This Blog
Syndication
Recent Posts
Tags
Calendar
Archives
To ITIL® V3 and Beyond: Travels with Rob Stroud
April 2008 - Posts
-
ITIL v3 – You’re doing it whether you know it or not
I'd like to make a quick point. There are times when I find the discussions surrounding ITIL® v3 popularity to be superfluous. That's because whether or not people are "for" ITIL v3, if they want to work for successful organizations, they have probably already put several aspects of ITIL v3 into practice -- whether they realize it or not.
I recently visited several European ITIL practitioners who are in process of transforming their ITSM implementations to support their dynamic business environments -- the objective, to innovate as the market demands. As the head of the ITSM team at a large manufacturer commented, "any ITIL implementation that is service aligned is doing much of v3 already." I concur.
In his case, Knowledge Management, Self Help and Access Management have been part of his culture for the last 12 months and pre-date the launch of v3.
So please. There is no "for" or "against." You are going to adopt some practices that are suspiciously reminiscent of ITIL v3. If you choose not to label them as such, so be it. Or, to paraphrase Chelsea Clinton, "that's absolutely none of my business."
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.
-
COBIT and ITIL – Better Together
Those of you struggling with bringing IT and business alignment to life through your ITIL® initiative may be surprised to learn that your salvation may lie in a free download.
Even with the improved use of organizational charts and metrics in ITIL v3, some practitioners have commented that the linkage to a sound maturity process is still lacking. This is where COBIT, which is available for free from http://www.isaca.org/, can assist.
Many companies that I work with have been using COBIT's Key Performance Indicators, Maturity Models and RACI Charts (which track Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed persons for every process) to provide metrics and structure for their ITIL processes.
COBIT is the governance framework that aligns business strategies and objectives with IT deliverables by identifying and analyzing the IT processes and measurements needed to construct processes that deliver desired business results.
COBIT provides the missing governance capabilities for your ITIL processes, helping you measure and assure performance and roll up the metrics to business requirements to provide a holistic view of your performance.
While ITIL does offer performance measurements and organizational information, in my opinion these don't roll up to the business level to the extent COBIT does.
For example, take a look at COBIT process DS1, Define and Manage Service Levels, which is defined as control over the IT processes of defining and managing service levels with the objective of ensuring the alignment of key IT services with business strategy. COBIT identifies requirements, inputs, outputs, report requirements, organizational impact, metrics and the maturity model (every COBIT process has its own maturity model to show you where you are and where you are going ) -- all of which can assist you in your ITIL journey.
So go to isaca.org and download COBIT. It's on me.
By the way, check back at isaca.org in the next few weeks for mappings of COBIT 4.1 to ITIL v3. We'll have two versions to choose from depending on whether you have an existing leaning towards COBIT or ITIL.
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.
Print
Email
Rate