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.

1. Why do
ITIL June 20
Initiatives 2011
go Awry
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 By: Masaf Dawood
business needs. Learn how you can successfully implement ITIL and
realize the benefits by avoiding pitfalls and staying the course.

2. 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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3. 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.
Organizational Regular
Frequent
change Phased (daily/weekly)
Stakeholders Communication
Shared vision management delivery progress
mobilized and identified to all levels of against plan
the program approach
engaged tracking
Progress
TrackedMitigation
Risk Daily
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4. 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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5. 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:
“I don't look to jump over
 Size up the entire program 7-foot bars: I look around
 Decide what to eat first for 1-foot bars that I can
 Imagine eating the last bite step over”.
 Gather the tools you need Warren Buffett- Founder
 Gather the village/tribe and engage them Berkshire Hathaway
Holdings
#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
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6. 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.
“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
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.
Process Definition Tools
 Process, Procedure and Template  Pre-Integrated Tools
Work Instructions (including Global
Content)  Implemented to support the global
processes (data and function)
 Configuration Guide
 Usage Rules including:
 Training Material
 Mandatory Values
 Configuration Guide:
Operational Services Standard Reports and Reporting
 Operational Model  Operational Reports
 Support Chain  Service Level Reports
 Shared Service Operations  Management Dashboard
 Implementation Capability (trained)  Service Level Templates
 Training and Certification  Configuration Guide
Conclusion
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7. 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)
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