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Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 7:08 pm Post subject: ITIL lite
Hi all,
I am new to ITIL and I want to implement it in our organization. I am working for a International Association of Universities. We are organized in central services (top administration), nine regional directions (decentralize administrations), and then the smallest unit that we call CNF (Campus Numerique Francophone) that is responsible of providing services to end users (teachers and students from members) and executing the planing set up in the central services and regional directions.
A CNF is a really small unit, generally with a hundred machines, two to four physical servers hosting about 15 services, one IT employee plus two or three other staff members, plus temporary employees if any.
I am aware of the advantages best practices can bring to our whole organization. So, I want to show that benefit to top IT management by implementing ITIL at a small scale (in the CNF where I am in charge of IT), and I heart about ITIL lite.
My problem is that I really need a kind of Implementation guide or any other type of help to put ITIL lite in action in my unit.
Can someone help me in that direction?
Regards
I think what you ask demonstrates your ITIL naivity, but you do sound genuine in your request. So before some of the more animated ITIL'ers respond to your e-mail, thought it best to offer an initial response, which hopefully may temper subsequent responses.
There is no such thing as implementing ITIL, implementation guide, or ITIL lite. ITIL is best practice which you use according to the risks and opportunities faced by your organisation. ITIL as used by NASA will be fundamentally different to ITIL as used by the organisation i am employed by, although they could argue they have the same thing.
I think you need to go away and try and understand ITIL (I am sorry - no-one here can give the information you seek through a forum chat, although i date say a few consultants would be happy to consult on the subject). There are threads on this forum which will give the detail, however i recommend buying some of the formal ITIL texts or even better attending a foundation / masters course which will help add context.
For the record, I am happy to answer specific and targetted questions (when I can). Please get in touch once you have refined your thinking.
Yes, I agree with you that I am ITIL naive Well, I was asking help and advices on how to tailor ITIL to that small part of IS I have control on, so that I can demonstrate how useful ITIL can be if implemented at the organization level. I am also planning to apply these best practices in order to have more arguments to justify budget by relating costs to the quality of the services offered to my users.
I am planning to attend a ITIL course ASAP too.
Joined: Sep 16, 2006 Posts: 3115 Location: London, UK
Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2010 2:14 am Post subject:
In addition to what swansong sang, you are going about this the wrong way
You implement IT Service Management
You use ITIL and other tools to do so
You can not merely buy the books, read it and expect to implement ITSM using ITIL in your org
think of building a house. Just because you made a drawing and have a hammer, nails and wood does not give the ability to make a house
If you want to implement IT SM, you need to have some one who has done it before - help you design the implementation and move it forward
whether that person is there full time for weeks or months depends on the complexity of the environment - it wise _________________ John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)
Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter
Joined: Oct 21, 2009 Posts: 1 Location: Sydney's Northern Beaches
Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2010 7:59 am Post subject:
There is actually a newish book out, written by Malcolm Fry, titled "ITIL Lite - a road map to full or partial ITIL implementation".
Perhaps that is what nacerix was referring to when he mentioned hearing of "ITIL Lite".
Malcolm is a regular on the ITIL conference circuit (well, in Australia anyway) and is an interesting and animated presenter. I've read a couple of his articles and he has a commonsense approach to ITIL which I rather like. So I've ordered the book on that basis alone.
Joined: May 25, 2008 Posts: 413 Location: Sydney, Australia
Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2010 12:53 pm Post subject:
Might I suggest that you begin by identifying areas of greatest pain, as well as practices in your organisation that work reall well?
I work as a change manager, so this is my bias. For example, your organisation may find that come Monday some services are unavailable, and it always turns out that some cowboy has been messing with systems and making changes over the weekend. This may prompt you to start thinking that you need to implemt some controls to stop this happening.
At the risk of being boring (to other forum posters), I am going to make a suggestion to you. I have done some ITIL certification as part of a University course, and the guy who runs the ITIL courses (he is qualified to do so) has published numerous short ITIL related clips on Youtube. They run for between 8 and 10 minutes. His channel is called IsleBeeBach. The subject matter may be of assistance to you.
