ITIL: bridging the gap between IT services today and tomorrow

3 Jan 2019 01:51 PM

Blog posted by: Lisa Hodges – principal consultant, Cornerstone Service Management, 27 December 2018.

How can communication within IT service management (ITSM) – and ultimately with the business it supports – be improved?

The silos that can develop among different parts of organizations need something that bridges the gap between the professionals that create and build technologies and those that support and operate them.

ITIL® has been a mechanism to break down these barriers, help communication and assist IT organizations in taking a holistic approach to business requirements. In turn, this creates the ability to react quickly and confidently at a time of change.

The ITIL framework also provides a structure for other IT best practices and project management, such as supporting the role of design and development. With today’s incredible evolution in IT – including AI, automation and the Internet of Things, having this structure enables IT service providers to work with the ecosystem where changes in one area can ripple across an organization.

Old world and new world IT professionals

University students I work with today don’t segregate business and IT roles when acting as project teams on real-life IT projects. Combining IT developers, graphic design, marketing and finance is perfectly natural to them.

However, they also need guidance on combining agile development and service management. As companies are asking for agile approaches this has created a greater focus on building technologies but less on how to maintain and operate what you’ve built.

Without that service management context, graduates entering industry risk not knowing how to operate in an environment that also needs service support and improvement.

This is why I see “lightbulb moments” when teaching ITIL Foundation to mixed classes of experienced IT professionals and new employees: the training and certification shows them the overall structure of the IT ecosystem and this is where they and their particular skills belong and provide value.

Having this framework approach and language means they can communicate better and engage in conversations that lead to solving problems together and understanding where their role fits in a larger IT and organization context. Bringing experienced IT people together with a new crop of IT professionals is essential to help them see where their skills will benefit the business most.

ITIL 4 – an evolution

I believe that ITIL 4 will do more to help different parts of organizations find common ground and see where they can go next in delivering value. It will support a necessary evolution in organizations, in which IT service solutions are based on a greater mutual understanding between existing and newly-certified IT professionals, working in tandem to capitalize on the value of best practices.

In today’s service-driven world there’s no time to wait for new hires to become seasoned IT professionals; they need to overcome the knowledge gap and initial learning curve in a real enterprise environment with a recognized structure and common language. That’s what they get from ITIL.

Read more AXELOS Blog Posts by Lisa Hodges

Built on ITIL: a service management foundation for the future

Five ways for project managers to start realizing benefits

How to be ready: the need for speed in ITSM 2018

Enterprise service management: deploying ITSM without the IT

Bi-modal/two-speed IT: the chaos with traditional and agile projects

PMBOK and PRINCE2®: how Project Managers can survive in an agile world