A practical

approach to
ITIL 4 adoption

10 mistakes to avoid and 10 steps to follow

10 mistakes to avoid
and 10 steps to follow
ITIL adoption is widespread, with tens of thousands of
organizations already reaping its benefits globally. But,
as with any new ways of working, there are a number
of common ITIL adoption mistakes to avoid—with these
applicable to ITIL v3 and the newer ITIL 4.

When you adopt ITIL best practices, it’s important to

learn from those who have gone before and the drivers
of successes and failures. This will increase the speed
and success of your ITIL adoption and likely save you
and others heartache.

A practical approach to ITIL 4 adoption 10 mistakes to avoid and 10 steps to follow | 2

 The top 10 ITIL vision mistakes
Different organizations have different interpretations as to what
ITIL is and isn’t. In fact, many common mistakes stem from those
involved in ITIL adoption not fully understanding what ITIL is, how
it should be used, and the extent to which it will improve IT service
delivery and support.

Ten common mistakes to avoid when you’re educating your

organization on ITIL adoption are:

1 Believing the goal is "ITIL compliance."

ITIL is a service management best practice framework and not
a gold standard for your organization to be measured against.
Importantly, there’s no such thing as “ITIL-compliance.”

2 Thinking that ITIL is an industry standard.

ITIL is merely guidance. It’s a collection of good things to do,
as opposed to a standard that can be measured against or
complied with. ITIL is about adopting and adapting, not the
blanket application of one fixed set of activities.

3 Viewing ITIL adoption as the desired outcome.

It’s not about doing ITIL but rather using ITIL to achieve better
outcomes—so ITIL is not the end (or desired outcome) but the
means to an end.

4 Adopting ITIL as a silver bullet.

ITIL will not magically improve everything that’s wrong;
however, ITIL will improve operations and outcomes for
organizations that commit to the concepts of the ITIL 4
service value chain (or the v3 service lifecycle).

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 5 Incorrectly positioning ITIL.
Organizations must understand that ITIL is about following
guidelines for improving IT and business operations, as
opposed to simply adopting ITSM best practices.

6 Running an “ITIL project.”

Instead, it needs to be viewed as a business-focused project,
for example, to improve productivity, the speed of innovation,
and customer satisfaction to reduce costs, risks, and
businessdebilitating IT issues.

7 Not understanding the difference between ITIL

and ITSM.
While there’s a lot of overlap between ITIL and ITSM, they’re
not the same thing. Plus, with ITIL 4, the focus is now on
service management, not solely ITSM, which helps to facilitate
enterprise-wide use of ITIL best practice.

8 Believing that ITIL is the only ITSM framework

or standard.
It might be the most popular ITSM approach, but there are
many others such as COBIT, ISO/IEC 20000, IT4IT, and VeriSM.
In fact, many organizations have applied multiple frameworks
to align with their business goals rather than just choosing
one.

9 Not appreciating the effort needed for success.

As with any project, insufficient effort will adversely affect the
expected results and ROI. This is across people, process, and
technology and the investment in organizational change
management in particular.

10 Treating ITIL as a one-off project.

Instead, ITIL requires ongoing attention and investment,
for continued success. After all, it’s all about continual
improvement.

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 5 key ITIL planning steps
Once you understand what ITIL is and isn’t, there are some key steps to take when planning how your organization is going to adopt ITIL.
These include ensuring that you:

1 Create a robust business case. 4 Get your people approach right.

ITIL needs to be more than a leap of faith that’s done
because other organizations are doing it. Successful
adoption requires a carefully thought out and
articulated roadmap to ITIL success, with the costs
and benefits clear to all.
This includes not valuing ITIL qualifications over
experience, work ethic, and common sense. You
also need to place sufficient focus on people and
organizational change management for what is
ultimately a change in the way of working.

2 Start your planning with an agreed ITIL and
ITSM vision.
What are your short through long-term goals for where
ITIL will take your organization? What happens after
the new ITIL practices have been introduced? These
and other questions will need to be answered before
moving forward.
5 Avoid planning for ITIL in a vacuum.
Required linkages exist between different ITSM or IT
management practices and integrations to consider—
even if they’re a future enhancement. Plus, be sure to
involve end users early, as they’ll be the true test of
whether ITIL is a success.

3 Fully appreciate the required timeframe

for change.
It’s critical to build out a realistic ITIL adoption timeline.
Importantly, ITIL adoption extends beyond the
timeframe for technological implementation, and a
phased approach is usually better than a “big bang”
ITIL adoption.

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 5 key implementation steps
So, you have a solid vision and a plan, what else is needed for
your ITIL adoption? Some of the following five key steps are purely
implementation-related, but others have strong links back to
getting the ITIL vision and planning right. Ensure that you:

1 Avoid the term “ITIL implementation.”

Unfortunately, “implementation” can encourage people to
focus on the technology at the expense of organizational
change management. Or they might miss that ITIL is a certain
mindset and a specific approach to IT delivery and support.

2 Don’t aim for perfection from the outset.

Instead, get the basics right first. ITIL is about improvement,
but that improvement doesn’t need to all come at once.
Yet, don’t ignore ITIL’s enabling practices such as continual
improvement and knowledge management.

3 Appreciate the need for more than the technology.

Technology alone can’t deliver the optimal outcomes of
ITIL adoption. For example, the right people can work with
less-than-perfect technology, but the right technology will
struggle in the hands of the wrong people.

4 Focus on more than the easy stuff.

It’s human nature to start with the easiest stuff and get to
the more difficult stuff later; however, organizations often fail
to progress past ITIL’s easier, reactive elements to proactive
elements such as availability management. If these are
valuable, consider an early rather than delayed introduction.

5 Use project staff well.

Third-party resources can be badly managed—for example,
when consultants aren’t focused on higher value-add
activities and there’s no knowledge transfer to employees.
Another example is when key internal people aren’t freed
up from their day jobs to participate.

A practical approach to ITIL 4 adoption 10 mistakes to avoid and 10 steps to follow | 6

 How do most companies start with
ITIL?
This is a question that can only be answered with “it depends”
because it really does depend on the challenges and opportunities
an organization needs to address.

Traditionally, organizations start with one of these three pairs of

activities:

• Incident and problem management

• Incident and change management (now called “change control”

in ITIL 4)

• Change and configuration management (now called “service

configuration management” in ITIL 4).

Incident, change, and problem management have traditionally

been the three most commonly adopted ITIL practices. More
recently though, the importance of continual improvement at the
outset of ITIL adoption is now commonly recommended. It makes
sense because ITIL is about improvement and, assuming that you
don’t start with perfection, your organization will need the ability to
improve over time. Additionally, self-service and service catalog are
now more commonly in the mix for organizations starting with ITIL.

Ultimately, your organization should start with the ITIL practices that
will make the biggest difference to IT, business operations,
and outcomes.

A practical approach to ITIL 4 adoption 10 mistakes to avoid and 10 steps to follow | 7

Next steps
Are you ready to help your organization adopt ITIL to achieve improved IT service delivery and business
operations as well as better outcomes? ITIL best practice has already improved IT service delivery and support
capabilities for tens of thousands of companies worldwide. Now, it’s your turn.

Learn More

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