E-Guide

The CIO’s guide to

ITIL in the Midmarket
Businesses across the globe have adopted the concepts set forth in the IT
Infrastructure Library (ITIL), a set of guidelines to help companies determine
best practices to achieve quality service. Now that ITIL is becoming more and
more prevalent in the midmarket, a series of important questions has arisen.
What kind of training is necessary to implement ITIL? How does a midmarket
company go about instituting such a vast framework? What is the return on
investment? Find the answers to these questions and more in “The CIO’s guide
to ITIL in the Midmarket.”

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 The CIO’s guide to ITIL in the Midmarket
Table of Contents

E-Guide

The Midmarket CIO’s

Guide to the Evolving
CRM Landscape

Table of Contents:
Implementing ITIL in the midmarket? Take a highly focused approach

ITIL at SMBs challenging but rewarding

10 ITIL implementation mistakes and fixes

ITIL cert: Industry game changer

Resources from SkillSoft

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 The CIO’s guide to ITIL in the Midmarket
Implementing ITIL in the midmarket?
Take a highly focused approach

Implementing ITIL in the midmarket?

Take a highly focused approach
By Kate Evans-Correia, Senior Director, News

When considering ITIL, you’ve got to ask yourself: Where’s the return?

If you can’t answer that question, then don’t do it, advised Larry Killingsworth, an IT consultant at Pultorak &
Associates Ltd., a Seattle-based consultancy firm.

This is especially true for midmarket firms, where resources are limited.

“If you can answer that, then go for it,” he said. “To blindly follow because some guru said so is just foolish.”

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a globally recognized collection of best practices for IT Service Management.
It provides businesses with a customizable framework of ways to achieve quality service and overcome difficulties
associated with the growth of IT systems.

ITIL is organized into “sets” of texts, which are defined by related functions: service strategy, service design, serv-
ice transition, service operation and continual service improvement. In addition to texts, which can be purchased
online, ITIL services and products include training, certifications, software tools and user groups such as the IT
Service Management Forum.

But if influenced by all the hoopla, midmarket CIOs risk getting into hot water while implementing ITIL.

“ITIL is no panacea,” Killingsworth said. “You have to implement the right parts to make it work. That’s the only
sane way to approach this. Otherwise, you’ll be spending a lot of money for nothing.”

Kathy Lang, CIO of Marquette University in Milwaukee, agreed. She said her successful approach to ITIL had as
much to do with taking it slowly as it did good planning. Her group began with only three of the proposed ITIL
frameworks—incidents, change and configuration. Implementing them was still a huge undertaking, but Lang said
the expectations among her staff of 75, as well as upper management, were realistic. And she did not promise
anyone anything she didn’t believe she could deliver.

Lang’s team, which supports about 11,000 students and 2,500 faculty and staff members, began using the ITIL
framework about three years ago. Lang, who reports to the vice president of administration, has been with the
university for six years.

“We started with an assessment of current processes,” she said. “Surprisingly, we found out we were doing better
in something than we had actually thought. Not so good in others.” Upshot: You can’t make assumptions.

Despite the higher number of implementations in large enterprises, IT analyst firm Enterprise Management

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 The CIO’s guide to ITIL in the Midmarket
Implementing ITIL in the midmarket?
Take a highly focused approach

Associates Inc. (EMA) found that ITIL is likely to be more valuable in medium-sized enterprises than in larger ones.
A key reason for this is midsized organizations have smaller IT staffs and also smaller budgets, and simply cannot
always add resources to address IT problems.

While ITIL includes a huge number of best practices that cover all aspects of IT service management, the key for
midsized organizations is to focus on those processes that are most relevant to their unique situation.

“The highest-performing IT organizations apply a vetted and repeatable set of processes that maximize the per-
formance of their IT services. ITIL is a framework that defines best practices for these processes for organizations
to leverage,” said Steve Brasen, an analyst at Boulder, Colo.-based EMA and author of a report titled “Is ITIL Right
for Medium Enterprises?”

“They need to do this if they expect to compete with large industry,” Brasen said.

