How small companies can make a big impact with ITIL

ITIL is for big business, right? Not necessarily. Although larger IT organizations are more usually associated with ITIL implementations (See The Practical Value of the IT Infrastructure Library), there's growing evidence that ITIL can benefit the smaller IT shop, too.

ITIL's big business credentials can't be denied. Originally developed in the U.K. in the mid 1980s, the Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a set of best practice concepts and techniques for addressing the effective management of IT infrastructure, service delivery and service support. Endorsed by the U.K. government for public sector IT projects, ITIL soon gained traction within the corporate sector. (Although it recently was published to some fanfare, a number of users have expressed concern about the training ITIL Version 3 requires.)

Published by the U.K. government's Office of Government Commerce, ITIL initial best practice guidelines have been widely adopted around the world, although exact numbers are unclear. (All one has to do is purchase a set of ITIL books, and adopt whatever ITIL practices one wishes.)

To some, ITIL's big business background has hindered adoption by smaller IT shops. "ITIL hasn't really talked to smaller businesses," says Barclay Rae, professional services director of Europe's Help Desk Institute, headquartered in Orpington, U.K. "The language to date has been very much framed in the context of large organizations with mainframes and internal customers."

Organization Size Shouldn't Matter With ITIL

But if ITIL hasn't been smaller business-friendly, neither have smaller businesses been ITIL-friendly. "With limited resources, smaller businesses tend to develop their IT people from within, leading to a lower level of exposure to better ways of working," observes David Davies, a principal consultant at Manchester, U.K.-based Xantus Consulting, and author of "Improving IT Service Delivery," a 2007 paper published by the UK's National Computing Center. "Structure and organization are often inappropriate, too: it's like 11 year olds playing soccer, with everyone chasing the ball."

Yet perversely, the smaller IT shop can turn its size into an ITIL asset, says the Help Desk Institute's Rae. "Smaller companies can implement ITIL-and implement it quickly," he says. "There are fewer people to disagree about it, and it's easier to get the key people around the same table. I've implemented ITIL in an IT department of just six people: They initially complained that they didn't have the time-but by picking just the key ITIL processes, it didn't take up much time at all."

Indeed, he points out, one of the most common misunderstandings about ITIL in smaller businesses is that ITIL somehow "demands" a large organization. "People think that as there are a number of 'management' processes involved, there must be a similar number of management roles-but this just isn't the case," says Rae.

Four ITIL Points to Remember

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is applicable to small- and medium-sized organizations. Consider these points: