Seems like the wrong message to be posted on a site such as ITSM Portal.  Quotes such as “We are implementing ITIL” or worse, “We are doing ITIL” is something I hear often.  I think this says something about the person saying it, but more importantly, it says something about what ITIL has become.  I don’t believe the authors of ITIL intended ITIL to ‘be done’ or ‘implemented’, be a goal, journey or destination.  I would argue (and I believe it is stated as well) that ITIL is a reference.  There were discussions (or arguments) recently on LinkedIn from a question asking if ITIL was a journey or a destination.  My contribution was that it was neither, but I think there were over ten different perspectives and multiple variations of those.
 
I think the best perspective came from a contribution that was not mine, but we played the intellectual tag back and forth and I thought the analogy suggested really put ITIL into a proper perspective – and one I that I intend to use going forward:

When you begin a journey, you are heading for a destination.  One of your goals is to get there safely, in the least amount of time and spending the least amount of money.  If expediency is needed, obviously you spend more money to get there quicker.  If driving though, a GPS is a handy tool to help you achieve that goal. 

Think of ITIL as the GPS for your service management journey and continuous improvement destination.  Of course, GPS devices come with warnings - which oddly enough are applicable to ITIL as well.  Maybe the first few are a stretch but could be attributed to ITIL’s relationship to OGC:

• The Global Positioning System is operated and maintained by the US Government. The US Government is completely responsible for the accuracy of the Global Positioning System.
• The US Government reserves the right to make changes to the Global Positioning System in accordance with the Department of Defense civil GPS user policy and the Federal Radio navigation plan. These changes along with poor satellite geometry could cause inaccurate readings.

Also a stretch, but could apply to process automation or project management:

• For safety reasons, it is not recommended that the driver change any settings while in motion. Please come to a complete stop or have a passenger make changes if necessary.

But the following actual GPS warnings I think should be printed in big letters on the title page of all ITIL books:

• All information provided is for reference only. The user assumes all responsibility and risks when operating this product.
• This device is excellent for navigation; however it does not replace the need for good judgment and common sense.

The last one is the most important.  GPS devices are not perfect… How many times has a GPS taken you in the wrong direction?  I personally have an older iNav unit that has twice sent me east on a westbound highway in Austin, TX (directed me to the right vs. left).  And twice, my head said I needed to head west, but I listened to the GPS.  Within 10 miles, I turned around and made it safely to my destination.

I think this analogy places a great perspective on ITIL and how it should be leveraged by practitioners.  What you are implementing should be customer and business driven improvements that demonstrably lower cost, increase quality, agility and/or demonstrate compliance, all at the lowest cost possible.  This does not magically happen by implementing ITIL.  Like a GPS, ITIL provides some great guidance and direction, but you need to apply it appropriately and thoughtfully through your own filter and into your own respective business environment. 

By calling a project an ITIL project, one can be lulled into a false sense of security that if it fails, failure can be blamed on ITIL.  Unfortunately, unemployment rosters are full of people that were ‘successfully implementing ITIL’.  What may have happened was that the business needed to respond quickly to the rapidly changing business climate and the IT organization didn’t have the ability to respond quickly enough.  I also think many organizations were assuming they still had the historic immunity to sharing business risk – which now all of the sudden no longer exists. 

And maybe this is the reason many ITIL projects aren’t providing expected results and are anecdotally being cancelled and/or scaled back. 

When ITIL becomes the end game, when having a CMDB or service catalog becomes the goal, the business does not really derive benefit directly, unless by chance, the externally visible improvement was to have a service catalog or CMDB.  IT’s focus needs to stop being about the machine, and start being more about the outcome.  This means:

• Reducing and minimizing  ‘run the business’ costs and footprint
• Focusing more on growing the business and sharing business risk
• Leveraging technology, one of the most valuable resources available, to ‘transform the business’

ITIL can be a great GPS for this goal.  But as my ITIL foundation instructor wisely said: “ITIL should be Guidance for the Wise, but can be Rules for the Foolish…”.  Good luck with your journey and drive safe!