A classic illusion. Two images in one: an old “hag” and a young woman.
Speaking with seasoned IT Operations experts at a number of large enterprises, I often find that this is the case with the terms “ITIL” and “IT Processes.”
When I ask them a question like “What kind of standard event and incident management processes do you have in place?” — I typically get something like one of the two following answers.
- “Yes, we follow ITIL. We started with ITIL v2, and we’re moving toward v3. We’ve defined our processes, we enforce them and we’re rolling out more training.”
- “We have our processes defined. They’re like ITIL, but not exactly. They’re in our DNA, so we don’t think about them. We just follow them as part of our everyday jobs as we handle events that come our way.”
Just as both images in the illusion are female; both IT terms are a form of best practices. But unlike the illusion, one best practice isn’t necessarily prettier (i.e. more effective) than the other.
Every IT organization needs to scope out which operational processes work best for their unique business, IT technical and IT organizational environments. Whether you model your processes strictly according to the ITIL framework or whether you’ve come up with your own processes, isn’t the point.
Rather, the point is that as organizations increasingly depend on sustained high quality/availability of IT services to run their business, best practices must be defined, documented, trained and followed — and continuously improved.
Process-driven IT operations is about IT maturity. As IT organizations move from technology-only focused event, incident and problem management to service-focused event, incident and problem management, they naturally see the value of defining and implementing standard processes to align IT with the business goals and priorities.
First Comes the Idea, Then the Drawing
Put anyone in an empty room and give them a pen, ink and paper. They’ll need a concept before they can draw a picture. The tools themselves don’t make a drawing. But to draw it well, the person needs a good pen, the right consistency of ink and paper with the right surface. And, oh yes, practice.
That’s exactly what I’ve found with IT organzations who are moving up the “IT Maturity” curve from mere technology management to management of technology in context of how the IT environment is delivering services that drive revenue and internal operations.
They’ve had a lot of practice defining and adjusting processes. Like the seasoned artist, they’ve honed a high level of skill. But to move to an even higher level, they’ve also acquired new, and often better, tools along the way.
Just as artists need the right equipment to execute their ideas, IT organizations need the right IT tools to enable them to most effectively and efficiently execute best practices that align IT with their business.
That’s exactly what the designers of ITIL framework have been advocating for more than 25 years. And that is exactly what many forward-thinking IT operations practictioners are concerned with (whether or not they are strictly following the ITIL framework or are defining their own management framework).
Either way, the next level of IT Maturity must be focused on managing events, incidents and problems according to a business impact perspective. The recent advances in application performance management, application-aware infrastructure management and service operations management provide new tools for organzations to implement best practices better.
And like any artist, having the best tools gives them a way to build upon their exsiting skills and make exciting innovations in their craft.
What Kind of Picture Are You Drawing?
Think about your current IT operational processes.
- How well are they defined and documented?
- What is your plan to ensure faithful implementation and to improve them?
- How focused are your event, incident and problem management processes focused on mitigating and avoiding business impact and risk?
- What improvements in IT tools do you need to effectively and efficiently implement those processes?
- What frameworks are you using or considering to build new or improve event, incident and problem management processes? If not, how are you doing this?
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