Successfully implementing the Information Technology Infrastructure Library
Successfully implementing the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) requires an understanding of two very important factors well in advance.
- The most important factor is having committed, dedicated, and well trained process owners.
You will need somebody who is ultimately responsible for it’s success and who can dedicate the time and focus to drive it and to make sure it actually happens if you want to have a successful Incident Management process which is under continuous improvement, Many organisations make simple mistakes:-
- No process owner is dedicated to drive a particular process.
There is a process owner is bogged down in reactive activities or other "more important" business-driven projects, and has no time for ITIL or other "red tape".
- There is more than one process owner for a particular process - a classic mistake. The idea of ITIL is to have a single consistent process throughout the organization and having two head cooks in this "process kitchen" is sure to mess up the cake. Who will ultimately be responsible if there is more than one owner? Major companies,even those with numerous divisions spread across the globe who have successfully implemented ITIL have only one process owner throughout the company. This ensures that the process is consistent everywhere within the company. and consolidates co-operation between departments and divisions.
The primary problem here, is that companies do not want to spend the money on dedicated resources for process owners. Obviously a process owner can have a split role, doing other work as well, especially in smaller companies. Hopefully, the additional tasks will not be too tasking or time-consuming. The same person can also be made responsible for more than one process. It would be beneficial if these processes are be of similar focus. It is not unusual, in small companies, for the Change, Configuration and Release roles to be shared by one individual. In a large corporate company, each of these roles should be fulfilled by dedicated people. Companies who does not fill these roles individually are probably not serious enough about ITIL and are most probably lacking the management commitment.
Management commitment is the second and probably most critical factor.
If you are responsible for an ITIL implementation, make sure you have commitment from the top; otherwise ITIL might just become another failed IT project throwing time and money down the drain.
Just becuase a manager has stated he is commmitted to ITL, does not necessarily make it so. The manager must embrace ITIL and continuously show his commitment to it's implementation. In practical terms this means empowering staff through professional training, tools, demanding the right reports and taking action. etc. Additionally it requires the appointing of the right people in the right roles and managing by means of ITIL.
Kotter's 8 steps to organizational change is actually a good guideline for top management to follow.
Probably the most important success factor for ITIL is management commitment, although this is also probably the most difficult to obtain. Many ITIL implementations fail and become money pits for this very reason.
A great number of IT managers are under the mistaken misconception that ITIL is a wonder-cure for all the problems that beset their organisation. Many believe everything will be OK if they just install ITIL and don;t appreciate that there is more to ITIL than this. What they do not understand is that ITIL is a major organizational change, including a culture change. We used to focus only on technology, but now we have to focus on the customer.
Because ITIL is usually seen as just an internal IT department endeavor, it may only achieve a low management commitment. It must always be born in mind that ITIL is just a methodology for improving IT, and that it is not the sole or primary focus of the business.
To overcome this, an ITIL project should become a business requirement and commitment is needed from all the way to the top, from the CEO.
