Many IT managers want to implement the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). These managers need to understand a couple of very important factors.

- A team of well-trained, committed and dedicated process owners is vital.

Having someone ultimately responsible for it's success is vital for a successful Incident Management process. The person responsible should be capable of dedicating enough time and effort to ensure a successful conclusion. Included in the mistakes made by many organistaions are:-

- A non-existent process owner, so there is nobody dedicated to drive a particular process.

There is a process owner, but he or she is bogged down in day to day reactive activities or other "more important" business-driven projects and thus have no time for unnecessary "red tape" like ITIL.

- 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? Companies with successful implementations of ITIL can be analyzed and found to have only one process owner throughout the company. Having the process consistent throughout all divisions and departments helps break down differences amongst divisions and departments.

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. As long as that other role is not of a reactive firefighting nature. One individual can take responsibility for more than one process. If these processes are interlinked, this would be beneficial. Many times it is not unusual, for one individual to share the Change, Configuration and Release roles. Companies who does not fill these roles individually are most probably lacking the management commitment to be serious about ITIL. In a large corporate company, each of these roles should be fulfilled by dedicated people.

Possibly the most important critical success is management commitment.

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.

And management commitment does not mean, "the manager says his committed". The manager must continuously show commitment to ITIL. This requires empowering staff through such methods as professional training, tools, demanding the right reports and taking action. Additionally it requires the appointing of the right people in the right roles and managing by means of ITIL.

A good guideline for top management to follow is Kotter's 8 steps to organizational change.

Probably the most important success factor for ITIL is management commitment, although this is also probably the most difficult to obtain. That is why a lot of ITIL implementations just become a black hole sucking up money.

Many IT managers are under the misconception that ITIL is a cure-all which will magically fix all their problems. Many believe it will simply be necessary to install ITIL and magically everything will be OK. ITIL is a major organizational change and many managers need to alter their way of thiking to appreciate this. We used to focus only on technology, but now we have to focus on the customer.

Because ITIL is not a direct requirement from the business, it can someties have a low management commitment, especially if it is seen as just an internal IT department endeavor. It must be remembered that ITIL is not the sole focus of the business and is merely a methodology for improving the IT aspects for the business.

This is why an ITIL project requires committment from the top and should become a business requirement.

Related Posts

1. ITIL Change Management
2. Important Factors For ITIL Implementation
3. ITIL Business Requirements
4. Successfully implementing the Information Technology Infrastructure Library
5. ITIL V3 Service Capability OSA – Operational Support and Analysis of IT Services Best Practices Study and Implementation Guide – Second Edition
6. ITIL V3 Service Capability RCV – Release, Control and Validation of IT Services Best Practices Study and Implementation Guide