By now, “best-practice” has been so abused it only means “we wrote down a way of doing it." But ITIL is two decades old so let us assume that when ITIL was first created they really meant best-practice.

OGC defines best-practice as “A proven activity or process that has been successfully used by multiple organisations. ITIL is an example of best-practice.”

This strikes me as evasive: What has this to do with “best”? The itSMF defines best-practice as “an industry accepted way of doing something, that works” and “the best identified approach to a situation based upon observation from effective organisations in similar business circumstances.”

This is better. At least there is some element of relative merit to the second definition. Wikipedia (the Skeptic’s favourite source of the Zeitgeist) defines best-practice as “a management idea which asserts that there is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive or reward that is more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc.”

Yes, that is what "best” means, isn’t it? “More … than any other …”. Calling something best-practice is (or was) a brave statement. It led with the chin. “This is superlative. There is no better way of doing it.”

So why is OGC’s (U.K.'s Office of Government Commerce) definition nowadays so wimpy? Because ITIL isn’t best-practice. It is good practice. It is generally accepted practice. But it isn’t "best."

We have good arguments why ITIL is not the ultimate approach to IT operations:

Although the last thing I want is to sound like is a post-modernist, in cases like this they have a point. Despite OGC’s claims, ITIL does not fit well in smaller organizations and has almost nothing to say to small business. The great experiment is underway right now to see how it goes in the Asian cultures. Best practice is one of those terms where the meaning gets gradually eroded by constant misuse, especially by vendors, analysts and consultants—the phrase gains currency and pretty soon everyone uses it.

By now, “best-practice” has been so abused it only means “we wrote down a way of doing it." But ITIL is two decades old so let us assume that when ITIL was first created they really meant best-practice.

OGC defines best-practice as “A proven activity or process that has been successfully used by multiple organisations. ITIL is an example of best-practice.”

This strikes me as evasive: What has this to do with “best”? The itSMF defines best-practice as “an industry accepted way of doing something, that works” and “the best identified approach to a situation based upon observation from effective organisations in similar business circumstances.”

This is better. At least there is some element of relative merit to the second definition. Wikipedia (the Skeptic’s favourite source of the Zeitgeist) defines best-practice as “a management idea which asserts that there is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive or reward that is more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc.”

Yes, that is what "best” means, isn’t it? “More … than any other …”. Calling something best-practice is (or was) a brave statement. It led with the chin. “This is superlative. There is no better way of doing it.”

So why is OGC’s (U.K.'s Office of Government Commerce) definition nowadays so wimpy? Because ITIL isn’t best-practice. It is good practice. It is generally accepted practice. But it isn’t "best."

We have good arguments why ITIL is not the ultimate approach to IT operations:

Although the last thing I want is to sound like is a post-modernist, in cases like this they have a point. Despite OGC’s claims, ITIL does not fit well in smaller organizations and has almost nothing to say to small business. The great experiment is underway right now to see how it goes in the Asian cultures.
Best practice is one of those terms where the meaning gets gradually eroded by constant misuse, especially by vendors, analysts and consultants—the phrase gains currency and pretty soon everyone uses it.

By now, “best-practice” has been so abused it only means “we wrote down a way of doing it." But ITIL is two decades old so let us assume that when ITIL was first created they really meant best-practice.

OGC defines best-practice as “A proven activity or process that has been successfully used by multiple organisations. ITIL is an example of best-practice.”

This strikes me as evasive: What has this to do with “best”? The itSMF defines best-practice as “an industry accepted way of doing something, that works” and “the best identified approach to a situation based upon observation from effective organisations in similar business circumstances.”

This is better. At least there is some element of relative merit to the second definition. Wikipedia (the Skeptic’s favourite source of the Zeitgeist) defines best-practice as “a management idea which asserts that there is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive or reward that is more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc.”

Yes, that is what "best” means, isn’t it? “More … than any other …”. Calling something best-practice is (or was) a brave statement. It led with the chin. “This is superlative. There is no better way of doing it.”

So why is OGC’s (U.K.'s Office of Government Commerce) definition nowadays so wimpy? Because ITIL isn’t best-practice. It is good practice. It is generally accepted practice. But it isn’t "best."

We have good arguments why ITIL is not the ultimate approach to IT operations:

Although the last thing I want is to sound like is a post-modernist, in cases like this they have a point. Despite OGC’s claims, ITIL does not fit well in smaller organizations and has almost nothing to say to small business. The great experiment is underway right now to see how it goes in the Asian cultures.
Does it Matter?

It is fair to ask at this point whether it even matters if ITIL is best or not. Any standard is a good thing. ITIL has brought benefits to the industry by getting people talking in common agreed terms. It helps new employees get up to speed quicker. It helps auditors, trainers, contractors and suppliers understand the business. It reduces ambiguities and disputes in service provider contracts.

In fact ITIL could be "awful practice" and it still would have yielded benefits just from getting people to think about their own processes and rework them. For many organizations, it is the first time they have ever formally considered their processes at all. Many of the same benefits attributed to ITIL would have been delivered if astrology had been used as the process framework instead.

So perhaps the fact it is not best is not so important. What does matter is that we are calling it best-practice when it isn’t. More than merely annoying, this misuse of the term endangers service management projects.

Firstly, it sets expectations with any literal-minded executive that the project will yield best-possible results, that the resulting IT department will be unbeatably competitive.

Also, calling it best-practice encourages a mindset that there is no alternative to ITIL, that no sane person would consider anything but the best. ITIL is not the best choice in all situations.

Good alternatives include MOF (Microsoft Operating Framework), which is broader than ITIL so parts of MOF may well be adopted to cover other areas such as risk management or security.

Microsoft has done some nice work integrating the development and production sides of the IT house (which ITIL only partially addresses with application management), by linking MOF with Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF).

MOF goes deeper into technical detail of managing Microsoft technologies by addressing the "how" so it provides a useful reference for those tasked with implementing process on Windows, Active Directory, SQL-Server, etc.

And, perhaps best of all (no pun intended), it is free to download while ITIL books cost hundreds of dollars.

Then there is FITS (Framework for ICT Technical Support). FITS was developed to provide simplified IT processes for schools in the U.K. The result is a nicely-simplified version of ITIL that has some uptake among smaller IT environments. FITS is also free to download, it is clean and straight-forward, and it probably scales up to mid-size organisations.

And it is only a matter of time before someone writes an analogous set of ISO/IEC 20000 books that are broader and better than ITIL.

Of course, "do nothing" is always an option. If IT ain’t broke don’t fix IT. No business case, no project.

Finally, calling it best-practice verges on being pompous and arrogant. Some people will be alienated and turn away from a set of practice that is really quite good, and deserving of their attention.

There is far too much misuse of terms in our industry. This is as good a place as any to call a halt. So the next time someone is prattling on about best-practice in general, or ITIL as best-practice in particular, ask them how they know it is best, who says so, and by what frame of reference.

When you talk about ITIL, call it good practice or generally accepted practice: call it what it is.