|
ITIL History
I just read a History on Wiki and followed this Datamation link. In 1983 just after the Falklands War I was worked for two PC Resellers (Planning and Computacenter) as an Systems Engineer and PE Inbucon as a consultant. We had several meets with Peter Skinner and Dave (sorry cant recall surname) in CCTA procurement at Gildengate House (I hate that road to Norwich) and also at the Millbank offices regarding GITTIM.
The raison d'etre for building the library was rooted in the fact that the CCTA had been buying Mainframes and Minis from IBM/DEC/HP Sperry Univac et al. Maintenance and on site care was usually outsourced to the Mainframe and Mini support teams - who typically just replaced dumb terminals for users. Support calls were answered on site by low level engineers doing swap outs of dumb terminals. These support contracts were maanged by the vendors. The CCTA looked to stem their budget and started buying PCs (mostly IBM desktops and Compaq luggable orange screen portables) but support contracts didnt come with them!. However, when these new fangled wonders died the users had no idea who to contact, or, how to solve DOS and Dr.DOS software problems. The procurement guys needed a mechanism to solve these user dilemmas, create new internal processes and a thing called the IT Department.....!They asked my company for written guides on how to run help desks and provide on site support at Government offices - as we were just starting to deliver PC outsourcing to the financial community the CCTA wanted to see what "Good Practices" we were deploying to manage contracts. As the objective was to sell more PCs we gladly provided this information. I cobbled together several reports and processes which were obviously expanded on during the next few years. The reason that there were 6 books (white binders) originally (and not one big book) was that Government departments came in all sizes and may have just wanted a single element from one of the books (i.e . how to start and staff a help desk) and not want to buy the complete suite (hence Library) - it was supposed to emulate IBM Red Books as a way to get end users to "buy in " to a process. I know people in IBM believe that some of their ideas were ...er...borrowed, but, it was a culmination of a multi party ideas (including their main competitors) and crunched together. I do believe that the ITIL Certification stemmed from the IBM Academy training concept (created by Giffin Lorimer). Its a similar story to when I developed SRM CRAMM but thats another story. As far as I am concerned ITIL originated in Norwich fuelled by Adnams! Today I still travel the world and help IT Operations departments on ITIL, eTom, COBIT etc. I always state that methods, frameworks and guidelines are not a religion and CIOs should pick and mix the best working approach depending on their market and experience. I think that vendors who use ITIL as a foil to sell overpriced Service Desk software and hoop driven training courses in their relentless drive for global domination miss the point. I remember when IT was fun!? Hope this helps shed some light? P Buchanan
|