Why do ITIL Initiatives go Awry

June 20 2011

ITIL is industry de facto standard for IT best practices and the library defines the key service areas. ITIL implementation is all about Business and solutioning the underlying fabric of services to support various business needs. Learn how you can successfully implement ITIL and realize the benefits by avoiding pitfalls and staying the course.

By: Masaf Dawood

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Executive Summary

The brand recognition and industry wide acceptance of ITIL based frameworks has created a new level

of awareness and an accelerated desire to implement ITIL across the entire enterprise. Coming from the

heels of a tough economic cycle, the premise of value realization of IT service management further

ferments the desire to implement ITIL. This, if not carefully planned can lead to the derailing of the

entire program and loss of user expectations, IT credibility and at a significant cost. Research has

indicated that the ITIL projects digress from the main course and are unable to deliver the proposed

business benefits – this note is aimed at providing recommendations on how to stay the course and

provide a safe landing for such programs.

This research note covers:

Why do IT projects fail to deliver..? It is NOT business as usual (BAU) ITIL pitfalls to avoid ITIL implementation approach Conclusion

“Eighty percent of IT Service Management and ITIL programs and projects have failed to meet their

objectives and are deemed a failure by the sponsor. Despite the high-profile success of ITSM and ITIL

projects in organizations like Proctor & Gamble and BMO Financial, most ITSM projects will fail. This

is tragic since ITIL has so much to offer in helping organizations align IT with their business objectives.

This tragedy of failed ITSM programs generally takes place over five phases, or like Shakespeare's

greatest tragedy, Hamlet, five acts”.

Lee Marshall Manta group

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Why do IT Projects fail to deliver….?

Enterprise IT projects have had historical challenges in terms of on-time and budget delivery to meet the

expectation. According to Standish group “Only 32% of IT projects are successful”. It is estimated that

overall 70% of IT projects have had significant overruns (up to 190% of the overall cost) and failed to

meet customer expectations. The total value of such failed initiatives is also astronomical – according to

CIO insight “$ 63Billion is annually spent on IT projects that fail in the USA”.

ITIL implementation also falls in the same class of Enterprise IT projects that is prone to the same

outcomes if not carefully planned for and underlying causes remediated. The top 3 reasons are:

Lack of executive support

For a successful ITIL program the executive sponsorship is the key and

For the leaders should be in the “Front of the initiative and Not Behind It”.

Lack of user involvement

The Users engagement across all stages of ITIL lifecycle is vital to the success

And nurturing of the initiative.

Un-realistic expectations

Develop a realistic view of the delivery capability and not as a panacea to all existing

Problems.

The strategy bookmark set below outlines the technology strategy across various element s of

the Enterprise that can prevent replication of the historical mistakes and recommend an

approach that is based on balancing “Speed to value” against potential delivery and deployment

risks.

Progress

Tracked Daily

Shared vision

Organizational change

management mobilized and

engaged

Stakeholders identified

Frequent Communication to all levels of the program

Phased delivery

approach

Regular (daily/weekly)

progress against plan

tracking

Risk Mitigation

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It is NOT Business As Usual (BAU)

ITIL implementation is about Business, Business process and Business Service Management – it is all

about business and not about IT! ITIL is not just another IT project. It introduces cultural change and a

transformational approach that can un-lock and deliver significant business value. The potential value

realization of ITIL can be achieved if the initiative is targeted towards business and realizing business

value.

ITIL is industry de facto standard for IT best practices and the library defines the key service areas and

associated processes. It is all about “PROCESS” and not “TECHNOLOGY”. Specifically, ITIL offers best

practices guidance for the disciplines comprising IT services management, including service provisioning,

support and service delivery. ITIL implementation is all about Business and solutioning the underlying

fabric of services to support various business needs.

It is focused on the measurements as a starting point to provide the baseline and a credentialed

measurement approach. ITIL provides the instrumentation framework of establishing the baseline for

measurements in terms of “What to” and leaves “How to” to the discretion of the enterprise. While this

provides the required flexibility and tailoring that is specific to each environment and unique to each

implementation – it nevertheless provides an opportunity for some assumptions, and misconceptions

that can lead to incomplete view of the ITIL program. The IITL pitfalls in terms of scope, sizing and

support requirements required a multidimensional view and corresponding approach to address and

remediate them.

