This Blog
Syndication
Recent Posts
Tags
Calendar
Archives
The IT Governance Evangelist
Friday, January 04, 2008 - Posts
-
Is ITIL a Priority for You in 2008?
In the December 20, 2007 issue of CIO Insight, Allan E. Alter published a research article entitled "CIOs Rank Their Top Priorities for 2008." 250 CIOs were surveyed about their top priorities for 2008, resulting in three lists of top ten priorities for business, management and technology. Each area was interesting but the management priorities most caught my attention.
I was actually very glad to see that "IT Governance" was not mentioned by name in the management list. I dare to hope this is due to the understanding that each of the listed priorities is already an aspect of IT Governance. In any case, it was great to see the ITG principle of "Improving alignment with business objectives" as the #1 management priority. What I found perplexing was seeing "Instituting ITIL" as the #9 priority.
ITIL®, the premier Service Management Framework, is all about the integration of IT and Business processes. This integration is critical to business alignment and moving IT from a system-centric perspective to the more customer-focused service-centric perspective. It appears the survey respondents did not make the connection between business alignment and ITIL.
I am a major proponent of the ITIL Framework. I became ITIL Foundation certified in 2003 and have been an active member of itSMF ever since. I so believe in this discipline that I accepted the position of President of the San Francisco itSMF Local Interest Group (LIG) for 2008. The advent of ITIL Version 3.0 (released last year) and the selection of San Francisco (my home) as the host of the 2008 National itSMF Conference, Fusion 08, promises to make 2008 an exciting year for our LIG.
I see a direct correlation between IT Service Management (the goal of ITIL) and business alignment, and to an even greater degree, to IT Governance. Effective IT Service Management contributes to each of the 5 principles of ITG articulated by the IT Governance Institute (and by now familiar to readers of this blog):
- Ensuring IT is aligned with the business
- Ensuring IT provides value to the business
- Ensuring IT manages risk
- Ensuring IT manages resources
- Ensuring IT manages performance
After reviewing the CIO Insight research article I can only assume that many IT organizations still need to be educated about the strategic significance of ITIL. More specifically, IT Leaders must learn that ITIL is all about alignment with the business.
My association with itSMF has provided the opportunity to be involved in numerous activities promoting IT best practices through the utilization of ITIL. In my new role as President of our Local Interest Group, I look forward to continuing the advancement of our organization's mission. The CIO Insight research shows that we have our work cut out for us.
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