Is ITIL right for me?

[Cking]

I know you can’t answer that, but I’d like to try and would like some input on my approach:
Background first:
Where am I? – New position for company, and myself geared towards metrics, monitoring, intended to grow into performance and capacity management and planning. (and other duties as required
I am in the IT group of a co. that provides various services to customers 24x7. Our “Product” is not IT, but we are extremely dependant on IT to provide those services.
We have mainframe, intel, unix, web, large storage, WAN and Internet access to our systems.
Where was I? - +15 yrs Intel based server support, design, management, etc. and recently certified Six Sigma Black Belt.

We do not have any extensive ITIL familiarity in-house, which is why I’d like to evaluate it.
I’ve looked around this forum, the official ITIL site, other parts of the web both ITIL-based and non-ITIL focused (capacity/performance management, etc) and zeroing in on this:

My approach: A v3 Foundation training DVD set, (accredited by ISEB and EXIN) , from Training Planet, and an “ITIL-Toolkit” from same name .com. Also to purchase the Foundation book. Any familiarity with these items? Any other suggestions?
I’m just looking to evaluate ITIL to begin with, not necessarily for certification, so cost weighs heavy. I won't get approval for intructor-led class . . yet.

However - It looks as though v2 may be more directed to my interests under the Service Delivery discipline. For v3 I may need to get to Service Offerings and Agreements as well as Planning Protection and Optimization to cover what I’m looking for.

Other Questions:
1) Can ITIL be used/applied when a man is an island? (i.e. no one else is familiar)
2) Is there a “reasonable” or “rule of thumb” for the low-end of an IT footprint where ITIL will have an impact? I.e, if I were a two-server shop, I’d have my doubts on the ROI of instruction and certification. But what about 20, or 70 . . . ? We aren’t some IT powerhouse like a bank or hosting site.

Sorry for the book, but I didn’t want to leave it at “What’s ITIL?”

Thank you
Cking enlightenment!

[Ed]

Hi Cking

Welcome to the forum

I am not completely familiar with V3 as v2 does me fine, and I see no need at this point to look any further, but I am aware that should you adopt ITIL, then the paths through are cheaper in V2 to do V2 Foundation, V2 Manager, and then the V3 bridge, getting you to ITIL expert, both in terms of days and actual $s.

to answer your other questions

1) This is how my company started, I was the first person in the company to take foundation (I then went on to do Change Management & Config Management practitioner) Most of our senior people have at least done Foundation, some going on to Manager level, one obtaining a distinction.

2) I believe you can use best practice, at any time, at any size, There is nothing in ITIL that says you MUST use it all. In fact, it is made quite clear that you use the bits that suit you. It is not prescriptive, it is a guide, which gives it tremendous flexibility, and gives us some cracking discussions.

As far as cost is concerned, a Foundation Course including the Exam in the UK would cost approx £1000, so approx $1200 I would guess in the States. It takes 3 days, including the Exam, so not horrific in terms of time.

You can do self study (only for Foundation), but then the teaching is only as good as the tutor, and you miss out on the interaction with other students.

I hope this helps
_________________
Regards

Ed