Successfully implementing best practice processes such as those outlined in ITSM best practices has proven difficult for many enterprises. Despite the enthusiastic adoption of ITIL®, the general experience with implementing ITIL has been anything but phenome­nal. The gap between the ITIL fervor and the benefits actually gained upon implementation has led the Gartner Group to place ITIL at the top of its Hype Cycle. However, leading the Hype Cycle does not suggest that the best practices are wrong, but rather that the implementation of these best practices has been problematic. In fact, multiple industry analysts have observed that most process-oriented projects fail to deliver.

How is it that the promise of ITIL can be so elusive? The answer is that there is a great difference between knowing a best practice and being able to effectively implement that best practice. 

Critical success factors for Implementing best practice processes

Based on its extensive experience with ITIL, IBM® has identified the following characteristics of successful implementations:

• Key IT staff members and business-side leaders must be educated on ITIL and understand the requirements for implementation. However, education on its own is not sufficient to implement best practices.
• Successful ITIL deployments require aligning and coordinating people, processes, technology, and information to be efficient and effective.
• ITIL-promoted best practices require strong leadership and management commitment to set and maintain the course. This must be augmented with proven experience and roadmaps from those who have done it.
• Despite ITIL's origins and focus on IT service management, implementations must be able to show increased business value for IT money spent.
• The implementation of service management capabilities must anticipate and accommodate continuous change; both incremental improvements and significant transformations.

Making it happen: How IBM can help you successfully implement best practices

IBM has a proven track record of successful implementations of ITIL-based solutions worldwide. IBM can:

• Educate your staff and manage their certification in ITIL skills.
• Help you understand the IT service needs of your customers, and develop and manage an appropriate service portfolio using the ITIL framework.
• Determine the key capabilities you require to deliver those services and develop appropriate strategies for developing or sourcing those capabilities.
• Design and implement the ITIL processes specific to your business require­ments, being certain to include all elements that must be incorporated to support a successful solution (measurements, organizational change, roles, reporting requirements, and other governing aspects).

For more information:

For more detail about IBM's ITIL related services, see these resources:

• ITIL - click here
• IBM Service Management - click here
• IBM and the Information Technology Infrastructure Library®: How IBM supports ITIL and provides ITIL-base capabilities and solutions (G510-3008-03F)