Lining up behind ITIL: the best process management framework you never hard of

Software Magazine, Spring, 2002 by Dan Kara

The it infrastructure library, the most widely used IT process management framework in the world, has been proven to reduce cost and minimize risk, while increasing the quality of delivered IT services. Most IT organizations have probably never heard of it, yet that's about to change, as both software vendors and businesses start to line up behind ITIL for delivering and managing increasingly complex, distributed, and interoperable IT systems and Web services.

Today's businesses depend on IT to achieve corporate goals. As such, there is a direct correlation between the delivery of quality IT services and the ongoing success of the business. Therefore, IT must deliver services that ensure that business systems are robust, high performing, scalable, and secure in the extreme. Equally important, IT must deliver services that promote effectiveness in the use of information systems.

A large part of the challenge is the fact that organizations continually implement new business processes, discard flawed ones, or extend and modify current practices. Business systems that automate and actuate these business processes are continually in flux.

But that's only the beginning. IT managers are also haunted by the specter of rapid, unceasing, technological churn, especially when the option of not adopting the latest innovations might put them at a competitive disadvantage. Moreover, today's business systems, radically different from their less-sophisticated precursors, are extremely complex and highly networked, and must support a new breed of multicompany, business-to-business applications.

Web services, commonly defined as Internet-based applications that perform some type of business task, add yet another twist. As either a supplier or user of Web services, system or service failure has the potential to damage brand equity, as well as customer (internal or external) and trading partner confidence.

Ultimately, it falls to in-house IT professionals, or their service provider equivalents, to make a success of building, managing, and continuously running IT infrastructure and applications. But the complexity of today's networked, distributed systems and Web services makes that process difficult, costly, and highly risky.

Thankfully, there are techniques that can mitigate risk, reduce complexity, and lessen IT costs. To date, the best approach involves the use of some combination of industry standards and proven process models. The term "IT Service Management" encapsulates all of the standardized processes and best practices that can be systematically applied across the entire range of IT services and support functions, to deliver superior services, while reducing risks and effectively managing costs. The use of standards and process models, however, while necessary, is not sufficient for delivering critical business systems. Organizations must apply the various approaches in an architected and deliberate manner, based on practices that have proven themselves in the field time and again.

What Is ITIL?

It has been long understood that the value of IT services to the enterprise is reduced if delivery is inadequate and costly, or if implementation puts the business at risk. It is equally well known that the ability to deliver high-quality, low-cost IT services is enhanced if those services are based on proven methodologies and best practices. To that end, the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) is a U.K. government agency chartered with development of best practice advice and guidance on the use of information technology in service management and operations. Beginning in the mid-1980s, the CCTA surveyed the leading information technology companies from around the world to document and validate best practices in the disciplines of IT service management.

The IT Infrastructure Library, more commonly known as ITIL, captures and codifies the fruits of their labor.

The ITIL is more than a simple set of best practices guidelines to optimize a few IT service management processes. The ITIL is a nonproprietary, comprehensive, well-documented, and fully integrated set of ISO9000 quality management procedures and best practices that optimize IT service management and operations. Elements of the ITIL also support the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), the well-known and widely implemented software development quality model developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University. (The ITIL supports several development life-cycle models, including the waterfall model, the spiral model, and the evolutionary model.) The library itself consists of over 40 modules that address most issues facing IT service management, ranging from help-desk management to contingency planning. With over 20,000 businesses, governments, nonprofit organizations, and consultants using it, ITIL is the most widely accepted IT process management framework in the world.

Two separate libraries comprise the ITIL: Service Delivery and Service Support. Both libraries are fully referenced (appendices, glossaries, etc.), and cover both theoretical aspects and mote down-to-earth implementation issues. Each library consists of a number of "books" that cover a specific information technology management function or discipline that cross-references to the other books. The Service Support component covers software control and distribution, change management, problem management, help-desk management, and configuration management. The Service Delivery library covers all issues IT service providers must offer their customers or business users, including service-level management, availability management, capacity management, financial management, contingency planning, and continuity management. Other assorted ITIL volumes also exist.