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What are the best sources on the history of ITIL, ITSM, and ITSMF? Is anything written?
Here is what I have heard:
The UK Thatcher government in the 1980s wished to "audit" governmental IT. Auditors said, "you can't audit something without the equivalent of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles." This was the genesis of ITIL.
I do NOT claim the above is accurate, but that's how the story goes in the US Upper Midwest in 2004. (I've heard it several times.)
I also have the impression that IT Service Management and especially the evolution of the SLA concept came out of the telecomm space. How ITSM and ITIL converged is of interest.
Also curious when ITSMF was officially chartered, by who, and where.
The story I tell in my training classes was that ITIL was born out of the Falklands' war in 1983.
The UK had not experienced any major war effort since WWII, and their IT had no standards and was growing 'wild'. Because the UK Navy had a hard time coordinating their efforts among the various Navy departments when they had to prepare for the war against Argentina, it became obvious that something had to be done to get this 'wildfire growth' under control. Hence, as the legend goes, the birth of ITIL.
Maybe the above is historically not correct, but in Italian: "Se non e vero, e ben trovato" or "if it ain't true, it's a darn good story" .
The history of ITIL - the way I understand it and the story I tell is that in the mid 80's IBM approached the Thatcher govt to see if they would outsource all govt agencies IT. The govt asked IBM to tell them how much it would all cost and so IBM went off to do thier due dillengence. They came back and said they did not want the business for a number of reasons, primarily because it was all too hard...no central systems or platforms, disparate processes, differing maturity levels. So the Thatcher govt assigned the CCTA funds for a project to research the 'best of breed' or basically, what was considered to be the best way of delivering IT services that align to the business requirements. 11 consultants were assigned to the project and they spent 4 years researching and documenting. (44 years of 'man' power). The first of the books to be documented was the SLM book, in 1989. The last I believe was the Avaialability Mgt book in 1994. The work was only intended to be used by UK govt but as these consultants moved around they took copies of the work/books with them. It spread into private enterprise and outside of the UK, primarily into The Netherlands. It arrived in Australia and Sth Africa in 1995, which is when the first courses were delivered (I attended this course in Melbourne). It was delivered by David Wheeldon, one of the 11 original consultants and authors. The 10 books were then merged into the 2 books as we know them today - this happend in 2000. David Wheeldon is also the founder of the itSMF, the members forum, with many chapters across the world.
itil began as gitimm (government information technology infrastructure management forum) in the central computer and telecomms agency (now no longer in existence, it was swallowed up by ogc in 2000) in the uk. the idea came from peter skinner (now sadly deceased) and john stewart (my old boss at ccta) and was based on their idea that spending on IT in government was too high and that a method ( not a 'methodology' as many people mistakenly use as a descriptive term) to establish best practice processes for IT service mgt would be of benefit. the underpinning concept was that people would become portable in the sense that everyone would manage the infrastructure in the same way and streamline processes thereby increasing efficiency and (eventually) driving down cost. so the thatcher directive, audit driven stuff is i am afraid, not known to me! john stewart still works at ogc, you can always check the story with john!
the first proposals were in fact thrown out by the ccta board of directors (according to john, the board thought he and peter were lunatics); anyway in 1986 john was assigned the task of putting together a programme plan to create a 'gitimm'. he consulted many private sector companies, looked at, inter alia, an old ibm method and came up with proposals principally around what has become known as service support and delivery ( a danish consultant, hans dithmar provided a great deal of help at this time; sadly, last i heard of hans he had retired on health grounds).
john started recruiting a team, i joined in 1988, working on cost, capacity, availability, quality and software lifecycle support modules ---and you can see my name on the books!--- and also was tasked with creating a users group (then called IT infrastructure mgt forum, not itsmf--the name changed around 1994/5 i think); the first chairman was mick brown, alan mccarthy of pink elephant the treasurer and dave wheeldon ( an ex-ccta colleague) secretary. dave at that time worked for ultracomp, having just left ccta.
