The IT Skeptic - Comments for "The state of ITIL"

CMDB is useless

skeptic — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 03:18:36 +0000

I don't think a CMDB is useless. It would be great to have one. An Aston Martin DB9 wouldn't be useless either.

For 95% of IT shops, including those with one staff member, a CMDB is over-expensive and over-engineered. There are better uses for limited resources of time and money. THAT's what I mean by the 5% Club. The reason i "rant" about CMDB is because the vendors don't say that. Oh no! the implication is that you are in some way deficient if you don't have one, and all your incidents will disappear in seconds if you do.

A CMDB doesn't suck less than the alternatives, not if you evaluate it against the alternatives on all levels including ROI and portfolio management of projects. A CMDB only looks good if you narrow the criteria to tech features and sexiness. We must remember we are not here to buy toys, we are here to maximise value for our employers.

A double-standard?

Marty S — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:26:07 +0000

Skeptic,

I enjoyed skimming the paper -- one of the few level-headed documents regarding ITIL that I have seen. I do have to comment on your continuing rant that only 5% have fully implemented a CMDB (which may be true) implying that a CMBD is useless (which probably is incorrect).

As you say of ITIL in general, "the flaws don't matter" which is another way of saying, "ITIL sucks less than the alternatives" or more politely, "ITIL is less ineffective than the alternatives." The alternatives would include the status quo.

I would suggest that the same is true for a CMDB. It sucks less than the alternatives, which is far from declaring a CMDB as the answer to all things in ITSM.

Looking at it another way, it would not surprise me if the number of shops which have fully embraced ITIL is near zero. The zero percent club?

As always, your work was good analysis and I thank you for sharing.

Cheers,
Marty

clarification for Aale

skeptic — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:41:00 +0000

Just for Aale; when I said "The flaws don't matter" I meant "The flaws in ITIL don't matter enough to practitioners that the flaws would reduce or reverse ITIL's uptake amongst the general population". Of course the flaws matter to me :) Half this blog is about the flaws in ITIL the content or ITIL the movement. But clearly they don't matter to the general IT population.

meaninglessness

skeptic — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 01:05:00 +0000

The paper itself addresses the meaninglessness of "adopted" and points out that when asked about strictly adhering to ITIL, only about 10% put their hands up

comments

skeptic — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 01:03:12 +0000

The paper was much adjusted on feedback from the reviewers. The comments included are additional opinions as background

Bad Science

JamesFinister — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:42:26 +0000

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but Ben Goldacre's book "Bad Science" is an interesting and relevant read
http://www.badscience.net/

In the early days of the EFQM http://www.efqm.org/en/tabid/132/default.aspx I believe they did some research that showed how the Dunning-Kruger effect inflated self assessment scores from less mature organisations to a level that would be a major achievement for a world class organisation.

James Finister
www.tcs.com
http://coreitsm.blogspot.com/

Not only UK

aroos — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:31:17 +0000

Same thing happens everywhere. Adoption does not mean much. I think there is a difference with practicing.

Practicing is relatively easy to measure. One should not ask: "Have you implemented (adopted) ITIL Change Management?" Instead ask "How many change requests were submitted and what was your change success rate in 2011?"

A response like 5000 and 95% is a guess, so no process.

Aale

Careful analysis and interesting conclusions but ...

deaf-llama — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 11:58:49 +0000

... as you said the resources used were of variable quality but you have made that absolutely clear. I was pleased to see that your academic paper was peer reviewed but very surprised to see that both the reviewers' and your comments were included in the paper instead of being used as the basis for adjustment of the paper. Was there a reason for this?

Where's the beef

ServiceSphere — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 23:54:42 +0000

Ok showing up for this one.

ITIL principles are timeless

skeptic — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:07:48 +0000

For a formal white paper I was only willing to attempt analysis not prognostication or punditry (that's all I was engaged for too).

Yes I think we'll have a more moderate, mature view of ITIL in future and both extremes will fall away.

ITIL flourishes because it is useful. The flaws don't matter. ITIL is the hitchhiker's guide. And it is useful at a level that doesn't age. It talks about principles that are timeless (which is why predictions of it losing relevance are b.s.). I'll be discussing this at the South African conference.

I found this paper very

Adam Holtby — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:12:18 +0000

I found this paper very useful. The multiple snippets of additional opinions was also valuable. An excellent piece!

Repeat business

JamesFinister — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 08:02:15 +0000

Something else the global ITIL market can take comfort in is the mature UK market some organisations are "adopting ITIL" for the second or third time, sometimes more.

James Finister
www.tcs.com
http://coreitsm.blogspot.com/

Interesting paper. Though I

Visitor — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 05:18:05 +0000

Interesting paper. Though I notice it stops just short of two consequential questions:

1 - If the hype cycle is a predictive tool, does this mean there is a slope of enlightenment in ITIL's future? Or is there a different prognosis?

2 - Why does ITIL flourish? There aren't many topics in IT that remain relevant for decades. I can name only one other (maybe two). Is there a generalizable reason?