I am not getting paid to post this (maybe I should be?) but I do think they are a valuable resource for someone preparing for their Foundation exam _________________ DYbeach
ITIL V3 Release, Control & Validation,
ITIL V3 Operation SUpport & Analysis
PMI CAPM (R)
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act." George Orwell
Thank you very much for these comments.
I do not pretend to implement ITIL in my org, no. I undestand that I need assistance, but unfortunately, I cannot look for a consultant to help me at this stage, just because I don't have power to take such a decision. I am planning to take a course on that to help me have better understanding on the subject. That's clear to me, and that the only assistance I can have for now.
What I really want, is to address issues I am facing by applying ITIL practices tailored to the size of the small part of the IS I am responsible of. Look at this as a proof of concept for my bosses who are not really aware of best practices frameworks.
I am not talking of a great project for now, but only some simple principles applied intelligently to my work habit in order to have better control, better arguments to relate costs and service quality provided for example and so on and so forth. If I can bring any valuable benefit from that process, then I can bring facts to my bosses and convince them to look at the way our IS is managed in order to improve the understanding of the role and impact of IT on our business (IT in our org is always were budget restrictions are the most for bad reasons in my point of view).
Am I wrong to think that this is possible without having a consultant besides me? If I am not, is there any directions to help me achieve this? I have already taken note of the DYbeach's advice.
Joined: Sep 16, 2006 Posts: 3115 Location: London, UK
Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2010 10:43 pm Post subject:
Nacerix
What is your role in the company ?
Are you a manager / team lead in the IT department
or staff in the department
Can you implement IT SM from the bottom up ? sure but there is no guarentee of success
Do you need a consultant / contractor to implement IT SM ? Not required, but you need some one who has done it before so you dont make mistakes (like the ones you are doing already - IMNSHO)
To add to DY' statement, what is the greatest pain for your company ?
If the service desk / help desk is meeting the expectations of the user community, then -- shockingly --- you are doing IT SM right for the users then.
if not, then IT SM needs work.
Implementing ITIL is about getting the service provider (IT) to make sure that the service consumers (users/ departments/ staff) are getting the service that has been advertised and expected
THAT is all.
Implementing ITIL is not about buying the latest tools etc.
It is about policy / process / procedures / people and then tools
BTW: What country are you in and what kind / how big is the company / org _________________ John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)
Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter
Are you a manager / team lead in the IT department
or staff in the department
I'm a staff in the department. But the IT department is really open to new ideas, especially when there is some small scale implementation demonstrating the benefit of that idea. Also, we are given a large autonomy in the way we work, technologies and approach we use to the condition that we conform to global IT policies.
Quote:
Can you implement IT SM from the bottom up ? sure but there is no guarentee of success
Do you need a consultant / contractor to implement IT SM ? Not required, but you need some one who has done it before so you dont make mistakes (like the ones you are doing already - IMNSHO)
I understand.
Quote:
To add to DY' statement, what is the greatest pain for your company ?
There are many important problems so that I cannot say which one is the greatest. I will cite some few:
- there is no procedure to get feedback from our users (internal and external)
- IT department is facing budget cuts but is assigned more missions and objectives. In fact, it is one of the department which experienced the more budget decrease and for bad reasons, as I said, meanwhile almost all the activities of our org depend on IT. So discussing budget is one of our greatest problem. The problem is not only with budget, but also with human resources.
- There is not enough IT staff and sometimes, we are assigned other missions, non IT related because of lack of personnel. So we need a way to continue to provide services at the same quality level but using part of our working time.
There are other problems. For example, our software policy is to use free softwares anywhere it is possible, for many reasons. But now, some non IT staff with decision power want Windows and/or Mac back. So we need to justify our choice, according to the service quality provided (then we need to measure that quality) and budgets and resources consumed to provide that service (budgets and ressources also need to be tracked).
Quote:
If the service desk / help desk is meeting the expectations of the user community, then -- shockingly --- you are doing IT SM right for the users then.
That's it. For now, in our org, there is no way to know if we meet our user's expectations. There is no evaluation procedure, not performance assessment, etc.
