Update Gives IT Services Guidelines a Wider Reach

Computerworld - The IT Infrastructure Library, a best-practices guide to managing technology operations as a set of services, may face higher levels of scrutiny as it attempts to delve deeper into IT management issues via an update released last week.

Until now, ITIL has specified methodologies for running help desks and other IT operations, and for managing processes such as change management. ITIL Version 3 changes the focus from purely operational concerns to more strategic IT issues, such as enterprise architectures and IT-business alignment. The new version is intended to provide ITIL users with a broader view of what IT service management encompasses.

But something else has taken root in the seven years since ITIL was last updated: blogging. Now theres a community of IT professionals who are blogging on service management issues, including the development and adoption of ITIL. Among them is Charles Betz, a chief enterprise architect at a Fortune 50 company based in the U.S. that has a $1.3 billion IT budget.

Although ITIL Version 3 focuses directly on the work that Betz does, he said in an interview last week that he was not really aware of a conscious outreach to the enterprise architecture community by ITIL officials as part of the process of developing the updated specification.

ITIL is a set of publications that originated within the U.K. government in the 1980s and is now managed by the U.K. Office of Government Commerce (OGC). Betz, who asked that his employer not be identified, said he thinks its time for control of the guidelines to be shifted to a professional organization with a membership-based governance model, such as the IT Service Management Forum (ITSMF).

The fact that ITIL has emerged as such a prominent [source of] guidance and is not owned by a professional organization is indicative of the IT industrys immaturity as a profession, Betz said.

Keeping Vendors at Bay

But David Cannon, one of the lead authors of a new book on service operation that is part of the ITIL Version 3 release, said its the very immaturity of the IT industry that has made the U.K. governments continuing role in the ITIL process particularly important.

Having ITIL controlled by a government agency puts the specification at less risk of being affected by the maneuvering of companies within the industry, argued Cannon, who is a principal consultant in Hewlett-Packard Co.s IT service management practice.

I think it has been in everybodys best interest that the U.K. government has had stewardship, he said, adding that the OGC has provided a greenhouse for the continued growth of ITIL.