James Governor's Monkchips

ITIL blogs – where? Will Microsoft own ITIL conversations?

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I have been wondering – where are all the ITIL bloggers? Apparently here they are. Thanks Jonathan.

I find interesting it seems mainly Microsoft-oriented folks that are using blogs to talk about ITIL. If MS is the center of gravity for most ITIL conversations, it will begin to “own the standard”, at least from an education perspective [enterprise education drives enterprise sales].

Of course that’s a long way off. For now ITIL is primarily a service desk phenomenon and MS isn’t even in that market. For that matter neither is IBM.

IBM is about to pitch heavy into IT Service Management. If I could proffer some advice in that regard. Get blogging folks, there’s a beach-head to establish! Hey look – here is another analyst blogger on the subject. Like Jonathan says:  “The next step is operationalizing these helpful, but often vague and abstract, guidelines“.

Basically ITIL is an emerging market (one of those 20 year overnight successes). America is finally waking up to IT service management and cost control, which is good news.

ITIL is not a universal panaceo however, and many of the current ITIL projects will end in major disappointment, for all the usual reasons (poor communications, not enough reporting, not enough change management discipline [ah the irony]). ITIL after all is just the beginning of a conversation between IT and the business, rather than a prescriptive framework that will solve all known IT problems.

What is great about ITIL is that its now forcing a language coalescence. Customers will be able to talk to BMC, CA, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Mercury, NetIQ, Quest about ITSM and get answers that are better aligned. ITIL is forcing a category standardization, the kind of standardization that drives commoditization and lower costs for end users. Cool.

Am i saying implementing ITIL will be cheap? On the contrary, implementing the standard will require thinking about business process. Enterprises will need to train practitioners. That doesn’t come cheap. But the benefits are potentially high.

Note to enterprises: If a salesperson or vendor tells you their product is ITIL-compliant then they are either bullshitting, or they don’t know anything about ITIL. ITIL certifies practitioners, not products. 

I began this post by asking if Microsoft is building a lead in education. Not if IBM has anything to do with it. Big Blue is looking to build a community around ITSM concepts through its Tivoli Unified Process portal.

This space will be fun to watch, and may the best educator win. I guess i need to start tracking ITIL blogs again.

18 comments

  1. James,

    I too found a shortage of bloggers on ITIL, and posted about it in my ZDNet blog: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Research/?p=90

    Chris

  2. Microsoft has had a good amount of information on ITIL on its Web site, and with reason – it has been following ITIL principles and practices in its training courses (for SMS, say) for years. Interestingly, Microsoft was ITIL-friendly for a long time before it became trendy, which is a double-edged sword – its own products and marketing never really took advantage of what was a major thought leadership position. Now ITIL has become a bandwagon, there is a danger of Microsoft’s indignation at being overtaken coming out like a rather squeaky “We woz here first!”

    As we are trying to end up with better managed environments, I agree – “may the best educator win”. IBM may end up with something better, but the world may not want to wait as long as it takes to deliver.

  3. Good point, Jon. Microsoft has closely followed (and indeed been directly involved in) ITIL development for years. MOF v1 was released in 1999 with the latest v3 version in December 2003.

    We have been embedding support for MOF / ITIL processes in product design for years now and latest versions of various products such as MOM 2005, SMS 2003, BizTalk for process flow support, etc. are starting to bear fruit in this area. The detailed operations guidance for various solutions we provide to be found at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/cits/mo/default.mspx is a huge benefit to implement best practices very quickly within an organization.

  4. Hi James,

    Great post on language convergance and IBM’s stepping up into the ITIL space.

    We believe that when ITIL is refreshed next year to include more ‘on ramps’ to faster process implementation, handling multi-vendor/outsourced environments and touching on the softer people side of service delivery; there will be even more market space available for smart (perhaps even much smaller) vendors who are capable of delivering “smart components” and “overlays” of an ITIL implementation.

    It’s people that make Service Delivery happen every day. It’s people that implement ITIL, usually in a focussed project way. It’s time ITIL implementors focussed on the needs, motivation and support of people implementing or running ITIL based processes.

    That’s where the traditional hire a consultanty, push through some projects, get paid (well) and leave for the next Customer. What’s left behind – in terms of embedded service culture, knowledge, ability to improve further?

    At http://www.dritil.com we believe people based service management will make the difference between an ‘ok’ implmentation and a really great one!

    Kind Regards,
    DR. ITIL Ed. Team.

  5. If you want a phenomenal ITIL blog, you’ve got to check out Charlie Betz’s http://erp4it.typepad.com/erp4it/ . Charlie is head of metadata management for Best Buy (and formerly for Target). He has a mailing list as well. I’ll let the list know you are interested in finding ITIL bloggers.