Quote:
BTW: What country are you in and what kind / how big is the company / org
I am in Cameroon (Central Africa), but I've been transfered to Tchad where I will start on 1st August, with more responsibilities (more administrative tasks).
The organisation for which I work is an Universities Association but considered as a International Organisation. It is for the French space what Association of Commonwealth Universities is for English space. We are present in all continents, with more than 400 employees and more than 760 members (affiliated universities).
Joined: Sep 16, 2006 Posts: 3115 Location: London, UK
Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2010 3:16 am Post subject:
thanks
IMNSHO, you have IT Chaos. period
You can not implement any IT SM structrue like ITIL if there is no control at all.
While it may help you, the fact that there is too much autonomy means that no has to follow it _________________ John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)
Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter
I think that that is a bit harsh - We can implement best practice in small ways - incident and problem management, change management, customer satisfaction surveys etc. Sometimes it is necessary to prove to management the benefits of doing things in a different way, rather than trying to gain their support first. It is not the recommended way, and not the best way, but progress can always be made.
With nacerix's enthusiasm and commitment, a lot can be done quite successfully. _________________ Liz Gallacher,
ITIL EXPERT
Accredited ITIL and ISO/IEC20000 Trainer and Consultant - Freelance
Joined: May 25, 2008 Posts: 413 Location: Sydney, Australia
Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2010 6:50 am Post subject:
re the problem of reduced budgets and increased requests for pieces of work - you may wish to consider the project office concept, or a structure to assess and prioritise requests _________________ DYbeach
ITIL V3 Release, Control & Validation,
ITIL V3 Operation SUpport & Analysis
PMI CAPM (R)
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act." George Orwell
1) You always need to get support of someone who can make decisions. In small (maybe all) organisations, that canbe the person in charge of finances. Get them on-side.
2) Document the expectations of the business of what you're deliverying them. A good place is in a Service Catalogue.
3) Find a way to manage Faults and prioritise how you respond to them. ITIL calls that Incident Management.
4) Have a srructured way to learn from your mistakes - ITIL calls that Problem Management.
5) Put some controls in place to track new or changed things. ITIL calls that Change Management.
Other advice:
* So there is some new language to learn. Do some basic training (ITIL Foundations) to learn the language.
* Don't try to do everything at once. Create a plan, set some goals but start small. The most effective planning approach I've used is PERT planning. You basically start by writing down where you want to be (say, in 12 months time), then keep asking "what happens before that" on post-it notes on a wall. This gives you your roadmap. Then allocate resources and time.
* Don't get sucked into spending lots of money on expensive tools and software to "do ITIL". You can so some basics using whiteboards, post-it notes, spreadsheets and word documents. Aim for a low-tech - high-touch starting approach. 80/20 rule - you'll get 80% of the benefits by spending 20% of the money by keeping it simple.
* Always remember that two-way communication is really important. Talk to people, ask lots of questions, respect that people sometimes don't like to change the way they do things so find "what's-in-it-for-me" for those people to get them excited.
* Don't buy the books and blindly do everything they suggest - just do what is realistic and will work for you. But the books are largely pretty good.
* There is ITIL Version 2 and ITIL Version 3 books. You will get what you need to make a start from some old second-hand Version 2 books. Perhaps hunt down the ITIL Version 2 Service Support (blue book) and Service Delivery (red book) publications.
* Money talks - try to learn how finance people think and talk and translate what you're trying to do into financial terms.
I think that that is a bit harsh - We can implement best practice in small ways - incident and problem management, change management, customer satisfaction surveys etc. Sometimes it is necessary to prove to management the benefits of doing things in a different way, rather than trying to gain their support first. It is not the recommended way, and not the best way, but progress can always be made.
With nacerix's enthusiasm and commitment, a lot can be done quite successfully.
I'm with you Liz.
I'll take enthusiasm and commitment over theory and focusing on the "why not"s any day of the week.
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Well, I was asking help and advices on how to tailor ITIL to that small part of IS I have control on, so that I can demonstrate how useful ITIL can be if implemented at the organization level. I am also planning to apply these best practices in order to have more arguments to justify budget by relating costs to the quality of the services offered to my users.
