History of ITSM and ITIL

[ITSMI]

ITIL was actually spawned from IBM's non-copyrighted Information Systems Management Architecture ISMA. If you'd like a copy of our article on the geneology of ITIL please send me an email and I'll dig out the article. The ISMA work was performed in the US by a dedicated IBM team and one of that team a Mr. Ed Van Schaak is a member of our Alumni and will be on our booth (again) at the 2005 Chicago conference.

At the 2004 conference we had a great session with many ITIL authors where the ISMA heritage was finally recognised. In principle the 5 major support practices (NOT PROCESSES!) were copy pasted, the Delivery side was reinvented. I feel the books accurately reflect this opinion.

Remember: ITIL is descriptive not prescriptive

Ian
ian@itsmi.com

[Stezza]

I was enjoying the previous threads - has anyone asked for a copy of the article ?

No doubt Prince2 was ripped off from the US as well!

[DakDarie]

Nice Alan
goo job, thanks

[pmhut]

First I want to say I'm very interested in the history of ITIL as I run a project management site and have a section dedicated for ITIL.

Fast forward 4 years, the article on Wikipedia states in the history section of ITIL: "Many of the concepts did not originate within the original UK Government's Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) project to develop ITIL. According to IBM...".

The article does subtly suggest that the UK Government had a role in the creation of ITIL, but does not go further. Most of the other articles I've read suggest that IBM is the place where ITIL was first created.

ITSMI, if you're reading this, is it possible to post the article (or at least a link to it) on this thread?

[The Skeptic]

I think careful reading of the posts from three of the original authors of ITIL V1 makes it clear that while the IBM body of knowledge heavily influenced the first three books, (a) it was not the only influence on those three books and (b) ITIL was much more than those three books. You can read more from early authors here

I maintain that IBM substantially overstate their case ("Almost 20 years ago, the U.K. government approached IBM for the best practices document and the rest is ITIL history.", "IBM is a founding member of the ITIL research committee and still actively involved in the support and creation of new library materials including ITIL, Version 3."), and I suggest that this is due to the fact that they then dropped the ball for a couple of decades.

ITSMI's interest in building Ed's undoubtedly significant role is evident.

ITIL was forged in the UK by the British government's initiative, investment and stewardship through a synthesis of multiple inputs of which IBM's was only one. ITIL had many fathers (and even more grandfathers, Ian) The USA can protest this as much as you want but you won't rewrite history.

[PaulBuch]

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

[The Skeptic]

Hi Paul

Your recollection does not fit well with recorded history. GITIMM did not exist in any form until 1986 since John Stewart and Peter Skinner pitched the idea then. In particular there are a number of peope, who are credited on the books as having written them who have described the process that happened differently.

Someone who was there from the beginning suggests to me that you are in fact recalling CRAMM, an earlier effort.

I only point this out as we have worked hard to get close to a clear picture of who did in fact do what and this post will only muddy the waters again for those who weren't there.