Checklist progress of an ITIL project

14 questions to check on progress of an ITIL project

1. Have you encountered resistance? (Resistance is good). How have you / will you overcome that? (Ignored resistance is bad)
2. What champions have you ‘converted’ to the cause, who weren’t on board at the beginning?
3. What cultural change activities have you conducted: workshopping, communications (newsletters etc), consultation, walkthroughs, training, coaching, monitoring, feedback, celebration? NB. Emails don’t count as communication
4. Who has been involved and how, from Development, Operations, Testing, Project Management, Architects, Finance, Business Managers, HR?
5. How are you socialising new processes? (emails and posting to websites don’t count)
6. In Kotter terms, who is your “guiding coalition”?
7. Have we reviewed the decision to use ITIL as a basis? Have we looked at any other options? (COBIT, MOF, FITS, ISO20000… See p34)
8. How is executive sponsorship holding up? Are all management embracing this? Who is asking for exemptions (e.g. from change approval, or from standard PC models or SOEs)?
9. Show me the Service Catalogue (it should exist from early in the project, at least the Current services, see p36).
10. Are we documenting all adaptations, variations and exceptions to “standard” ITIL, with their rationale? (Adaptation is good, so long as it is tracked and the rationale captured)
11. To what extent are we duplicating or replacing existing process? Was the option canvassed to incorporate existing process instead? What compromises were involved and why were they rejected?
12. What are customers asking for? Have we documented that as a Brochure catalogue? (see p36) How much of that can we deliver? How much can we measure?
13. Have you identified the need for any new technology? On what basis? (Technical requirements should derive from identified process improvements – see p36). Do the vendor’s implementation services include implementing our new procedure workflows? (See p36) What customisation of tools is required? (every customisation should be resisted and justified – they add greatly to future maintenance costs)
14. Is the steering committee still active and involved? What don’t you want the steering committee to know?

From the book Owning ITIL®


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