The Dangers of Rubber Stamp ITIL
posted by John Spacey, December 26, 2011Remember when you were a kid and your teacher put a little gold star on your homework? It felt good. It might have even motivated you to try harder in class.
It's not a bad way to motivate kids — but organizations are supposed to be motivated by things like revenue, efficiency and competitive advantage. Too many organizations implement ITIL just to obtain ISO 20000 certification.
Customers, partners and regulators may ask that organizations achieve ISO 20000. Telecom, managed service, data center and SaaS businesses are often under such pressure.
When organizations pursuit ITIL implementation for the wrong reasons they are rarely successful. They may achieve the rubber stamp approval of ISO 20000 at the cost of business revenue and efficiency.
There are several reasons motivation matters:
ITIL Facade
ITIL has the power to improve IT efficiency: reducing costs, increasing time to market and improve service availability.Organizations that are seeking a ISO rubber stamp often fail to achieve any of these things. They seek to minimize the cost of their rubber stamp and cut corners at every turn. In many cases, they end up implementing a ITIL facade rather than the real thing.
ITIL Isn't a Project
Organizations seeking a rubber stamp tend to see ITIL as a project. ITIL isn't a project. It's a series of best practices and processes that should be continually improved.Such project mentality usually means that gains towards ITIL maturity are lost when the project is completed. The organization starts up the slope of ITIL maturity only to slide right back down — an expensive but pointless ride.
Commitment
ITIL requires a cultural shift. ITIL processes have a large footprint — they affect everyone in your organization. People tend to defend the status quo. ITIL implementation is always resisted.The best way to breakdown resistance is to have a convincing value proposition. A value proposition that people believe will boost their bonus pool next year. When the message becomes: "we need to achieve ISO 20000 certification because everyone else is doing it" — commitment will be lacking.
An Expensive Rubber Stamp
ITIL implementation is expensive and requires the focus of critical staff. It can disrupt your IT and business operations. It's not something any organization should pursue without a good reason.
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The 90 second version of TOGAF — a popular enterprise architecture framework. |
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