Growing up in a rural area meant that you often picked up local “idioms” as part of your language. Words such as ain’t, if’n and y’all were part of my everyday speech. One of my local idioms was “it’il” – our local contraction of “it will.” If’n there ain’t any dinner and the only thing to eat is leftovers, then it’il have to do.
The IT world has its own “it’il,” which for the time being will also have to do. The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is fast becoming the de facto framework for implementing effective IT service management.
Developed by the British government in the 1980s, ITIL provides a comprehensive series of best practices that can be implemented as common processes throughout IT. ITIL provides the framework for establishing functions such as relationship management, service desk, incident management, problem management and configuration management. ITIL is not a step-by-step methodology panacea for all IT issues; rather it is a complete – and complex – set of best practices that can be implemented in many ways, depending on the need and focus of the IT organization.
While ITIL is perhaps the most popular IT quality framework, it is not the only one. Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT), developed by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association, provides guidelines on 34 processes that encompass the full IT life cycle, with a heavy emphasis on IT audit and security. The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) frameworks from the Software Engineering Institute provide guidelines for developing standardized and repeatable application development and software engineering processes. The multi-industry Six Sigma framework provides both guidelines and tools for eliminating operational process defects, while its Design for Six Sigma sibling focuses on eliminating defects during the design and development processes before they become operational.
None of these frameworks are exclusive of the others and it is not necessary to implement everything in any of these frameworks. Many IT organizations are mixing and matching the relevant portions of these frameworks as needed. In some companies ITIL is being used to implement a service-focused organization and Six Sigma is being implemented to monitor the quality of the operational processes. Other organizations are implementing COBIT to establish audit and security guidelines and CMM/CMMI to provide reliable application development. Others are using portions of these frameworks to create their own custom-quality process.
With the emerging emphasis on IT as a service provider and the need for all organizations to become compliant with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and HIPAA, ITIL and all the other frameworks will become more prevalent as a way for IT organizations to organize in a way that will monitor and maintain their value.
Other frameworks may eventually replace these, but it will be a while. For now, ITIL and the other frameworks are the best available, and to paraphrase my country kin, “it’il have to do.”
