Technology: Up to Speed
Departments
Written by Matt Bolch   
Thursday, 01 May 2008
Technology: Up to Speed - American Executive - RedCoat Publishing
ITIL proponents are seeing the methodology bring consistency and transparency to IT practices.
You adopt ITIL because you believe it, not because you think you need to,” said Julius Tomei, who started Philips Lighting down the ITIL pathway several years ago.

In today’s modern business world, an effective IT department is no longer a nice-to-have. Regardless of what a company does, consistent policies and procedures around how it handles databases, help desks, customer information, and critical files can mean the difference between success and failure.

For larger companies, the framework within which the IT organization operates is outlined in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), which has been around since the late 1980s but has taken on new vitality as companies fully integrate IT into business processes.

ITIL places a consistent management structure around IT practices, reining in Wild West mentalities to bring order to IT department operations. Although technology companies have led the way in adopting ITIL, any company with an IT department can benefit, analysts say.

According to a Web-based industry survey conducted by BT, ITIL usage has steadied at just over half of IT organizations, following a large jump between 2004 and 2006. The larger the IT organization, the more likely it uses ITIL principles, said Rick Blum, director of strategic marketing at BT, a leading provider of IT consulting and software solutions based in Mountain View, Calif.

The top drivers of ITIL adoption are improving IT service levels and increasing the efficiency of delivering IT services, the survey showed. “With the proper adoption of ITIL, companies get a lot more value out of IT,” Blum said.

Some benefits can be hard to quantify, but others become recognizable as clear lines are drawn between the business and the IT organization. In an organization where IT is aligned to the business unit, the two act as strategic partners, Blum said.

One reason usage leveled off in the 2006 survey may be that companies were waiting to see what changes a third version of ITIL would bring. That version was published last year and condensed the number of topics found in earlier iterations down to five: service strategy, service design, service transition, service operation, and continual service improvement.

Technology consultants generally believe that either version would help streamline an organization’s IT function, but nearly half of respondents to the BT survey said they expected ITIL v3 to make a difference in their ability to incorporate ITIL best practices into their IT service management (ITSM) activities.

Faster resolution
University of Minnesota Physicians (UMP) began working with ITIL to improve the organization’s help desk and call center functions, said CIO Tom Anthony. “ITIL is not a requirement because of the security and privacy provisions of HIPAA,” Anthony said. “But it’s a good set of practices all organizations should follow around how to provide services.”

UMP is a practice management organization for full-time faculty physicians at the University of Minnesota Medical School, which includes 700 doctors. The IT staff of 42 works in such areas as service desk, infrastructure, decision support, and technical services for applications.

The adoption of ITIL principles has greatly improved first-call resolution for help desk issues, said Michelle Bigelow, director of technical services. “First-call advisers have Foundation certification and are able to resolve most calls,” Bigelow said. “Helping callers the first time allows the other IT staff to be more proactive.”

Foundation is the basic ITIL certification, which gauges knowledge of rudimentary ITIL processes. Higher-level certifications deepen knowledge of the subject area and include a diploma program that’s currently under development.

UMP has been working with Touchpaper, an international provider of IT business management solutions, including using the vendor’s Maturity Model to conduct gap analysis between current state and desired state for certain IT functions.

Anthony suggests targeting quick-hit projects first to gain easy victories and avoiding taking on too many projects at once. “You have to have good support around ITIL and help people understand that it’ll bring a higher level of services and a continuity of service,” he said.

The advent of ITIL requires a culture change that some IT departments might not welcome, noted Bigelow, adding that some pushback is to be expected.

That’s why Blum advises preparing the organization for the changes that will occur and eliciting executive support for the project. Other tips include educating both the IT organization and IT clients about the benefits of ITIL, assigning top performers to ITIL-related activities, and enlisting the aid of ITIL consultants to help make an initial assessment of your current practices.

Extending standards
When HP brought up the idea of ITIL to Tomei when he was CIO of Philips Lighting, the company had just moved its information hub from a hodge-podge of systems to an SAP enterprise resource planning configuration. “It didn’t register at the time,” Tomei said of the potential utility of the ITIL process. “The spark didn’t ignite until the management team and I went to an introductory ITIL session.”

Philips Lighting’s ITIL implementation is worldwide, said Tomei, senior director for global office enterprise architecture. After adopting ITIL standards in its North American operations, the company extended those standards to its global lighting business using HP’s service desk tool.

“On a global scale, one tool provides visibility for every change we make,” Tomei said. “It bring consistency to standards and practices, and it allows us the ability to provide 24/7 support across the globe.” Since work orders are in one place, assignments can be made by geography and handed off from one part of the world to another based on staffing and time of day.

During the initial ITIL implementation in Philips Lighting’s US operations, Tomei said that first-time resolution of calls to the help desk reached more than 94%, which freed up experienced staffers to work on more complex, longer-range projects.

“The savings and efficiencies don’t hit you right away,” Tomei said. “But we wouldn’t be where we are today without ITIL.”

Matt Bolch, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , is a freelance writer based in Atlanta.
 
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