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To ITIL® V3 and Beyond: Travels with Rob Stroud
June 2007 - Posts
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V3 - Are you already doing it?
I was recently in Belgium where I presented on ITIL® Version 3 to a packed house of ITSM professionals. Standing room only, in fact. I’d like to tell you that this was all my doing, but, to be truthful, ITIL V3 has been pulling in the crowds all by itself.
As in London, I was again struck by the overwhelming acceptance of ITIL Version 3. And just a mere week after the launch.
I posted to this blog previously that I thought the acceptance was due to IT professionals already being asked by their organizations to talk of IT services in business terms. I’d like to refine that thought a bit. I think the acceptance is, in part, due to the fact that some IT organizations are “already doing it.” That is, they are managing IT services while ensuring that business needs—and communication to the business—are priorities.
ITIL has been widely accepted in Europe for some time. Therefore, many European implementations are quite mature and the discussions in Belgium reflected that. Many of these companies are “already doing it” through service portfolios that give IT a holistic view of the total demand on IT from many sources including the business, the infrastructure, changes, incidents, regulations and more. The service portfolio allows IT to control that which was previously uncontrollable.
Some forward-thinking companies are also doing “it” through service catalogs. In V3, the service catalog was added as a base process and it serves as the vehicle through which services are communicated to the business.
A smaller number of companies have even leveraged the service portfolio in conjunction with the service catalog, as advocated in ITIL V3. While the service portfolio manages all services, only those services that are offered to, and consumed by, customers constitute the service catalog. The advantage of this approach is that business users are insulated from IT considerations and can utilize meaningful metrics to choose among services offered through the service catalog.
For example, a business user choosing an email service through the service catalog may be presented with multiple options, each associated with a cost, a storage limitation and a guaranteed availability (i.e. 24x7 vs. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. – 6 p.m.). Meanwhile, the service portfolio tracks all email services offered, including data irrelevant to the end user, such as network dependencies.
The fact that some organizations are “already doing it” affirms that the new ITIL V3 guidance supports, and advances, current industry best practice—and proves that Version 3 is grounded in reality.
Are you “already doing it?”
ITIL® is a Registered Trade Mark, and a Registered Community Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
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Version 3 launched in the UK
A London conference center that’s a stone’s throw from the Thames was the venue for the first ITIL V3 Launch event.
How to describe the atmosphere at this sold out conference? Excited, electric, expectant. For some of us, a 2+ year pregnancy was over, but of course, the birth is just the beginning.
This event was the coming out party for the famed version 3 books. Some of us raced to the TSO (publisher of ITIL volumes) kiosk to sneak a peak. Enrico Boverino and I found our names along with those of other CA colleagues, including Peter Doherty and Sergio Rubinato. There’s just something about seeing your name in print…
For me, the biggest surprise at the event was the overwhelming acceptance of the service lifecycle concept. Where was the resistance to change? I talked to many attendees who are already being asked by their organizations to talk of IT services in business terms. To them, the ITIL V3 emphasis in this area was most welcome.
If you didn’t attend the London event, you may not know that ITIL V3 is actually made up of six, not five, core books. The sixth book is The Official Introduction of the ITIL Service Lifecycle written by Sharon Taylor, the Chief Architect for ITIL. This volume, once available, will help the reader to quickly understand the service lifecycle and its implications. It includes service maps and flowcharts detailing process flows and interactions, and a mapping of V2 to V3 processes and will be available shortly. You may be thinking, “But don’t I need this information first?” This volume could not be written effectively until the contents of the other five books were nailed down.
Also announced at the launch—but not yet available—is a series of companion books, known as the complementary portfolio. This series will evolve as needed to augment the core volumes, so that there’s no need to wait for a core update (we’ve seen how long that can take). I believe the most important book in this series is the ITIL for Executives volume which is meant for both IT and non-IT senior management. Other books in the series will include a) official study aids to assist you in preparing for certification exams, b) a book on outsourcing, which is currently in the works, and c) an update to the ITIL for Small Scale Implementation volume.
And the journey continues…
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Title: ITIL V3 - The Elevator Pitch
For those of you new to the expression, an “elevator pitch” is a succinct 30 second blurb, presumably meant to be drawn upon should you find yourself sharing an elevator for a few floors with someone you hope to impress. The following ITIL V3 elevator pitch should get you by until you are able to finish all five ITIL volumes.For example:
Your CIO enters elevator, nods at you, and says “I want 3.”
You draw a deep breath and say: “Yes. Good suggestion. While the Version 2 core books have been condensed into the volumes that make up ITIL V3, Version 3 guidance reflects the continuing maturity of best practices and advocates a different approach to processes. This approach addresses the service lifecycle from capturing service demand through service retirement. Version 3 places increased emphasis on the mutual dependencies of IT and the Business, which ties in nicely with our business service management strategy for aligning IT with business goals. We can implement ITIL V3 as our organizational appetite allows and, because we’re already examining our processes, V3 can only help accelerate our ITIL journey.
Your CIO says: “Impressive. But now can you please press 3?”
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