in my opinion, dave was the reason that itsmf is so important today. gradually itsm became the domain name in which we all worked and itil the underpinning method (even though itil did not really cover all of the issues); the itimf/itsmf name change came about largely because of the evolution (aidan lawes the current chairman or ivor evans another past chairman will remember better than me). there is a booklet created by itsmf on its tenth birthday, written by people who clearly were either suffering from alzheimers or selective memory loss, if you want to read a revisionist history; but i think in this case i prefer to ignore the adage about the sixties 'if you can remeber them, you were not there.."
the original team with the exception of me, dave and ivor macfarlane no longer work in the itil domain; john is procurement director at ogc, neil croft is an account manager at ogc, john coles, alan shilling and neville greenhalgh are retired ( neville dresses as a mediaeval knight and takes tourists around norwich castle!), andy carty is director in projects uk and andy macdonnell, mike withey, susan keeler and ruth kerry now all wisely pursue other interests!
Hi there - first of all it sometimes surprises me that people care about where this came from - I was invited last year to open itSMF Denmark's conference with a talk on the history of ITIL! I have some sympathy for the view that if the truth isn't interesting enough then make up something that is - like Pauline I see no reason to let the truth get in the way of a good story. But Brian recollections broadly match mine (and after this many years who can tell which of us is right?) I claim ITIL seniority over Brian by 1 week - which, since we started in 1989, is about 0.15%.
Brian is slightly off in one or two area - GITTIM stood for the Government IT Infrastructure Management Method - and it was the word Method at the end that made Roy Dibble of CCTA (Peter Skinner's boss) change the name since he, rightly, pointed out it was not going to be a method. It was going to be guidance - we talked about 'Codes of Practice a lot in those days. We could do worse than remind ourselves again that it is guidance - not holy writ. Brian has missed a few names - Dave Ruffles for one - the unsung hero of many books - he did a lot of the work, others took more of the credit. And when last seen Neville was dressed as 'Simple Jack' the court jester at Norwich Castle.
As well as the books he mentions, Brian was responsible for CCTA input to the birth of the user group which then evolved into the itSMF as it is now. One of my responsibilities was to get the qualifications and the training up and running - I remember trawling the CCTA training materials around training comapanies- selling it for £5000 and being the guest speaker on many 'first courses' of the various companies. Now I spend most of my time delivering those courses - is there nothing new under the sun?
I could talk about this history for pages and hours - ask the Danish how enthusiastic I can get - but one point worth making is that the expansion into the private sector took us rather by surprise at the beginning and caused a quick refocus of the approach - those who remember the original ITIL books will realise that the very oldest (eg SLM and Help Desk) are more public sector focused than the following ones (except Finanace where Brian got hijacked by Her Majesty's Treasury). And the expansion overseas was driven by the commercial companies - as Pauline says, by Ultracomp into South Africa and Oz, Prolin (now part of HP) into Asia and elsewhere, and of course initially by Pink Elephant (now Pink Roccade) who approacheds CCTA in the 80s in the shape of Alan Nance (still around - now something important (so he said) with HP), who took it into the Netherlands, where I believe it remains quite popular.
Anyone who wants more or detailed history - please ask - I am sure between myself and Brian we can tell you! Maybe we should present a history workshop at itSMF conferences - or post an 'ITIL reunited' web page where we can all argue over who remembers it best?
i did forget dave ruffles, ivor. and i agree completely with what you said about him (so if he is reading this, i.o.u. many beers in apology dave!!)
and i would be very happy to do a double act, ivor if the opportunity arises.
brian
Like I said - it was Roy Dibble and John stewart in a corridor in Gildenagte House in norwich, in August 1989 - before Alan got onto thge scene.
Alan did a lot - but the name belongs to CCTA - based upon Roy's insistence that GITIMM was unacceptable because it was NOT a method. When told it couldn't be GITIMM, John Stewart said 'so what shall we call it?' John said don't know' Roy asked what it was going to be - the answer was a set of books. So they agreed you call a set of books a library and so agreed 'IT infrastrure libaray'. I recall that the whole conversation took about 40 seconds. The most important part of the story is that, on the basis of this conversation we accidentally lost the 'G for Governmenmt'off the front - if that had not happened then ITIL (or GITIM as it would have been) would never have been taken up outside government and we would not be still working with it today. On such small matters do universes turn!
I have heard lots of other stories about why it is called ITIL - but sorry to those who like them - I was there - this one is true!
