It’s been some time since Capita entered into the “joint venture” with the Cabinet Office over ITIL and Prince2, and I just couldn’t help myself but to post a blog entry on the topic.  First, in six months or so, I want to see if my opinion matches what I now think, but more importantly I’ve been looking for a more ITSM topic to blog about as I’ve really been in the technology trenches with ServiceNow (it’s hard to have a blog titled ITILandMe and not blog about ITIL or ITSM).  Besides, who doesn’t own an ITSM blog and doesn’t have an opinion on the topic?  I certainly don’t want to be left alone in that category.  Unfortunately, there are a few different possible outcomes from this venture, and I think it depends on which point of view you’re using for analysis.

Historical POV:  For one minute, I want to recap the overall situation as I see it.  A framework, touting itself as the “most widely accepted approach to IT service management in the world,” and sanctioned by the UK government, has now joined in ITSM matrimony with a vendor that specifically uses the word “outsource” in its advertising on its website.  I’m a fan of history so let me point out two historical events that may bring some significance to this relationship.  First, the UK government hasn’t necessarily made the best decisions since the Magna Carta.  As a citizen of the US, also affectionately known as being a “yank” to the rest of the world, I can never help but to look at the events around 1776 and wonder “Would I prefer tea over coffee if the British just did things a little differently?”  Same goes for this case.  If Her Majesty’s Government (I’ll credit the IT Skeptic for my learning of this term in blogging) had decided to make ITIL an open source type of framework, would it have been possible to avoid vendor partnership and increase collaboration from the ITSM community?

I also don’t want to ignore the fact that the partnership includes a vendor that lists itself as specializing in “outsourcing” service delivery.  I recall that in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, there was a big movement to outsource call centers to India.  Sure, there’s a lot of technical talent in that particular country, but for some reason the outsourcing just didn’t seem to work out so well for the companies that chose that route (anyone remember having to call Dell tech support during that time period?).

Outcome:  Not Good

Privatization POV:  When ITIL first came out way back in the 80’s (along with big hair, synthesizers and MTV), it was a natural progression for some body to recognize the importance that IT would play in the future and at least start to document the “best practices” around its use.  To be honest, I’m not surprised that an actual government body decided to make such a publication because, by the very practice of capitalism, it doesn’t help a for-profit technology company to share it’s “best practices” with possible competition.  In the end, ITIL was published and just about anyone could purchase the content and/or take training classes for certification.  Sure, cost may have been high (even the 2011 certification isn’t cheap), but at least it’s available for all to learn.

Unfortunately, after becoming a V3 Expert I’ve also come to the understanding that ITIL is a framework, not to be confused with process methodology.  While common processes such as Incident and Problem (sorry, I mean incident and problem) management are well documented, has anyone noticed that complex processes such as release management leave A LOT to be desired?  Sure, ITIL outlines the processes in a way to state “you should do it” and “here are benefits,” but there’s no concrete documentation of “how.”  The good thing is that this understanding isn’t new and there are several vendors out there who have hundreds of pages of well defined processes collected from years of experience (my current employer being one of them ), so there’s really not a change in the material to ITIL with its privatization.

What I am worried about is contribution to ITIL in the future.  If I’m a consultant, or work for a vendor, that has years worth of IP, what’s the incentive to share it to a framework that’s owned by another vendor?  As a practitioner in the ITSM space I was wholly on board with contributing to a body of knowledge owned by a government.  Now that the IP is owned by a vendor, my “this is for the greater good” motivation and inspiration has been effectively squashed.  I’m not sure how the actual contributing authors feel on the topic, but to me, there’s a certain feeling that the UK has sold-out the contributing ITIL community.

Outcome: Worse than Not Good

For Profit  POV:  So, ITIL has been privatized and the IP is now in the hands of a company that, like so many other companies out there, has the goal of making a profit.  This means that they now become a service provider for those that want to take on learning and understanding of the wonderful IP that so is a part of my blog title.  While it seems that there may not be a lot of alternatives to ITIL, they are out there and now Capita is taking on the burden to continue the competition of “best practice” frameworks.  This also means they need to keep their customers happy by providing up to date content, accessibility to the material (preferably in electronic format), and actively marketing their content that they are now heavily invested in.  Since Capita is a vendor, and they’re hoping more people take part in a universal “best practice” framework, they also need to be cognizant that they can’t afford to not be objective of any new content they produce.  In other words, they’re putting themselves into a tough spot where they’ll be under constant scrutiny.

Outcome:  Worst Case – Nothing Changes

I wouldn’t exactly say that the Capita and ITIL joint venture is keeping me up at night, but there’s definitely a lot left to the unknown and there are a few possibilities of the long term outcome depending on which point of view you want to entertain.  With my current negative feelings toward the Capita + ITIL union, the best possible outcome is one in which someone comes out with an open-source framework that is 1) contributed to by the ITSM community and 2) is free/cheap.  The “meh” possible outcome is one where ITIL just slowly declines and other frameworks/methodologies slowly take over, and at worst case ITIL stays as the “go to” ITSM framework for beginners and contribution to it by the ITSM community slowly goes away until I change my blog to “COBIT and Me.”

Michael

Started working in IT in 1999 as a support desk analyst as a way to help pay for food during college. Studied Electrical Engineering for two years before realizing biochemistry was more fun than differential equations, and so ultimately graduated with a Biology degree in 2006. Having (reluctantly) failed at getting accepted into dental school, embraced working in IT and has gone broke becoming an ITIL Expert. Likes to jog, sing camp songs, quote Mel Brooks movie lines and make dumb jokes and loves working for an Israeli tech company where December 25th is a regular work day.