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By The IT Skeptic Mar 28, 2007 OGC (the U.K.'s Office of Government Commerce) is providing an essential public service by creating and owning ITIL for which we are all grateful. It is hard to think of a better owner than a government body. But there are many pillars of the house of ITIL and OGC governs and manages only three (one now outsourced). It is time the OGC handed over the reins to someone that can control all the pillars, or took it to that level themselves.
OGC’s ITIL isn’t growing at all. With v3, OGC is maturing what they have — documentation — but where is the surrounding infrastructure? As ITIL has grown in adoption it has also grown in scope to match. ITIL isn’t just books anymore and hasn’t been for some years. The growth that is happening is ad-hoc and outside the control of OGC or any one body. There are several components that make up the scope of ITIL, my “Pillars of ITIL." You may name a few more. Core content: Owned by OGC and tightly controlled through copyright. Good stuff. Some uncertainty with v3 imminent. Complementary content: Well regulated and quality assured (others may debate this but most of the books seem to me to be in good shape). Governing board: There isn’t one. There is no über-body that represents all the stakeholders, has elected members, sets policy and strategy, and provides governance, for all the Pillars of ITIL. As ITpreneurs say “The ITIL market is still predominantly a market guided by customers but dependent on a delicate coalition of interests (OGC, itSMF, APMG, ISO, TSO, EXIN, ISEB, education companies, consulting companies, and tool suppliers). For the market to work effectively, the players need to collaborate.” The newly formed Combined Strategy Board (CSB), chaired by OGC, may provide this function. It remains to be seen. APMG says the Board has “responsibility for global marketing and overall product development”, which is a promotional role rather than a governance one. Moreover there is no transparency of this body: it seems to publish nothing, its membership is appointed not elected, and it has no accountability. Professional Body There was nothing until recently that provided certification and college for practicing professionals. Now we have the Institute of Service Management in the U.K. and the newly formed Institute of Certified Service Managers, or the IT Service Management Institute in U.S. Do any of these have the official recognition of OGC? What governance does it provide over their activities or standards? Why is the ICSM-USA only for ITIL “masters” but the U.K. body more broadly for “senior ITIL-ers”? Because nobody is internationally regulating the emergence of these bodies. User Group The itSMF is often presumed to be the user group for ITIL practitioners and users. But it isn’t. In theory it is a body dedicated to the promotion of service management standards and practices, including ITIL. Look at the aims of itSMF International:
Note there is nothing about representing the views or looking after the interests of the members (other than providing networking). itSMF exists to represent and promote service management as a concept. This is a fine ideal. Just please don’t be under the illusion that itSMF is in theory a user group providing the voice of the user community. In practice, it varies from country to country. In some it is an ITIL networking club; in others it is the public face of ITIL, serving the theoretical aims; in others it veers close to being the captive body of vendors. Sometimes the itSMF presents itself as the voice of members, but how does it derive its understanding of what members want? There is no forum, no voting, no surveys. Sometimes the views of national committees are canvassed (usually at short notice) on key issues. It would be more accurate to say it represents the voice of the senior network of the ITIL “elite”. OGC (the U.K.'s Office of Government Commerce) is providing an essential public service by creating and owning ITIL for which we are all grateful. It is hard to think of a better owner than a government body. But there are many pillars of the house of ITIL and OGC governs and manages only three (one now outsourced). It is time the OGC handed over the reins to someone that can control all the pillars, or took it to that level themselves.
