ITIL: Risks And Rewards

If you are a larger organization looking at ITIL, here is a good overview by Bob Mathers on ITWorld Canada titled; Payback time for ITIL

It dives into risk, metrics, and goals required for process improvement frameworks.

It covers many of the processes I have outlined here, and some of the risks and influences to be aware of.

The one piece that I wanted to highlight is an analogy that Mr. Mathers (you know I like analogies!) on defining metrics that incent actions that you are looking for.

In Mr. Mathers words; (emphasis mine)

And this does not apply only to IT processes. Consider a bank that provides customers a confusing telephone self-service option to change their PINs. Callers quickly become frustrated and abandon the service to talk to a live agent. Because the customer problem is easy to solve, the first-call resolution rate approaches 100 percent. Call center management has no incentive to search out and prevent this type of call, because then the calls could be avoided altogether. Fewer calls would push down the overall resolution rate, which would reflect poorly on management performance. Meanwhile, the customer experience suffers.

This is directly linked to your process governance. Direct causal linkages between your goals and the improvements to meet them.

The SMB Takeaway

As I have stated before – do you need ITIL for improving processes (including IT) No!, but regardless of the framework used or chosen. The governance issues remain.

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