Things made by humans are hardly ever perfect, except babies. But sometimes people create near perfect songs, paintings, houses or books, to name a few examples. Original itil (by itil by writing itil in lowercase I mean the open, free of pre-V3 times) was a miracle. Somehow the Brits were able to create two books that have changed the IT Service Management field for ever. They were not absolutely perfect but close enough. History proves the fact. It is amazing that the rapidly moving IT services business is still using the concepts that were created in the age of mainframes.

Two books (Red and Blue) became a concept and a brand. The brand of ITIL® is so strong that the owners of the brand have been able to peddle very shoddy products under it. The ITIL™ V3 however will die and may destroy the brand. That will not kill the original itil, the concepts live in the ISO/IEC 20000 standard and in frameworks like COBIT.

The reason ITIL V3 will die is that it has several fatal flaws. The first fatal flaw is that ITIL V3 is first and foremost a commercial instrument. Its only goal is to make money for the owners, as all sensible commercial instruments try to do. There is nothing wrong in making money for owners but it does not fit well in all situations. Life would be so much easier if Microsoft would improve its existing products instead of creating new ones. The reason they do this to us is not that Microsoft is evil but it has to earn money by selling new software.

When I first studied itil, I was told that it was free to use and there was an open forum, itSMF, which was the guardian. This was partly true. At that time OGC did not watch its copyright and all kinds of services were created around this open model. There was very little change in content between version 1 and 2. The problem for the copyright owner was that money did not flow into their hands. When itil became ITIL® V3 the mode changed. It was not just new books but it meant a new and complex exam system, expensive website and even certification of software. Essay exams were replaced with multiple choice questionnaires that are far cheaper to handle. Quality is shoddy as time-to-market is essential. One person even created an ITIL ® V3 software standard.

The second fatal flaw is the disconnection between the five books. The reason for this was that OGC hired the authors by open bids. The end result was predictable. V3 consists of five books that have very little in common. The beautiful lifecycle model exists only in chief architect Sharon Taylor’s presentation, but at practical levels the books do not cooperate. Especially both ends of the lifecycle, Service Strategy and Con-tinual Service Improvement, are disconnected.

The third fatal flaw is the attempt to rule the world. Originally, itil sensibly stayed in the infrastructure management domain. V3 is trying to rule the business by creating strategies and portfolios as if IT was a business on its own. In some cases that is true, but it is not relevant for the majority of IT service providers. In most cases the business makes the decisions and IT is expected to comply. V3 has lost the focus itil once had.

The fourth fatal flaw was to tinker with the central best practices. The great operative engine of itil is the chain of Incident-Problem-Error-Change. In V3 the concept of incident has been changed to something unrecognizable, and Error Control has vanished. One of the most important activities of itil is Pro-active Problem Management. In V3 the chapter of Problem Management says “see Continual Service Improvement” while the CSI book says “see Service Operation”.

Do I need to list more fatal flaws? I don’t think so.
Two weeks ago, OGC announced a project to repair some of the errors in ITIL V3. See http://www.best-management-practice.com/gempdf/ITIL_Mandate_for_Change_0.... In my next column I will consider the possibility of these fatal flaws being fixed by the new version.