OGC’s ITIL isn’t growing at all. With v3, OGC is maturing what they have — documentation — but where is the surrounding infrastructure? As ITIL has grown in adoption it has also grown in scope to match. ITIL isn’t just books anymore and hasn’t been for some years. The growth that is happening is ad-hoc and outside the control of OGC or any one body. There are several components that make up the scope of ITIL, my “Pillars of ITIL." You may name a few more. Core content: Owned by OGC and tightly controlled through copyright. Good stuff. Some uncertainty with v3 imminent. Complementary content: Well regulated and quality assured (others may debate this but most of the books seem to me to be in good shape). Governing board: There isn’t one. There is no über-body that represents all the stakeholders, has elected members, sets policy and strategy, and provides governance, for all the Pillars of ITIL. As ITpreneurs say “The ITIL market is still predominantly a market guided by customers but dependent on a delicate coalition of interests (OGC, itSMF, APMG, ISO, TSO, EXIN, ISEB, education companies, consulting companies, and tool suppliers). For the market to work effectively, the players need to collaborate.” The newly formed Combined Strategy Board (CSB), chaired by OGC, may provide this function. It remains to be seen. APMG says the Board has “responsibility for global marketing and overall product development”, which is a promotional role rather than a governance one. Moreover there is no transparency of this body: it seems to publish nothing, its membership is appointed not elected, and it has no accountability. Professional Body There was nothing until recently that provided certification and college for practicing professionals. Now we have the Institute of Service Management in the U.K. and the newly formed Institute of Certified Service Managers, or the IT Service Management Institute in U.S. Do any of these have the official recognition of OGC? What governance does it provide over their activities or standards? Why is the ICSM-USA only for ITIL “masters” but the U.K. body more broadly for “senior ITIL-ers”? Because nobody is internationally regulating the emergence of these bodies. User Group The itSMF is often presumed to be the user group for ITIL practitioners and users. But it isn’t. In theory it is a body dedicated to the promotion of service management standards and practices, including ITIL. Look at the aims of itSMF International:
Note there is nothing about representing the views or looking after the interests of the members (other than providing networking). itSMF exists to represent and promote service management as a concept. This is a fine ideal. Just please don’t be under the illusion that itSMF is in theory a user group providing the voice of the user community. In practice, it varies from country to country. In some it is an ITIL networking club; in others it is the public face of ITIL, serving the theoretical aims; in others it veers close to being the captive body of vendors. Sometimes the itSMF presents itself as the voice of members, but how does it derive its understanding of what members want? There is no forum, no voting, no surveys. Sometimes the views of national committees are canvassed (usually at short notice) on key issues. It would be more accurate to say it represents the voice of the senior network of the ITIL “elite”. OGC (the U.K.'s Office of Government Commerce) is providing an essential public service by creating and owning ITIL for which we are all grateful. It is hard to think of a better owner than a government body. But there are many pillars of the house of ITIL and OGC governs and manages only three (one now outsourced). It is time the OGC handed over the reins to someone that can control all the pillars, or took it to that level themselves.
OGC’s ITIL isn’t growing at all. With v3, OGC is maturing what they have — documentation — but where is the surrounding infrastructure? As ITIL has grown in adoption it has also grown in scope to match. ITIL isn’t just books anymore and hasn’t been for some years. The growth that is happening is ad-hoc and outside the control of OGC or any one body. There are several components that make up the scope of ITIL, my “Pillars of ITIL." You may name a few more. Core content: Owned by OGC and tightly controlled through copyright. Good stuff. Some uncertainty with v3 imminent. Complementary content: Well regulated and quality assured (others may debate this but most of the books seem to me to be in good shape). Governing board: There isn’t one. There is no über-body that represents all the stakeholders, has elected members, sets policy and strategy, and provides governance, for all the Pillars of ITIL. As ITpreneurs say “The ITIL market is still predominantly a market guided by customers but dependent on a delicate coalition of interests (OGC, itSMF, APMG, ISO, TSO, EXIN, ISEB, education companies, consulting companies, and tool suppliers). For the market to work effectively, the players need to collaborate.” The newly formed Combined Strategy Board (CSB), chaired by OGC, may provide this function. It remains to be seen. APMG says the Board has “responsibility for global marketing and overall product development”, which is a promotional role rather than a governance one. Moreover there is no transparency of this body: it seems to publish nothing, its membership is appointed not elected, and it has no accountability. Professional