To ITIL® V3 and Beyond: Travels with Rob Stroud

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…