“Not only is ITIL appropriate for them, but it’s probably better for them than the enterprise—it’s because they don’t
have the resources that [larger organizations] have to do it.”

Like Killingsworth, Brasen recommends a phased-in approach when implementing ITIL, addressing only the things
that are critically important at that point in time. “Don’t try to eat the whole thing all at once,” Brasen said.

Working through each problem then frees up resources to address other problems.

“ITIL never ends,” he said. “The more you do, the more efficient your environment becomes.”

In addition to working in phases, Lang said approaching ITIL as a special project was essential to success. “We
implemented all those processes as a project,” she said. “We had a project manager leading the implementation.
Giving the responsibility to someone who isn’t dedicated to the project is a bad idea. It doesn’t work because
they’ve got other things to do.”

Lang said everyone’s role was defined up front. “We treated it like any other project. That showed that it was a
priority for IT.”

Regardless, there will be obstacles. For Lang, it was cultural changes. Some people just couldn’t cope with doing
things differently—until they saw the benefits. Brasen said for the midmarket, it’s that IT workers have to wear
many hats. “Less money, more hats.”

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 The CIO’s guide to ITIL in the Midmarket
ITIL at SMBs challenging but rewarding

ITIL at SMBs challenging but rewarding

By Matt Bolch, Contributor

Lou Hunnebeck compares the challenges of adopting IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) practices to those of starting a
diet: lifestyle changes take some getting used to, and you’ll probably still crave sweets.

“IT folks are ones and zeroes people. They want a kit,” said Hunnebeck, IT Service Management (ITSM) practice
director at CCN Inc., a New York-based ITSM and IT workforce technology provider. “ITIL can be very frightening
because it takes a certain amount of trust. It’s really about changing culture.”

But more small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are adopting the concepts set forth in ITIL, which puts a frame-
work around IT practices and aligns them with business strategy. A revised version of ITIL standards is expected to
be released at the end of May, with new instructional materials to follow in about a year, according to Hank Marquis,
director of ITSM consulting at Enterprise Management Associates, an analyst and consulting firm in Boulder, Colo.

Faster reaction time, better results

Raritan Computer Inc. began adopting ITIL standards in spring 2005 to quicken reaction time to the needs of its
data centers in Somerset, N.J., and in Asia, said Neil Liu, director of global IT. The company has 400 employees
worldwide, including a global IT team of 21. The company is a leading global supplier of analog KVM, KVM-over-IP,
remote server management, power management and network monitoring and management technologies.

“It was chaos when something went down,” Liu said. So “we adopted a project management style with service
manager technologies,” including a reporting dashboard, speedier alerts when something goes amiss and remote
access. More than two dozen engineers and the IT team were trained in ITIL and collaborated on the project, which
saved Raritan $12,000 a year by bringing server monitoring in house, Liu said. Other savings include an hour a day
of the server administrator’s time thanks to better reporting and increased compliance with Section 404 of the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

“Don’t do ITIL for the sake of ITIL,” Liu said. “You have to find that pain point that ITIL can solve to develop a stan-
dard operating procedure that any team member can pick up and follow.”

Hunnebeck said her company doesn’t stress ITIL in its IT projects, but the methodology is important to help SMBs
achieve strategic goals. “We call it quality or an operational excellence program,” she said. “ITIL is just one of the
tools to achieve that business objective.”

Training staff and ITIL certifications

ITIL was developed by the United Kingdom’s Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency in the late 1980s,
but it has taken on new importance in recent years as SMBs have recognized IT as an integral part of a company’s
business processes. That recognition, however, puts a heavy burden on once-maverick IT departments that now
must rein in their superhero mentalities.

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 The CIO’s guide to ITIL in the Midmarket
ITIL at SMBs challenging but rewarding

Although budgets are a concern at companies of all sizes, SMBs feel that pain more acutely. Gaining ITIL certifica-
tions can stretch already tight budgets and put additional pressure on employees—both those being certified and
those left behind to pick up the slack. But the payoff is more efficient processes and the integration of IT through-
out the organization.

Current ITIL training will remain valid even after new curricula based on ITIL v3 is developed, Marquis said. A preview
of v3 indicates a consolidation of the current library of nine books to five. The new books are service strategies: serv-
ice design, service transition, service operation and continual service improvement.

