ITIL Starting Points...

[abeck]

Greetings!

Does anybody have an example of the worlds smallest ITIL implementation? We need examples of good places to start adoption. A simple ITIL mini implementation could help here. There would be so many more companies using ITIL, if they had a roadmap. So to start the roadmap maybe we can throw in some ideas here.

-Adam

[abeck]

Has anybody used ITIL to implement only a service desk?

-Adam

[blackbeard]

Then you are best looking at just Incident, Problem and Change processes. A lot will depend on how much you already know about your infrastructure and what tools you have avaiable.
ITIL is a best practice only so actually 'implemnting' ITIL can be considered as a change of attitude and philosophy and Incident, Problem and Change can be performed as 'mini ' processes.
I have worked in smaller environments where the reactive side of Incident and Problem Management have been combined, with Problem Management only coming in to play for High Priority Incidents.
This can be done in organisations with as little as two people responsible for the whole infrastructure, as long as they have good links with the business and involve the business in the processes.

[rjp]

I was recently at a seminar where a CIO presented a talk on a 'successful' 12 week ITIL implementation.

Believe me every one ear's were well and truely pricked up when he made that claim.

The outcome by which he judged the success? That the board of directors had been convinced that the IT spend was not a 'cost' but a value provider.

The key trick? He instructed everyone involved that they were to define no more than twelve service that covered the entire IT operation, and no more than 30 sub services in total.

Which I though was very interesting... and well worth thinking about for anyone who is looking to successfully scale down ITIL.

[abeck]

Thanks Blackbeard and rjp for the comments. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for.

In summary, two possible ways to start are...

- Look at Incident, Problem and Change processes.

This would seem to be an IT-centric perspective that most IT professionals would be familiar with. Many companies already have these types of processes in place (call center, help desk, 2nd level support, etc.), but, probably don't give them the full treatment ITIL put forth as best practices.

- make IT a value provider by defining no more than twelve service that covered the entire IT operation, and no more than 30 sub services in total

This approach attempts to limit the scope to a manageable set of services. Kind of a keep it simple approach (or maybe simplER).

Does anybody else have other starting points for ITIL.

-Adam

[blamblam]

I agree with the other posters but if there was a single process of those three that differentiates simple ITIL from non-ITIL would be Problem Management. Most organisations, as you say, already have some kind of Service Desk in place and by default something resembling Incident Management and often Change Management. But Problem Management is when you start to see the difference - it's when you start thinking proactively, i.e. "what do I need to do to try and minimise these faults occurring in the first place"...

[javierarcal]

I fully agree with blamblam for me what makes a great difference between ITIL and non-ITIL , is a correct Problem management.

Some organisations have which they call as "generic incidents" or "primary incidents" but really they are not dealing with Problem Management proactively.

For e.g. it is quite common to have this categorisation of "primary incidents" when they found a root cause for a sort of incidents, and to establish relationships among this "primary incident" and the other incidents caused by this, but many times is exactly the same people who deals with incidents and problems and also there is a lack of communication between management tools like patrol agents for e.g. and incident or problem management so there is no a proactive detection of problems and incidents before they are reported from users.

Javier
Madrid-Spain