The Top Three ITIL Implementation Mistakes (And How To Avoid Them!)

[IT Service Guy]

I'm starting this thread - in the hope that many other ITIL Practitioners and Service Delivery People - will add their own personal experience.

If successful, this thread should grow into a valuable list of "What To Avoid" and "If It Does Happen - What To Do" when implementing ITIL.


To clarify the scope: -

- Only submit your Top 3 Mistakes
- Accompany each one with your best ideas/thoughts for a solution or workaround
- Only 3 mistakes are allowed (this is to help crystalise your thinking)
- You can submit your mistakes safe in the knowledge that you have heard about them - rather than they actually happenned at your organization - so reading this thread does not (necessarily) mean that your organization has experienced them!
- Try to avoid repeat Mistakes - be original


What to do now?

1. Think through your recent ITIL implementation (process / tools / people)
2. What went wrong and why?
3. What did you do? (or could you have done - if allowed)
4. Post them quickly while they are fresh in your mind

If we all pull together - we can make this a very valuable thread for everyone!


Measures of Success: -

- We know we have been successful when a 'major' publication or web site posts a link to this thread - that's our first measure of success.

- We know we have been successful when someone posts a comment saying how they read through this thread and actually prevented a mistake in their organization - second measure of success (open to others!)


PLEASE ADD YOUR TOP 3 MISTAKES AND REMEDIES...

[IT Service Guy]

Ok,

It seems only fair that I go first...

Mistake #1

Not ensuring that the top IT Stakeholder (in this case a UK IT director) actually understood ITIL, the benefits of ITIL, How much it would cost and most importantly how much ROI we could achieve.

Result > Independant Island of best practice goes it alone, receives some support from fellow 'converts' but quickly hits challenges such as the Development team refused to go through Change Management because, "it slows us down too much".

Next Time > Spend quality time educating and carefully coaching the IT Director - perhaps by setting up some time with one of his/her peers in the itSMF. Someone who can explain the benefits at his/her level. Someone who has direct experience at the same level.


Mistake #2

Trying to do too much, too soon across too many areas.

Result > Fail to deliver short term, quick wins that add value and help to maintain the 'good news' stories to support future pieces of ITIL Implementation.

Next Time > Carefully plan what is to be achieved, when and ensure that enough time and resource is focussed on delivering a targetted number of quick wins in the early days. Also, ensure that effort is expended on a internal communications campaign to communicate the benefits and value of these quick wins.


Mistake #3

Getting Bogged Down in the details of re-engineering process and procedures

Result > People got a bit bored and "ITIL" became tarred with a brush that was more about boxes and flow diagrams than enhancing Service Delivery to unlock Business Benefits.

Next Time > Get the core details done, make them 'fit for purpose' and then move on. Things can always be enhanced at a later stage. Don't let the details become the main focus.

[mushtaqrehman]

An article by Malcom Fry expalins top 10 reasons:

1- Lack of management commitment
2- Spending too much time on complicated process diagrams
3 - Not creating work instructions
4 - Not assigning process owners
5 - Concentrating too much on performance
6 - Being too *****ious – attempt to implement too many processes at once,
7 - Failing to maintain momentum
8 - Allowing departmental demarcation
9 - Ignoring solutions other than ITIL – (COBIT), Six Sigma, and CMMi. Corporate control requirements, such as Sarbanes-Oxley and Basel II, can also affect ITIL.
10 - Not reviewing the entire ITIL framework - e.g. Security Management and ICT Infrastructure Management books.

[mushtaqrehman]

6 - Being too *****ious (not sure why it appears as ****ious)!

[IT Service Guy]

Thanks for the reply... yes, I read those and applied further discussion to them at my old Blog here:-

http://dritil.blogspot.com/2005/10/i...esterdays.html

The thing is - everyone's working in a different organization with different stages of ITIL maturity - so it's impossible to have one definitive list (like Malcolm's) but I agree it's a great starter for us all!

The purpose of this thread is to capture and share failure experiences in the hope that we can all learn more and think through why ITIL Implementations fail in the first place - and prevent them from occuring in our projects.

I wonder if anyone else is 'brave' enough to publish theirs in this thread??

[rjp]

I'm going to be a 'wee bit' controversial:

Top 3 reasons ITIL implementation fails:

1) Applying a service management framework to meet infrastructure operation objectives.

2) Not reading the glossary (the most important chapter in the whole framework): You can adopt and adapt the process, but mess with the basic definitions and you are in deep trouble.

3) Implementing "ITIL" - you should be implementing service management, and that will take more than ITIL (Cobit, CMMI, Prince2, sound governance, etc etc.).

[VaioBoyAus]

ITIL Transformations fail for the same reason Projects fail:
1) Poorly or incorrectly developed business case
2) Incomplete Requirements
3) Inadequate Stakeholder Management
4) Overstating the benefits
5) Poor project management

[The Skeptic]

1) not making People the top priority: cultural change. This requires executive commitment, inclusive consultation, cultural fit, communications, training, marketing, fun etc etc
2) not putting Process second after People: never mind what will it look like or run on; how will it work? Forget the things and look at the actions. Listen in your next workshop: how many people are stuck on nouns and how many are talking in verbs?
3) not leaving Product/Technology/Things to last. Once the process is understood, THEN we can plan the forms, the schema, the cool software... and then we can write the documentation ONCE.
More on this at the IT Skeptic

[joe]

1- Focus too much on technology, instead of people and processes.
2- Going into an analysis paralysis in process design, instead of keeping it simple for a start.
3- Operational staff too busy with day to day firefighting to make time for ITIL.