10 reasons ITIL spooks IT managers

Adopting the best practices laid out in ITIL requires IT managers commit to a multi-year project, bring executive management on board and wear their thickest skin to work every day as a majority of people will resist the efforts to overhaul how IT does its job.

The resistance comes from fear, according to ITIL experts and industry watchers, who argue that education around ITIL, its potential benefits and challenges would help implementations get off the ground more quickly. For one, the premise of re-aligning IT operations around standard processes intimidates most non-believers, and the recent updates to the framework, ITIL Version 3, is causing confusion among many IT managers that started adopting ITIL Version 2.

"As the ITIL framework has undergone a transformation during the past several years, speculation has abounded about the implications and changes to ITIL," writes Evelyn Hubbert, a senior analyst with Forrester Research, in an October report. "Adoption of ITIL in the U.S. is catching up to Europe, and many infrastructure and operations professionals have questions."

To help address fears and reduce confusion, ITIL expert and author Linh Ho compiled a list of the most common fears she encounters in customer environments and detailed some ways to keep the anxiety around ITIL at bay. Ho, product marketing manager at Compuware, also served as a reviewer on the ITIL V3 foundation books and is co-author of the itSMF's Six Sigma for IT Management book. Ho also worked for business service management vendor Proxima Technology before it was acquired by Compuware earlier this year. She says that the industry is working toward reducing the confusion around ITIL.

"We are often on the front lines talking to customers and find that there is a lot of fear and confusion out there today," Ho says. "We are working to demystify and help abate fears."

Here Ho shares the top 10 fears ITIL supporters encounter in customer IT shops.

1. Change

The fear of change is a common fear in all aspects of life and work, but Ho says many IT staffers fear ITIL will leave their IT shops unrecognizable and make their jobs irrelevant -- or even worse obsolete. Ho agrees that ITIL represents great change, but adds that in many cases ITIL brings new positions to many IT shops. For instance, IT organizations may designate staff as process owners or change managers. Yet Ho admits IT managers must anticipate staffers to balk at such a large cultural shift.

"ITIL requires you to constantly communicate the goals and progress to staff and upper management," she says. "It is in and of itself is a huge change management process that must be closely monitored."

2. Measurement

One of the reasons management wants to get ITIL in house is to be more efficient. And in order to prove improve efficiencies, IT shops must measure the effectiveness of processes before and after ITIL.

"ITIL does push the need to measure and report on your service quality," Ho explains. "IT fears being watched constantly, but there are upsides to being measured."