Version 3.0 of ITIL has been released, featuring a new emphasis on business-related corporate goals and new aspects that can help senior-level executives understand how their firm’s technology and IT practices can improve the bottom line and streamline operations.
If there’s one clear piece of advice I’ve heard from the sources I’ve talked to in tracking the new version’s release, it reads something like this: “Know your own house before you bring a new system into it.”
This means, a) having a clear idea of what you want ITIL to help you accomplish, b) understanding what tools you have and what tools you don’t have that will help you move along the prescribed ITIL deployment path, and c) perhaps the most important point, understanding what kind of a cultural effect the introduction of ITIL will have throughout the organization. Expect resistance, and, as one public-sector CIO told me recently, it’s a good idea to have a bit of a bulldog who isn’t afraid of ruffling some feathers to lead the nuts-and-bolts aspects of an implementation. You can buy the technology expertise, but you can’t purchase the passion.