexible and scalable, and if the desk is or is to be managed by a third party contracts with service providers need to be seriously scrutinised to ensure they provide the organisation with a solution which is scalable regardless of the economic climate.

With regard to toolsets, although it might be cheaper to purchase a standard, fixed, one-size-fits-all solution, this might bring along extra costs in the long run if it does not allow easy amendments or any at all. You may be surviving with a tool which currently has limited functionality; however, what happens when the user base grows or the Services offered expand and the system has no ability to be adapted or requires extensive and costly professional services to deliver changes? These software solutions should be chosen and implemented keeping scalability in mind – they should not only be fit-for-business and ITIL-aligned, but fit-for-growth as well. It is important to immediately assess if a tool allows that sort of flexibility and, moreover, if there are the appropriate skills within the organisation to carry out any adaptation. All service management tools within the market place are aligned to Best Practice – they have to be, otherwise they cannot compete. However, some are more aligned than others. Any organisation considering selection should be clear about their specific requirements and their internal capabilities for development of the toolset moving forward and thus provide agility and alignment to the specific needs of that organisation, both today and in the future.

As for the process side of things, Best Practice in itself does not represent a barrier to flexibility; on the contrary, when correctly applied, it offers the means to carry out all operations smoothly and allow the business to up and downsize in the most efficient way. With a mature level of Change Management in place, as well as a good understanding of availability and capacity management, any alteration to business and IT dimension will be accomplished without causing significant disruptions and inefficiencies, which can cause problems such as data and financial loss, low customer satisfaction and poor credibility in the market. The trick is treating the Service Desk exactly as you would treat infrastructure, adapting processes that you could apply for instance to a server that needs to undergo some changes to the whole Service Desk.

For what concerns staffing, in-house or outsourced, if downsizing can present contractual issues that can slow down the process or make it more difficult and not really cost-efficient (from redundancy processes to TUPE or any financial binds resulting from contracts with providers), upsizing might present challenges as well. For a company with an internally managed Service Desk, defining contracts, finding the right skills and training personnel results in a significant investment of time and money. If the organisation is growing quickly, might be a lag regardless of personnel being in-house or outsourced: it might take some time to find the right candidates who are appropriately skilled, especially if they are required to hold a specific qualification such as the MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer); if the organisation chooses to employ staff with lower skills, it might take some time to train them and get them to the desired level, not to mention it might cost as much as hiring staff with higher skills. It is becoming more prevalent to utilise a specialist third party and therefore delegate the responsibility and hassle, as they often have access to a wider pool of competent workers or have ‘floating’ staff readily available for the purpose, but it is important to stipulate a contract beforehand that makes it clear if immediate availability is a priority over skills, whether the client is required to pay for training when it is necessary, and how flexible the supplier is in regards to number of personnel – is it possible to lose ten analysts or acquire another ten without fines or surcharge and within a reasonable time frame? One challenge facing a lot of organisations as we climb out of the recession is the extension of Service hours at no or minimal extra cost as the business strive to deliver increased flexibility to their customers and distinguish themselves from their competitors.

On top of all this, to obtain successful resizing of the IT Service Desk it is essential that there is a good communication flow between the business and IT. It is in fact only through working together and with a holistic mind-frame that the IT Service Desk is able to move from being just a tactical tool to acquiring a strategic function that can create business value, and be active part in an organisation’s ride to success.

 

 

Pete Canavan, Head of Support Services

Find this article on Fresh Business Thinking: http://www.freshbusinessthinking.com/business_advice.php?CID=3&AID=6064&PGID=1

From ITIL v2 to v3 – where to start?

ITIL v2 and v3 have been peacefully coexisting since the release of the new version in 2007, but with the forthcoming phasing out of v2 starting this year, many organisations are starting to plan their transition towards v3.  It is always hard to switch from the comfort of a widely-practiced and familiar method to a new version of it, and although most organisations seem to understand the tangible benefits of the enhanced discipline, the question remains: where do you start?

The problem, in fact, is often not why but how to carry out the transition – moving your organisation from operating in a v2 world to working more strategically in a v3 mindset requires a scale of undertaking that can be difficult when locked into busy operational roles.

So what is the first step?

As with all investments, you have to target what will give you the best ROI.  This means building on the investments you have made in V2 and using them as a launch pad into V3 while introducing only the V3 processes, which tangibly increases the value of the existing processes in place.

For many organisations, the first step forward is to close the front door of Service operations to Projects, throwing rubbish into BAU. To do this, the ideal move is to take a step back in the V3 lifecycle, into the Service Transition Planning and Support process.

Service Transition Planning and Support is a new V3 process which deals with the softer side of managing the transition of a service from Project to Operations.  It enhances the effectiveness of Change, Configuration, Incident and Release Management from version 2 by acting as the gatekeeper for BAU, ensuring their requirements are addressed before the Project is dropped on them.  It also helps Projects successfully navigate the engagement into Operations and those same processes.  Too often Projects and Operations work to two different agendas – V3 now gives us a process to bind the two together.

Starting the implementation of v3 through the Service Transition Planning and Support Process, then, is the ideal approach for a better understanding of the new and improved processes while easing the stress of getting accustomed to novelty. An integrated approach such as the one presented in this section is important for a better alignment of the organisation’s Service Transition plans with those of the customer and supplier, bringing business value as it improves the organisation’s ability to handle high volumes of change and releases across the whole of its customer base.

 

Will Sanderson, Service Management Consultant

 

This article has appeared on Fresh Business Thinking: http://www.freshbusinessthinking.com/business_advice.php?AID=4587&Title=From+Information+Technology+Infrastructure+Library+(ITIL)+V2+To+V3+%96+Where+To+Start%3F