Foundation is the basic ITIL certification, which covers the 10 core processes of ITIL. Two-day “exam-cram” ses-
sions or a three-day program that also explores real-world applications through case studies and role-playing can
cost participants between $700 and $1,500, Marquis said.

The Practitioner certification offers an in-depth look into key processes. Practitioner exams are focused on four clus-
ters: support and restore (service desk), release and control (back-office functions), agree and define (service-level
and financial management) and plan and improve (availability, capacity and continuity management). Courses gen-
erally are five days and cost around $2,500.

Service Manager is the highest level of ITIL certification. Courses can run up to 15 days, including two testing days.
And it’s not cheap. Costs range from $8,000 to $12,000. This certification is geared toward project managers and
those who lead ITIL initiatives at their organizations.

Keep your operations in top shape

Electronic control device manufacturer Phoenix Contact had an ISO 9001 certification, but its IT function around the
service desk wasn’t as robust as network operations manager Bill Sheaffer thought it should be. Phoenix Contact,
which has its U.S. base in Harrisburg, Pa., employs 500 workers domestically, including 20 in its IT department.

“We were looking for best practices around our service desk and a good framework,” Sheaffer said. “Like a mechanic
who never fixes his own car, we always get to our stuff last.”

After training three managers in Foundation last year, the remaining Phoenix IT staff will undergo ITIL training this
summer. To help offset costs, the company received state technology funds, a viable option for many companies to
explore as city, state and regional entities compete to attract and retain industry.

Sheaffer said executive buy-in is vital to gain support and funding for ITIL initiatives. Once ITIL concepts take hold,
projects should be adapted to the ITIL framework, instead of altering the framework to fit the project.

“When you talk about ITIL, you can’t think about the way you do things now,” Sheaffer said. “If you do, you’ll wind
up with a combination of ITIL and the way you do it now, and you won’t be any better off.”

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 The CIO’s guide to ITIL in the Midmarket
10 ITIL implementation mistakes and fixes

10 ITIL implementation mistakes and fixes

By Karen Guglielmo, Special Projects Editor

But change doesn’t always come easy. Organizations often make mistakes within the first year of an ITIL imple-
mentation, and that’s normal. In his presentation at Pink Elephant Inc.’s 12th Annual International IT Service
Management Conference & Exhibition, Graham Price, IT management consultant at Pink Elephant, addressed the
10 biggest mistakes IT organizations make during the first year of an ITIL implementation.

Mistake No. 1: There is no vision. No one is sure of what is happening with ITIL and there are no clear answers.
What to do: Make sure the plan and focus for the ITIL project is clear, so you can get buy-in or support. A vision
will also build momentum for the initiative.

Mistake No. 2: Top-down commitment isn’t necessary. The project can be infiltrated via middle management.
What to do: You really need an executive sponsor for ITIL, especially when you need more time, money or
resources. It’s hard to sell ITIL to an executive board, especially when executives have no idea what you’re talking
about. You need a boardroom champion or sponsor for any ITIL project.

Mistake No. 3: We don’t need a business case. We know why ITIL is important and why we’re doing it.
What to do: You need to articulate the business benefits of ITIL to the stakeholders. Create a project checklist that
includes the following items:

• Understand and articulate cost. We know there’s a cost for doing ITIL—but what do we get in return?

• Confirm the scope. This must be very clear.

• Specify success criteria and define benefits. Define the success of your program and how to meet your
goals.

• Outlining benefits will help justify the resources you need.

Mistake No. 4: We don’t need an initial baseline. Let’s just get started.
What to do: Figure out what you’re trying to improve on. Have specific targets identified and have examples of
usable baseline methods such as maturity assessment and change readiness assessment.

Mistake No. 5: ITIL is not a strategic project, so we can use existing resources to implement it.
What to do: Create a formal project plan and identify the best resources for the project, not just people who have
free time. Create a “Dream Team” of ITIL resources that includes the following: an executive sponsor, steering com-
mittee, stakeholders, process owner, process manager, project manager, process advisor and process team mem-
bers.