Body There was nothing until recently that provided certification and college for practicing professionals. Now we have the Institute of Service Management in the U.K. and the newly formed Institute of Certified Service Managers, or the IT Service Management Institute in U.S. Do any of these have the official recognition of OGC? What governance does it provide over their activities or standards? Why is the ICSM-USA only for ITIL “masters” but the U.K. body more broadly for “senior ITIL-ers”? Because nobody is internationally regulating the emergence of these bodies. User Group The itSMF is often presumed to be the user group for ITIL practitioners and users. But it isn’t. In theory it is a body dedicated to the promotion of service management standards and practices, including ITIL. Look at the aims of itSMF International:
Note there is nothing about representing the views or looking after the interests of the members (other than providing networking). itSMF exists to represent and promote service management as a concept. This is a fine ideal. Just please don’t be under the illusion that itSMF is in theory a user group providing the voice of the user community. In practice, it varies from country to country. In some it is an ITIL networking club; in others it is the public face of ITIL, serving the theoretical aims; in others it veers close to being the captive body of vendors. Sometimes the itSMF presents itself as the voice of members, but how does it derive its understanding of what members want? There is no forum, no voting, no surveys. Sometimes the views of national committees are canvassed (usually at short notice) on key issues. It would be more accurate to say it represents the voice of the senior network of the ITIL “elite”. OGC is not creating or controlling a community of ITIL practitioners and users (see Industry Regulation and Governance What control is there over the ITIL industry (other than exam certification of trainers)? When vendors of products or services are given the right to use the trademarked term ITIL, what obligations do they agree to? What body governs what they do to ensure they do not misrepresent the concepts of ITIL or their capabilities to deliver them? In theory it is OGC, but there is no mechanism equivalent to IPESC or ICMB to effect this in practice. Individual Certification Other than the content, this is the other Pillar of ITIL that OGC did well: establishing the ITIL Certification Management Board (ICMB) and accrediting the trainers and examiners. But the mechanism is under a cloud of uncertainty since OGC recently sold exam certification to a private company, APMG. The ICMB seems to have gone-to-ground. The ICMB comprised OGC, itSMF International, EXIN (a Dutch certification company) and ISEB (a certification body run by the British Computer Society) before the CAR tender awarded certification to APMG. Does this body still exist? Well, your guess is as good as mine. Neither OGC nor itSMF International nor itSMF UK nor itSMF USA have updated their information in this area. Their websites indicate that it still exists and oversees ISEB and EXIN who in turn used to accredit training providers. No mention of APMG or the changed playing field since CAR. One of the solid Pillars of ITIL now trembles. Product Certification Why was Pink Elephant left to do PinkVerify as a commercial offering? Because OGC consciously stepped away from the whole issue of product certification. Nor does ISO20000 appear to address it (yet). There needs to be an open transparent non-commercial product certification mechanism run by an independent body and we needed it about ten years ago. Organizational Certification Why did so many consulting firms all have to (re-)invent their own ITIL assessment or maturity measurement? ITIL emphasises the Deming cycle and assessing "as-is" status. But it provides no standard mechanism to measure ITIL status within an organization. This was forgivable in the first version. It has been an obvious crying need ever since. Perhaps with v3’s emphasis on a lifecycle we can hope for an assessment standard (though early indications are not good). A Standard Why did we wait so long for BS15000? A standard would have addressed the organizational certification issue and possibly the product one too, and given ITIL additional credibility in business. The result is that BS15000 and now ISO20000 came out so long after v2 that the evolution of the industry meant the new standards are well in advance of what is in ITIL. The ITIL content is out of synch. We all hope that ITIL v3 is going to bring them back closer. Conclusion Through mechanisms like IPESC and use of copyright, OGC have managed and governed the ITIL books well. Through the ICMB they controlled the individual certification industry. So we had three pillars that were in good shape. Certification is now on uncertain ground and we all watch to see whether it survives the advent of APMG. As for the content, we wait with baited breath. In all of the other Pillars, OGC has taken no official role and has let them drift or not exist. Someone needs to govern them all ("One ring ..."). Perhaps it is time for OGC to find a new owner for ITIL, or alternatively to step up to a higher level of management of the ITIL environment. The IT Skeptic is an ITIL professional and active itSMF member who, for obvious reasons, prefers to remain anonymous. More thoughts from the IT Skeptic can be found at IT Skeptic. |
