Description
Best-Practice Approaches and ITIL
ITIL is recognized worldwide as a best-practice approach for delivering IT services and IT service management. It focuses on the processes, functions, and capabilities required to support IT services in business.
Organizations need to remain competitive in the marketplace and can compare themselves to peers to identify where they can gain a competitive advantage. Commonly, they look to industry best practices to ensure they are using the best available methods and techniques to deliver a service. A number of best-practice approaches to IT are available, and organizations can use them as a benchmark to ensure that they are delivering IT services effi ciently. It is important to recognize that these approaches must enable IT service providers to meet the needs of the customer, while remaining cost-effective and within the customer’s budget.
The sources of service management best practices include the following:
■ Proprietary knowledge/internal experience
■ This is often deeply embedded in an organization. Although this is valuable, it is very diffi cult to share with another organization. It is also often undocumented, held as knowledge by the individual.
■ Proprietary knowledge is specifi c to the organization and can be so customized as to be ineffective in another organization, unless it requires the same conditions.
■ The sharing of this knowledge may be constrained by ownership, and it may be subject to legal or fi nancial negotiations.
■ Standards/industry practices
■ This is preferable to organizations when compared to proprietary knowledge. Standards and commonly used industry practices are captured, documented, and made available publicly.
■ Standards also have the advantage of being verifi ed in a variety of situations and environments, rather than a single organization’s experience. The standards are vetted and reviewed by a wide range of partners, competitors, and suppliers.
■ Commonly used standards include the following: ITIL, Lean, Six Sigma, COBIT, CMMI, Prince2, PMBOK, ISO 9000, ISO/IEC 20000, and ISO/IEC 27001.
■ Training and education/academic research
■ Information and education on publicly available standards and research let orga-nizations educate their staff in a consistent manner. It is easier for organizations to acquire knowledge through the marketplace, because levels of skill and qualifi ca-tion can be standardized.
Using standards and publicly available knowledge enables organizations to build on their proprietary knowledge and follow best practices for their organizational requirements in service management.
These standards have to be fi ltered through the constraints that affect all organizations, such as regulatory requirements, compliance, and fi nancial concerns.
Why Is ITIL So Successful?
For a while after its origins in the 1980s, ITIL was the best-kept secret in the IT sector; however, the framework has become the recognized approach for service management excellence.
The main reason for its widespread adoption is that it is based on a practical approach to service management, utilizing what works in real organizations. The guiding principle behind the framework is to ensure that all efforts have a common goal: to deliver IT ser-vices that support the requirements of the business by delivering value to the organization.
This section explores the key factors for ITIL’s success:
Vendor Neutrality The ITIL framework is not based on a specifi c technology platform or industry type. It is not tied to any specifi c vendors; it is owned by the U.K. government and has no associations to any commercial proprietary practices or solutions. As a consequence, the guidance it provides for service management is applicable across any industry sector or enterprise. This allows its guidance to be globally adopted by any organization.
Nonprescriptive From the beginning of its development, ITIL has recommended the approach of “adopt and adapt” to the guidance it offers. The true benefi t of its application is in the adaptation to meet the specifi c requirements for value creation in an individual organization. The guidance contains time-tested, robust, and mature practices that can be utilized by any service organization. It is relevant to public and private sectors, internal and external service providers, and organizations of any size. It is not dependent on the techno-logical environment, and it provides pragmatic guidance applicable and adaptable to any situation.
Best Practice ITIL delivers the accumulated knowledge and guidance from the best sources of service management practices across the world.
The strength of the ITIL framework, and a key to its success, is that it describes prac-tices that enable organizations to deliver benefi ts, return on investment, and value on investment through a sustained approach. The following are some of the factors that moti-vate organizations to adopt the framework:
■ Creation of value for customers through the services provided
■ The emphasis on integration with the business, ensuring that the business strategy and customer requirements are refl ected in the service management strategy
■ The ability to measure, monitor, and optimize IT services and the performance of service providers
■ Management of the investment for IT services and budgetary controls
■ Risk management in alignment with the business
■ Knowledge management across the service management enterprise
■ The delivery of services effectively and effi ciently, through the management of the resources and capabilities required
■ The adoption of a standard approach to service management across the organization
■ A change of culture as part of the approach to service management, developing and maturing the processes to deliver effective IT services
■ Improvement in the interaction and relationship between the service provider and their customers
■ The ability to coordinate the delivery of goods and services and to be able to optimize and reduce costs