Mistake No. 6: We don’t need a communications strategy. A few emails and a kickoff meeting will suffice.
What to do: A clear communications strategy will help you tell management the what, when and why for the ITIL
project. Use a variety of ways to communicate. Most people prefer face-to-face communications (Web meetings,

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 The CIO’s guide to ITIL in the Midmarket
10 ITIL implementation mistakes and fixes

videocasts, etc.) vs. just email. Be creative to bring attention to the project. Involve a marketing or communica-
tions person to help create a communications strategy. Tailor the messages for your various target audiences, i.e.,
senior management, middle management, etc. Have a consistent message and use the same terminology through-
out all communications. Two-way, interactive communication allows for more user feedback.

Mistake No. 7: We don’t need an overall process strategy. Different process teams can do their own thing and we’ll
worry about process integration later. Let’s just get it done.
What to do: Introduce document control and establish common templates for all processes. Be consistent. Design
your processes with integration in mind.

Mistake No. 8: We’ll start with a new tool and build processes around that later.
What to do: Allow ample time for implementation. When selecting a tool, remember that the vendor’s version of
ITIL isn’t necessarily the same as yours. Listen to the vendor’s views, but base your selection on your own plan and
process design.

Mistake No. 9: Unmanaged scope creep. Manage growth as you go along.

What to do: Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Continual service improvement is a large part of the new ITIL.
You don’t need to get it perfect out of the gate. Work on making it better and keep improving. A steering commit-
tee should approve any scope changes.

Mistake No. 10: We don’t expect much resistance to ITIL. We’ll just tell them what to do.
What to do: People will resist change and need a reason to change. Let your staff know what’s in it for them.
You’re not just changing processes with ITIL—you’re changing culture and people, too.

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 The CIO’s guide to ITIL in the Midmarket
ITIL cert: Industry game changer

ITIL cert: Industry game changer

By Linda Tucci, Senior News Writer

A year ago this month, the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) came out with ITIL V3, touted
as the first significant revamp of the British-born system of IT best practices in seven years. The five-volume set,
slimmed down from 10 books, aimed to reflect the evolution of IT from marginal business player to the beating
heart of most 21st-century corporations.

While V3 was rolled out with the fanfare of a World Series parade, the certification courses for the new version were
not ready. IT trainers and students have made do with an ITIL V3 foundation course (already revised once) and
various “bridge” courses to fill in gaps for people who already have V2 training.

“The market was somewhat confused by that,” said George Spalding, co-author of the fifth book of in the V3 series
and vice president, global events, at Pink Elephant, an IT services training provider in Burlington, Ontario.

When the ITIL qualifications board meets today in England, Spalding and others are hopeful that “a whole slew of
the things that are questions today will be answered.”

The V3 pyramid, in theory and practice

The board’s delay is due in part to the ambitious aims of the new ITIL version. In addition to updating the content
of the ITIL library, the governing body of ITIL is determined to professionalize the process of certification, Spalding
said. Unlike the training offered for V2, for example, the V3 courses will be based, for the first time, on credits. In
addition, all ITIL training organizations will be required to use the same tests to certify candidates, another depar-
ture from the past.

In V2, there were certifications for only two of the 10 ITIL books, “so all of the other books were just nice books,”
Spalding said. Part of the rationale this time was to have the certifications for V3 span the five books of the library.
“We want people to be more broadly educated in the ITIL library,” he said.

Changes like these are difficult to enact, but especially so in an incestuous political structure like ITIL’s, which is
headed by the Office of Government Commerce, the UK organization that owns the copyright to ITIL, and includes
the ITIL accrediting and training companies that stand to make (or lose money) in the wake of a major revision.

The theoretical view of what the new V3 certification structure will be, Spalding said, starts with the foundation
layer, followed by a middle layer of service capability and service lifecycle modules.

The V3 Foundation layer is covered in a 2.5-day course. Participants take a 40-question multiple choice exam and
need to earn a 65% to pass. So far, Spalding estimates that more than 3,000 people worldwide have earned the V3
Foundation certificate. The average pass rate for this course is 88%. V2 Foundation Certificate holders can upgrade
to a V3 certificate by taking the one-day V3 Foundation Bridge course.

