This is my first of a new blog series - you may have read my previous Axios blogs on Service Catalog and ITIL. I'm now back in the independent community again and able to spend more time looking at what's going on.
There seems to be a lot of debate and 'ranting' going on still around ITIL. Aidan Lawes has produced I'd say pretty fair analysis of where the ITSM industry has and is going wrong. This lays out a number of areas where greed, avarice, ignorance, naivety and many other sins have been committed by all areas within the ITSM world. We also have Noel Bruton now trying to force his own agenda on the failings of ITIL with his articles and we also have the recent '@fakeITIL' Tweeter who seems content to snipe from the sidelines at all things ITIL.
NO ONE CARES...!!
Well of course we in ITSM do, but the real world of business and public life don't frankly have the time or interest in our current navel-gazing. They are all too busy trying to cut costs, improve service and - most fundamentally - keep their jobs and organizations alive. We are in danger of Nero-fiddling or Titanic deck-chair re-organizing if we spend too much of our efforts in-fighting about ITIL. My position is simply that ITIL is not perfect and never has been, and should never been seen as a complete panacea or self-contained solution. However it contains a lot of good stuff around which most of the IT service industry now works and we shouldn't get too worked up about the gaps and throw it all away.
For me the key point has always been 'what is an organization trying to do and what sort of business outcomes are they seeking?'
To answer that you need to engage with senior people who can see the benefits and understand what will need to be done to achieve this - everything else (training, tools, consulting, processes) is subservient to this. Without this level of engagement the success or failure of any ITSM/ITIL service will be completely at the mercy and whim of a few people and their own agendas in each organisation.
As such most of the real value in what the ITSM industry can do is to help organisations to identify their goals and then plan realistically to achieve these - not simply to tell them that they should be all ITIL certified and have these tools or run these projects (which coincidentally just happen to be what is on offer). I can honestly saw that in my 20-odd years of running these projects, about 90% of what I've ever actually done has been around working with the organisation on their structure, skills, people, goals etc - and frankly very little to do with (what are now fairly commoditised) ITIL processes and approaches.
I guess what I'm ultimately saying is that whilst we want the ITSM industry to offer and deliver the best possible solutions and methods, actually for most of what's currently on offer it doesn't actually matter. The Critical Success Factor for most of the projects I've worked on has been the engagement and active interest levels, combined with clear goals set, of the senior guys - regardless of tools, training and how much mapping was done.
So its not that we shouldn;t care and try to improve what's in ITIL and how its run - I just think that right now there's a lot more important stuff to be getting on with with our customers - and if they think that we are more interested in our own industry they won't bother us for too long.
Well said from the perspective of an external consultant. To be fair, that is what every good consultant has always done, as you correctly point out, our customers will not really care one way or another. And those of us working with customers have not stopped to become introspective navel gazers who moan about the state of ITIL, ITSM - we're out there doing the job we always did.
ReplyDeleteBut I have also found that once you get below the 'top table' in an organisation (the ones who really just want the benefits and don't care where they come from) and reach the lower layers of management, they want to gain understanding, skills and knowledge to improve their role and do a better job for the business. Otherwise why would any of these qualifications exist - you don't 'need' them to be a good service desk manager.
Isn't it selfish to say 'no-one cares' when in fact there are plenty of people out there who do want something decent in the way of qualification and resources of quality, (which used to be the case with the ITIL framework)?
Personally I have to agree with you - I don't care and am heartily sick of the continual debate which seems to be getting us nowhere. Powerless to fix anything we just continue to grumble.
But for the sake of those of my clients who have a genuine need for the knowledge and qualifications which benefit their careers, shouldn't I (in my lofty position of holding all the qualifications and having 25+ years experience to draw on) at least still make the attempt to change what is failing, on their behalf?
You are right - it shouldn't be 'all' we talk about, we should be 'coming up with solutions, not problems', but we shouldn't stop.
Perspective, scale and rationality are all needed here - "grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference."
Maybe it is time to stop, but at the moment, I feel uncomfortable not carrying on the fight, whilst continuing to serve my customers and not whinge to them!
Helen - thanks for your comments. I certainly agree that we all should care although the focus of this was that we need right now to get on with more important stuff. The training system needs a major review however...
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