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TIL Pitfalls to Avoid- 3 common pitfalls are presented below:

# 1 - So, how do you eat an elephant? Simple. One bite at a time The old saying about ‘eating an elephant’ describes an enormous or very difficult task that is all but

impossible. ITIL implementation tends to very complex, large and drives this point home. The key is to

have a strategy to address the scope, size and services – “Chunkify it” The ability to deliver projects and

programs using a methodology and approach with start and end and intermediate deliverables vs. a big

bang approach has its merits.

The following recommendations apply to the ITIL program in terms of scope, sizing and overall

solutioning:

Size up the entire program

Decide what to eat first

Imagine eating the last bite

Gather the tools you need

Gather the village/tribe and engage them

#2 - Is there anything called “ITIL –In A Box” The Answer is NO

Companies look for an elusive ITIL box to build, buy but unfortunately end up burying it. The market

place is specialized and offers a powerful array of tools for specific service automations but no one tool

may be able to provide the entire spectrum of services. The ITIL implementation needs a tools strategy

and enabler rather a specific tool/vendor. The value of tool as an enabler is not to be overlooked and

sidelined, rather highlighted after the business drivers and requirements are understood and

documented. A collaborative approach with the leading technology providers is needed to develop an

evaluation and benchmarking roadmap. It is suggested to use a careful, defined and formal vendor

evaluation approach that is balanced, meets the needs of the business and leads to optimal vendor

selection.

# 3 - A Perfect Storm: Support, Stability and Service Requirements

Support needs for an ITIL implementation at go live needs to be considered much like an ERP system

implementation vs. tradition IT projects. The initial support requirements can be much higher and

reflect an iterative cycle driven by commissioning and stabilization needs. The initial response is it to

solution for reduced support after the level of service automation has been implemented. The

requirement for augmented support can vary with the size, scale and scope of the implementation. An

ORA (operational readiness Assessment) milestone event prior to production cut-over can highlight the

needs in terms of “Bubble Staff” to provide the additional support till such time as stability is

achieved/target criteria is met.

ITIL Implementation Approach – Recommendations

Now that we have articulated that necessary reasons to make this an Enterprise Strategic Initiatives and

clearly differentiate this from “just another iT project” – let us look at some ways to make the ITIL

“I don't look to jump over

7-foot bars: I look around

for 1-foot bars that I can

step over”.

Warren Buffett- Founder

Berkshire Hathaway

Holdings

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implementation stay on course and deliver the business value it promises to. In any undertaking a

current state analysis will be very helpful to provide the baseline and process maturity level within the

company. Understanding IT maturity is key to business success. This would help to prioritize the

business issues and challenges and focus on developing a solution for those areas. The most critical

business processes areas need to be addressed instead of the most fragile. Have a phased approach

based on business priority. Consider the stability of the current operating environment in terms of

operational performance and focus on the most business critical areas vs. the ones with most outages.

A careful mix of processes and scope blended with the appropriate resources can lead to a successful

implementation of the program.

For each of the ITIL services selected the 4 key areas of activity are outlined below that need to be

considered and implemented at local, regional/BU and Enterprise levels.

Conclusion

Process Definition

Process, Procedure and Template Work Instructions (including Global Content)

Configuration Guide

Training Material

Operational Services

Operational Model

Support Chain

Shared Service Operations

Implementation Capability (trained)

Training and Certification

Tools

Pre-Integrated Tools

Implemented to support the global processes (data and function)

Usage Rules including:

Mandatory Values

Configuration Guide:

Standard Reports and Reporting

Operational Reports

Service Level Reports

Management Dashboard

Service Level Templates

Configuration Guide

“IT doesn’t get a lot of chances to prove itself to the business, but with incident, problem, change, all

of a sudden IT looks like they have their act together.” George Spalding – Senior Analyst Pink Elephant

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ITIL implementation can realize the intended business benefits and provide the required transformation

if they are focused on the following strategy points:

ITIL is about Business Service Management (not just IT!)

ITIL is about Shared Vision of the enterprise (business, stakeholders, users)

ITIL is about a cultural transformation (change management)

ITIL provides building blocks to implement into the enterprise(phases/chunkify)

ITIL has enhanced Support and Serviceability requirements (Bubble Staff)