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 The CIO’s guide to ITIL in the Midmarket
ITIL cert: Industry game changer

The ITIL Service Capability modules will replace the four “ITIL practitioner” courses in V2: Release and Control,
Support and Restore, Agree and Define and Plan and Improve. The new courses, in final review, will address every
process in V3, as well as cover the material in the previous version, albeit from a “process-centric view,” Spalding
said. The processes will be “clustered” in four categories: Operational Support and Analysis; Planning, Protection
and Optimization; Release, Control and Validation; and Service Offerings and Agreements. These are five-day
courses, 30 hours per cluster. The 90-minute exam requires 80% to pass. Many people might opt to master the
cluster of processes most useful to them, rather than taking all four courses.

The new ITIL Service Lifecycle modules include a course for each of the five books in the V3 library: Service
Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation and Continual Service Improvement. The syllabus
and exams are in the final review phase; these are four-day courses, with a 90-minute exam, requiring 80% to
pass.

After the middle layer of training there will be a “capstone course,” called Managing Across the Lifecycle. This layer
in the pyramid of training makes sure that no matter how IT professionals get through the first two layers—and
there are several options—they complete a five-day course dealing strictly with V3, Spalding said, and have accu-
mulated a total of 22 credits. The capstone is a five-day course, also in review, that will be topic-based (planning
and implementation, projects, framework integration, risk management and so on) and require either lifecycle or
capability certification as a prerequisite, or a total of 17 credits.

“When you pass the magic test after taking the Managing Across the Lifecycle training, you become an ITIL expert,”
Spalding said.

V2 foundation certificate holders can also reach this level by earning a certain amount of credits as well as taking
the aforementioned five-day “Manager Bridge” courses.

There are so many nuances and rules for reaching the capstone layer — for example, no overlapping courses—that
Spalding said he expects the ITIL qualifications body will develop a Web site that allows IT people to automatically
plot a way to the top, by clicking various options. “Even we get confused,” Spalding said.

For the time being, Spalding has a recommendation: Because the credits courses in the middle layer don’t yet
exist, the long, hard and expensive service manager course, which requires 10 long, hard days of active training,
might actually be the most direct route to ITIL Expert, if that is your goal.

“Even if you were coming in blank today, you could get a V2 Foundation certificate, a Service Manager Bridge and
get to ITIL expert, probably faster and cheaper and maybe even easier than going through the middle, because the
middle is currently not available,” Spalding said.

Not a collection of cowboys anymore

The pinnacle of the pyramid—now called the Advanced Service Management Professional Diploma—is undefined, to
date, a “pipe dream,” really, Spalding said.

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 The CIO’s guide to ITIL in the Midmarket
ITIL cert: Industry game changer

“What I believe it will be, is someone who has taken all the appropriate tests to get to ITIL expert, plus has three
years of documented ITIL management experience,” Spalding said.

The ITIL board may also decide to require continuing education credits, so ITIL experts can maintain that level,
similar to those required of lawyers, doctors, real estate agents and by other professions, Spalding said.

This ITIL offering, when it happens, will perhaps turn out to be the biggest game changer for the industry, in
Spalding’s view. He uses the example of house construction, where each portion of the work—plumbing, electrical,
etc.—must be signed off by a licensed inspector.

“What is the license I need in order to design the infrastructure of the world’s largest bank? My sole qualification is
I can breathe—that’s it!” Spalding said. “We can design an infrastructure where 10% of the world’s economy goes
across it and it is just because we’re good geeks that it works and the commercial entity needs it to work. But what
is the entity that signs off? When do we get the infrastructure code?

“IT is maturing. IT is not a collection of cowboys anymore,” Spalding said. “Don’t you think it’s time IT became a
profession? I do.”

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 The CIO’s guide to ITIL in the Midmarket
Resources from SkillSoft

Resources from SkillSoft

About SkillSoft

SkillSoft is a leading provider of e-learning and performance support solutions. Offerings include business, IT,
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virtual classroom. Books24x7 offers online access to unabridged IT and business books, summaries and reports.
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