  6. For anyone else who is struggling to comply with ITIL, Magnum Technologies is hosting a Webinar about their new Advantage 2.0 software that aids in service level agreements. Might be something to check out! http://www.magnum-tech.com/registration.php

  7. ITIL will indeed be refreshed, but NOT next year as suggested above. It is not a as simple as that. The upgrade will in fact be over several years, and be released in tranches (bite sized chunks). It is misinformation to suggest that there is a static ‘new release’ date.

    Anyhow, blogs/forums/interaction on ITIL?

    There are a few ‘communities’ as such, the biggest being http://www.itilcommunity.com, all with slightly different perspectives. There’s also a big one hosted at Amazon.

    There are also wiki’s (eg: http://itil.technorealism.org and http://www.itlibrary.org).

    These a pretty non-commercial affairs, but obviously there are plenty with commercial imperatives as well.

    I hope this helps.

    Liz

  8. Here’s a real ITIL blog: http://itil4real.blogspot.com/

    I’m trying to start an Incident Management project in my company, and intent to publish the progress of the project there day by day…

    Right now, I am gathering the final signatures of the project charter…

    Hope you like it 😉

    xitil

  9. well ITIL is a big thing now. though i feel that there are a very few blogs about ITIL but the ones that exists are the useful one.
    we have already inplimented incident management and problem management in our organisation,technofast consulting in our india office.we also plan to impliment it in our other offices all across the globe.its not just because its a thing of the future but also because we believe in the best practices.we also help other organisations to make their proceses as per the ITIL standards.

  10. Look here for a blog taking a cooler view of ITIL. It is good to have some balance!

  11. ITIL Information Technology Infrastructure Library is on the rise the News is just getting out. If you think there are too few bloggers just start blogging! In Washington, DC there are many ITIL Blogs, and Groups. No wonder the ITSMF is the largest growing IT Group. This is why our company, a leading IT Company in Washington, DC Matrix Systems & Technologies Inc. is entering into the ITIL Consulting Arena and Partnering with ITIL Software companies to offer our (ITSM) IT Service Management solutions. >> http://www.MSandTinc.com

  12. James, Harsh choice of words, is Axios Systems Assyst in that category?
    ———————————————-

    Great Comments, SOA is so new and taming the concept inline with Business Process Management is critical. Our company Matrix Systems is Tackling many projects that couple Business Process Management, Service Oriented Architecture and ITIL. Having BPM, SOA, & ITIL work together makes for an efficient organization as a whole especially in IT Portfolio Management. Having no structure can be a headache especially in an organization with an undefined Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System.

    Matrix Systems & Technologies Inc. Business Process Management in Washington, DC ITIL Consulting, IT Consulting. Our consultants tackle tough projects all the time so let’s stay optimistic about Business Process Management and SOA.

    We invite questions: (301)583-4625

  13. As a former Microsoft ITIL Consultant I can assure you that Microsoft is unlikely to ever own the ITIL space. Microsoft is first and foremost a PRODUCT company. Any framework that says process is more important than product will find it very difficult to break into the Microsoft culture.

    Microsoft has gone through some build and purge cycles with ITIL. I owe my current business to one of these purges. I was one of the first three ITIL/MOF consultants in Microsoft Premier Support. We fought very hard to get ITIL accepted but were never able to find executive sponsorship.

    I believe, after a painful conversion on my part that Microsoft as a product company should be focused on building products that can be effectively managed. Few people will believe Microsoft as a company teaching them that process is more important than technology but they will believe Microsoft as a technology leader designing products that make ITIL easier to implement.

  14. For all the things Microsoft manages and gets right it mismanages three times that amount. ITIL Management is a serious, costly, and important service and I don’t think I’d want Microsoft managing that for me or anyone else. They’ve been managing Windows for 22 years and they still can’t get that right. Does anything think they’d to ITIL justice?

  15. What is the best practice as it relates to ITIL Change and Service Request…My organization is trying to funnel everything through Change Management (I don’t think that is the best thing to do), for an example, if a new employee is hired, they would like a Service Request to be opened which results in a Change ticket, I think this is overkill (going through the Change Management process to get a new lap top)…How is it down in other places…Thanks

  16. HI,

    I would like to introduce a very good handbook to solve seven very common problems of IT. I hope this will help

    http://www.itoperationz.com/2009/09/download-handbook-the-seven-sources-of-problems/

    Please share your comments about this post.

  17. HI,

    I found a very good hand book of ITIL for those who don’t have time to read the five core books of ITIL v3. Please visit the under given URL to read the hand book.

    http://www.itoperationz.com/2009/08/itil-hand-book/

    Azhar Ali

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