best practice

Over a year ago, the IT Skeptic argued that ITIL is not best practice. Now Version 3 is upon us, has anything changed?

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Keep an eye on Lean. It is the next big thing (fad or real change?). I always watch what is coming across from manufacturing to IT because - in the service management area at least - that is the trend: manufacturing teaches us.

“Best” is a brave word. “Best” leads with the chin.

The following is reprinted with permission:

All the published ITIL documents define ITIL as Best Practice. (Do you recall how Winnie the Pooh said things in Title Case to show that they were Very Important?) We define Best Practice as “an industry accepted way of doing something, that works” and “the best identified approach to a situation based upon observation from effective organisations in similar business circumstances”. Both of these are excellent and accurate definitions of how the term is used in the ITIL context. I have a concern with the word “Best”. This is an emotive and judgemental term that to me implies several things:

I worked with a number of clients in a previous vendor life who were struggling to “do ITIL” because they felt (or had been told) they had to. There was little or no funding, often no project. And why?