After quite a few people alerted me to this thread and asked me for my take on this discussion, I would like to throw in a few comments.
In order:
The Thatcher Influence; ITSM and Telecoms Initiatives; ITIMF to ITSMF the charter; The Falklands War; The Role of IBM in ITIL; From GITMM to ITIL; The worldwide permeation of ITIL
The Thatcher Influence: Undoubtedly the driving force behind all things British in the eighties and early nineties was Thatcherism. The answers given here are true perspectives from Brian and Ivor as professional civil servants executing on the strategy but the thoughts behind the strategy were absolutely; more effective government, lowering the costs of expenditure (I recall the CCTA managed an £8 billion procurement budget at the time that had to be reduced.) and something that was euphemistically called market testing. The idea behind market testing was promoted as learning from the private sector to improve the public sector. It turned out to be very heavily predisposed towards complete outsourcing. Ask Ivor Evans or Phil Montenaro how fair the market testing was at MOD Logistics.
I doubt anyone has the slides anymore but the best representation of the thoughts behind the strategy that ultimately became ITIL was enshrined in a presentation by Peter Tebby of the Civil Service College at the pre-launch presentation in 1988 or 1989. This presentation was long before the official launch at the Barbican that I was fortunate enough to participate in.
While everything stated by Brian, Ivor and others is true, the winds of change that the CCTA were responding to were blown by Thatcherism. In fact when Ruth Kerry took charge there was to my mind an even greater sense of business acumen introduced in addition to the quality vision that had been John Stewart’s major drive. Certainly when I first met Roy Dibble, he wanted to be famous for contributing to the success of the government policy of the day.
ITSM and Telecoms Initiatives: As far as I know there was never a convergence between the Telecom service management strategy, known as ISM and ITSM or ITIL. The confusion emerged in the USA due to the similarity of terms and the fact that both were introduced at about the same time. ISM was a successful version of ITSM for telco’s that was pushed by executives of AT&T amongst others and while there are similarities, there were no established links. Much like COBIT and ITIL today.
ITIMF to ITSMF the charter. Brian is absolutely correct that he had the charter to create a powerful user community and I was also fortunate to be on the first board and interestingly enough there was a dicey moment when one of the board members and fellow founding brothers of the movement decided to trademark ITIMF for himself (was that Paul DiCarlo???), I can claim some influence on the change to the term ITSMF. I have always spoken of IT Service Management and never of IT Infrastructure Management. Just like I believe in Business Service Levels and not Service Level Agreements. Sometimes one is just stubborn.
I always believed that ITIMF was a limiting title and when we had the opportunity to push the ITISMF chapter in Holland we lobbied hard for the name change. Ivor Evans a close friend and fellow founding brother of the movement was Chairman at the time and through an appropriate meeting of the minds with people like Brian – the deed was quickly done and we have never looked back.
The Falklands War: This anecdote is derived from one of my earlier presentations. It doesn’t relate to the development of ITIL. I actually used it to promote the use of ITIL to create what I then called a Kaleidoscope Infrastructure, something now better named as adaptive infrastructure. The example I used was indeed the MOD findings that the Falklands War had challenged long-held design criteria for their logistics systems (before The Falklands or Malvinas for my Argentinean friends, logistics strategy was about getting 300K people to the German border in 24 hours) After the Falklands this changed and today the concept of rapid deployment forces is commonplace. Actually one of the MOD schemes derived from this analysis was the introduction of standalone logistics systems for army regiments, I believe the system was called Rapier but I do know that it ran on a UNIX system with the ITSM software supplied by Prolin (later acquired by HP and now known as service desk.)
Role of IBM in ITIL: I never heard that story about the IBM bid. It sounds like something IBM would do but not like something the UK government would have been equipped to deal with. Again remember the procurement-centric thinking of the CCTA at that time. What is undoubtedly true is that the thinking from IBM’s ISMA heavily influenced the first ITIL books (Helpdesk, Problem and Change Management). Traditionally there was particular criticism of the helpdesk book for this reason and also the fact that it did not jive with the other later books. In fact had the CCTA not changed course quickly, I doubt that ITIL would have been anything more than an echo of IBM speak. Another lost fact is that Malcolm Fry was actually writing his own version of “ITIL” at the time for Protocol and I actually looked at that when I was General manager at Pink Elephant before encountering ITIL as best practice. With no offence intended towards any of the people who did great works at the CCTA but to my mind, the growth of ITIL to international best practice was really forged in the later books. Brian in particular reached out to experts and thought-leaders from across the sea and in different walks of life like Hans Dithmar, Martin van Kesteren and myself and of course many others whom I know less well. These efforts lead to real assimilation of best practice and the strength of the books today.
