Thoughts on ITIL

Bronchitis is a real B**ch. Thus the early morning post; (It's 1:00 AM CST)
I was reading a comment on some board which I can not recall where now but the gist of them was two main concepts which I have been mulling over for some time now. The first was that IITL concepts were fairly common sense and second was that ITIL was full of jargon and is too complicated.

Relating to the first comment I was thinking, well yes many of the concepts in ITIL are common sense. So why do we even need ITIL? Now I know the answer but was working on a simple yet appropriate analogy. Then I came up with one and since I cannot sleep (see first line). I thought I would sit here and post it.

OK so ITIL is mainly common sense this is the point of the first comment. So going with this idea, lets take it a small step further. If I tell you a car tire is round can you build me one? or even simpler; if I tell you a wheel is round can you make me one?

The answer is probably not. You will need to know what the wheel or tire is for. But even then can you make one? The answer is no you can not. Why? because of the details, the components that make that wheel or tire suitable for the purpose it is designed to achieve. One would need to know and understand the details.

ITIL is the same idea the difference is in the details, the details are what allow one to implement the framework as a benefit to ones organization. So yes the basic concepts are simple, you can even boil all of ITIL down to saying have good open communications between departments. But will this help you?; maybe a little. The key is in the details and being able to have a masterful grasp of said details. Just knowing a wheel and tire and are round does not mean you can make the best wheel or tire.

The second comment was that ITIL is full of jargon and is complicated. OK this one is real simple to address. ITIL is about optimizing your entire IT department. Yes this is complicated and if you are serious about improving your IT department then it will take some time, energy, analysis and studying. My advice is that if you think ITIL is complicated you are correct, so whats' your point? Nothing worth achieving comes easy.

Does ITIL work? yes
Is ITIL the best solution for your organization? Maybe (why are you asking would be my first question?)
Can your organization benefit from implementing ITIL? Probably

In conclusion ITIL is not for every organization out there and it is by far not the only option. However, is ITIL industry proven (yes), does it have industry wide accepted practices (yes), do many successful organizations utilize ITIL (yes). So maybe you need to be asking yourself why you have not looked into ITIL before?