ITIL demystified

Expert discusses v3, how ITIL saves money, vendor marketing ploys and ITIL certifications in a Network World chat

By Julie Bort, Network World
February 06, 2008 07:12 PM ET

Moderator-Julie: Welcome and thank you for coming. Our guest today is IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) expert Lou Hunnebeck, vice president for the ITIL training and consulting firm, Third Sky. Hunnebeck served on the public QA team for ITIL v3. She is also currently on the ITIL Examination Panel for ITIL v3, and she's a well-known regular on the IT service management speaker circuit. Hunnebeck has over 20 years of experience in IT service industries and has led global teams in best practice and methodology design.

Lou_Hunnebeck: Hello, everyone.

Moderator-Julie: While we wait for questions to come in from the crowd, here's a pre-submitted question/answer: Are there any experience requirements for ITIL certification similar to what is required for the CISSP?

Lou_Hunnebeck: For the basic Foundation level, the answer is no. For the Intermediate levels a candidate must hold the Foundation certificate and there is advice regarding the level of practical experience recommended, but no rigid requirement.

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BartKnight: Can you explain why a large enterprise would need to adopt ITIL?

Lou_Hunnebeck: "Need" is a loaded word. Any enterprise that is struggling with repeating the same unsuccessful behaviors, spending too much time and too much money on service provisioning should look at ITIL for some assistance. I would like to commend Bart, though, for using the word "adopt." You don't implement ITIL, you adopt a new way of working.

TechieGirl: Does ITIL save money or cost money? How do I plan for the expense?

Lou_Hunnebeck: To embark on any effort with seriousness you will need to fund it. But in the long run, organizations do save money – more than what they spend on adopting these work methods. That's why it's so popular.

TechieGirl: Why should a company choose ITIL instead of other frameworks like Six Sigma? Should you just use one or should you mix and match from different ones?

Lou_Hunnebeck: Good question. But it's not an either-or situation. ITIL and Six Sigma can be used extremely well together to improve an organization. In regards to the concern about how to make the business case for adopting these principles, it is important to try to quantify how much your current way of working is costing you. Most organizations do an extremely poor job of putting a cost on change, re-work, inefficiency and waste. Start there.

BartKnight: Some recent surveys have suggested that ITIL isn't a large priority for a lot of enterprises. What's your thoughts on those surveys?

Lou_Hunnebeck: Without knowing which surveys you are referring to, it is difficult to comment on the particulars. Gartner and Forrester, for example, have come to precisely opposite conclusions in many of their surveys. I would rather say that ITIL itself should not be the priority in any case. Improving your way of working is the priority. ITIL just happens to be the most trusted and best recognized framework for how to improve IT service management.

BartKnight: There was a recent Network World story about an IDC survey that said about two-thirds of companies polled had no plans to adopt ITIL v3, or were uncertain about adopting it in the next three years.