From GITMM to ITIL: I don’t doubt that Ivor’s story is accurate but I do know it isn’t the entire story. I first had a telephone conversation with John Stewart in 1988. This was based on an introduction from Ken Wilson, then at Protocol. When I had showed interest in Malcolm’s project, Ken alerted me to a government project: Government Information Management Methodology. I called John Stewart up and he sent me some interesting books with red (??) covers for review. I was excited about everything but the name. Remember my employer at the time; Pink Elephant was interested in best practice for two reasons: One to train our own people and two to use as a standard for our private sector clients.
I remember a meeting with Roy Dibble about our future collaboration. We were attractive to him as we gave credibility to the work because we were a foreign company and also a private sector company who would promote ITIL in The Netherlands. During that meeting we made it very clear to Roy that GITMM wasn’t a marketable product – first of all we explained it wasn’t a methodology, secondly it was an ugly acronym and thirdly we wanted to avoid the word Government as it would hinder its acceptance in the private sector. Roy agreed to consider it and it could well be that from this conversation the conversation that Ivor refers to occurred. On another note, I refuse to take any credit for ITIL. In fact, at the time I thought it barely better than GITMM.
The worldwide permeation of ITIL: There are many founding brothers of the movement. And while there is a correct respect for the authors and managers of the books, the true success of ITIL’s permeation as a world best practice, in my view, lies not in their hands. While there were many influences and factors, two major developments stand out. The first was the creation of courses that were ahead of their time, particularly the masters’ course and the credible back-up through certification. Ivor and I made solid contributions to their development but I would definitely mention people like Bryan Dennis of the Civil Service College and Martin van Kesteren at Pink as people who turned our concepts and ideas into reality. In fact the courses today (some may say unfortunately) haven’t changed that much since the early 1990’s.
The second and truly driving force was the entrepreneurialism of the Dutch. Whether it was Exin, Pink, Quint, or Prolin the Dutch took on the propagation of ITIL like it was the second coming of the Dutch East India Company. Like ‘em or hate ‘em they took it everywhere to everybody. When the schism between Pink and Quint occurred the rivalry fuelled the expansion even further. Just like the French and the English had competed to colonize the new world, these companies were vying to showcase their success with top brand companies like ABN AMRO, KPN Telecom, Philips, Shell etc. So we saw that shortly after its creation, the Dutch ITSMF dwarfed its parent in the UK ( I think things may have straightened out now) and the Dutch dispatched a hardy group of youngsters to Hong Kong, Brussels, Palo Alto, Toronto, Miami etc and the rest is history. In fact I would bet that many of you reading this board have met at least one fanatical Dutchman on your own ITIL travels.
And now the propagation continues through prominent household names, such as Proctor and Gamble, Hewlett-Packard, State Farm, Microsoft, ChevronTexaco and many others. The early pioneers have lost some of their steam and many of the young innocents sent out to colonize have now settled down as independent consultants or joined larger companies but the movement is still there.
Contrary to Ivor’s undertone, I think it does matter how things started. Even if my memory is not entirely as accurate as it might be, it is important to remember that people make things happen. Whether it is Margaret Thatcher, a single lady who changed a nation or John Stewart who gave birth to a new standard that changed our industry or whoever has fought with us to propagate ITIL, this success didn’t come by accident.
It came from a lot of effort and it continues to be successful only by the daily exertions of many. I know that in my efforts at HP, many people worked for many years to create what I believe is the best reference that ITIL/ITSM has. There were no accidents and a lot of obstacles along the way.
So the success of ITIL is about the power of people – a slogan that ironically both Margaret Thatcher and Karl Marx subscribed to!
Thank you for your interest and keep up the good work.
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