ActioNews: Information Technology Infrastructure Library:
ITIL in the IT Process Improvement World

Most of us in the government IT consulting world are familiar with the concept of process improvement. There are numerous process improvement frameworks and models such as ISO 9001, CMMI^®, Cobit, OM3 (PMBOK), and Six Sigma. The list goes on an on. Some are primarily metrics driven, some are business goal driven, some address software development, and some are geared towards the manufacturing industry. As you become more familiar with these models, you realize that identifying the technology needed to produce your product or provide a service requires your IT department to play a major supporting role. None of the models mentioned above adequately address process improvement relating to that all important IT department.

In the information age there is increasing competition to build products and/or provide services better, faster, cheaper by leveraging technology. The importance your IT department plays in your organization must be acknowledged and addressed is in support of that technology. Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) was created in 1989 to address process improvement pertaining to your IT department needs with a comprehensive set of best practices (books).

A fundamental aspect of process improvement is distinguishing between process, people, and technology. If any of these three aspects are removed or ineffective it’s nearly impossible to produce a competitive product or service. For instance, as your technology needs are identified by your organizations defined processes you’ll notice the dependence of the process on your IT department and the technology and services it provides. Leveraging these interactions is where ITIL comes into play.

In a nutshell ITIL’s best practices focus on two main areas: Service Delivery and Service Support:

Service Delivery is the management of the IT services themselves and involves a number of management practices to ensure that those services are provided as agreed between the provider and the customer.

Service Delivery consists of five disciplines:

• Service Level Management
• Capacity Management
• Continuity Management
• Availability Management
• IT Financial Management

Service Support is the practice of those disciplines that enable IT Services to be provided effectively. The six Service Support disciplines are:

• Configuration Management
• Incident Management
• Problem Management
• Change Management
• Service/Help Desk
• Release Management

As a byproduct of implementing ITIL disciplines, your organization will become more customer and service-oriented.

Now, IT managers are in a position to constantly prove IT’s worth and contribution to their organization’s businesses delivering return on investment (ROI), and ultimately, supporting corporate business goals.

In summary, what sets ITIL apart from the other process improvement models is its strict focus on IT operations. When used properly, ITIL helps IT departments improve the quality of their services and embodies best practices for IT Service Management.