ITIL myths busted

Let us use this post and try to defy the logic of "seeing is believing", to a certain extent, if not completely. What we see around us in our day to day life may build few perceptions and most of the times they are not "facts".  The below post tries to bust the top myths about ITIL and why they do not qualify to be called "facts".

# 1: ITIL is for the "Tech Savvy"

If ITIL is implemented with an inclination towards only IT, then there are fairly high chances that the return on investment in terms of time and money is not worthwhile. When business objectives (pre-implementation of ITIL) are defined, both IT as well as business aspects should be thoroughly chalked out.

So, though the operational people are the ones who would eventually implement/ practice ITIL , yet the management buy-in plays a vital role in the success and eventual ROI. The strategy phase in ITIL V3 which discusses in detail about the various processes are generally governed by the executive (non-technical) staff of an organization. Also, the CSI phase that cuts across all the other 4 phases in Version 3 revolves around continuous improvement and is more inclined towards improvements than technology.

 # 2: By following ITIL processes, I will automatically get the results I want.

ITIL will give you the guidelnes of best or good practices that are supposed to be followed to derive maximum returns out of your investments in terms of process maturity, customer satisfaction, cost savings, revenue generation etc. The important aspect to remember here is that the desired outcome should dictate the process and not the other way around. Moreover, the process must achieve the desired results in an efficient manner; else you may want to have a relook at redesigning the process or changing it to achieve the desired results.

# 3: ITIL training will reap benefits for my organization

By now, you would have read on the internet that there are plethora of companies who have trained their employees on ITIL but have not realized its benefits to the optimum. The reasons behind this, as one would see is,

·                     No concrete business objective or direction

·                     Lack of management involvement

·                     Lack of measurement and metrics

There is no ready to use recipe to realize maximum benefit out of ITIL implementation. The ways to realize the benefits (stated in myth # 1 above) to the optimum would vary from organization to organization. Apart from ITIL education, few others aspects that should be built in to obtain the desired result are management buy in, clear objectives/ goals, developing the process culture (preparation for change), integrating processes, reviews, audits etc

So seeing may not always be believing but doing certainly is.