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IT organizations are under intense pressure to reduce the cost of managing IT and ensure that decisions are based on business value and business priorities. Many are turning to the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®) for guidance on how to meet these demands. But ITIL is not a panacea. It is a set of guidelines. It’s left up to each organization to translate those guidelines into workable and effective ITIL implementations for their specific environment. Specifically, ITIL is a best-practice process roadmap based on real-world customer experiences in managing IT to achieve business objectives and realize business value. Although ITIL provides guidelines for processes, successful implementation requires the harmonic convergence of those processes with the other two components of the IT environment — people and technology. To use an automobile analogy, to reach a planned destination (business objective) requires the harmonic convergence of a roadmap (processes), a vehicle (technology), and a driver (people). Even if the roadmap is accurate, the vehicle must be capable of making the journey, and the driver must be knowledgeable in a variety of disciplines, including vehicle operation. If any of these are lacking, the destination may remain difficult to reach.
To implement ITIL successfully, then, you must address all three components of the IT environment — people, processes, and technology. That may seem like quite a challenge, but take heart. Technology is available that can help you toward successful ITIL implementations.
Some industry experts are skeptical about whether you can actually use out-of-the-box technology to implement ITIL. Here are some of the reasons they cite for their concern:
You can select technology that you believe aligns closely with your intended goals, but when you actually take it home and unwrap the box, you might be surprised at what you find — or don’t find — in the box. Getting the functionality you need may require an extensive consulting engagement, and that drives up cost.
The technology may not integrate with the other elements of your infrastructure, or it may fail to map to the processes you’ve decided to keep.
You may have trained your staff on ITIL and even gotten some of them ITIL certified, but they may not fully understand their roles in the ITIL processes, or may not follow the ITIL processes. You must define your own set of processes first.
Are the skeptics correct? Or are they overly pessimistic? This paper addresses that question head on. It examines the people, processes, and technology issues that you must address to get ITIL up and running in an organization. And it demonstrates that you can obtain technology that addresses those issues and delivers a substantial portion of ITIL right out of the box.
Of course, technology alone cannot bring you the entire distance. There are still tasks left up to you. For example, you need to bring about the necessary organizational changes to transition your staff to a more business-oriented approach to IT service. You also have to determine the implementation sequence best suited to your particular environment by deciding which ITIL processes to begin with, based on your most pressing needs. And you will have to personalize the solution to your particular environment.
So if you want to implement ITIL, but are put off by the skepticism, this paper should help relieve your concerns. It describes the extensive capabilities you can gain from today’s advanced IT service management solutions and how they can propel you forward in your journey to ITIL implementation. The paper also provides a step-by-step approach to planning, selecting, and implementing an ITIL out-of-the box solution. Finally, it presents a real-world example of how one organization is taking advantage of out-of-the-box technology in implementing ITIL.
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