Is ITIL suited to website management

[infofreako]

Hi all - I need some advice on the suitablity or otherwise of ITIL as a framework for website management.

I look after a large website but I'm part of an organisation which provides a number of more traditional IT services to external customers and is going down the ITIL route. Obviously, the website has a need for incident/change management, etc like any other IT service but I can't really see where to fit in with the service management side of things - our customer feedback is largely through web stats - ie people voting with their feet. I can see how ITIL makes sense in for our IT services but treating the website as a service is feeling like a bit of a kludge to me at the moment.

Can anyone give me an example of where a website has been successfully ITIL-ised and how? Any advice gratefully accepted

[m_croon]

Hi Info,

I work for a company in the Netherlands which hosts some fairly large websites. I actually used to work with the web-dept. as a process manager and I found that they were in a business which is faster than the "old fashioned" ICT services. Some people call the web-dept. cowboys
Therefor, I found it necesary to allow them a fair bit of freedom in their operations, compared to other departments. For instance: by giving the webdept. the means to "promote" CABchanges to standard changes, they were more flexible in executing these. Also, the customer was given greater responsibility in the go/no go for a change. After all, change management is not only about controlling a change, but also about actually getting the change done. The emphasis (controlling with the risk of delay, or getting it done with the risk of disruptions) depends on the business needs.

I don't know the nature of your website, but it is my experience that a customer for a webservice finds service delivery (i.e. service availability, capacity, continuity) more important than service support (i.e. incident, change management etc.). What is the status of the service delivery processes in your company? Obviously a topic such as availability can only be implemented well if the customer makes clear through proper service (level) management what his needs are: availability 100% /7x24 is different to 95% / 5x8 for instance.

Good luck, I hope this helps.

[infofreako]

Thanks m_croon - this is a useful clarification for me. Your observation about service delivery being more important than service support for websites is very helpful and matches with my experience. Our focus has largely been service support processes so far.