Dear Skeptic - overall a fair and balanced review. I'd like to admit to being stroppy sometimes - thats true - the hysterical comment hmmmm - it was written on a Pacific Island in 36hrs on a delayed honeymoon whilst my wife (who was extremely sick at the time) was resting. So my grammar may have been both blunt, rushed, edgy and harsh. The editors decided to leave it all in. From the heart as they say.

My issue is not with ITIL - its a great initiative. It is with how it gets done and the relative lack of respect for other previous and as significant efforts. There is so much good practice out there. ITIL started out with a laudible goal - to be the overall framework around which our industry's body of knowledge could be wrapped.
It failed in that quest.

Its development is insular, slow, and now shrouded by secrecy. This book was written after years of pushing from my company's clients - those putting careers on the line and kids through college on the back of ITIL. The title of th ebook actually came from a customer - funny that as an acronym is spells ITSMI (Freudian?!)"

Finally, I have taken flak about it from many - all relatively good natured as we encourage any comment via our service desk web site (www.itsmi.biz/servicedesk), I have been one of ITILs biggest supporters - its the governance that requires careful scrutiny.

My reason for the book was more to express the dangers of an ITIL only approach and to remind us all of what we are in IT for - to serve the end user and enterprise objectives. You read a lot about Deming's P-D-C-A cycle and its frustrating when you realize it was Deming's teacher Dr. Walter Shewhart who actually came up with the concept, and that Deming himself said a process-improvement only approach will fail - you need to bring management along for the ride. I hope ITIL V3 gets it right this time.

Now for a quick jab at ethics...Why do we still see ITIL Foundation class numbers rocket in the US when the certification scheme is likely to change? Folks who ring us are unaware ITIl is changing and noone is telling them whilst they call with a request for training.

Why are vendors NOT explaining this? Is it the money? Where are course provider ethics in all this? More hysteria from me???? Possibly... again thank you