ITIL on the way

We're moving closer towards implementing Service Management in the department using ITIL. Our service catalogue is being drawn up, service managers appointed, and now we're looking at who can fill some of the other key roles including Change, Release and Test Managers, and Incident and Problem Managers. Several staff have been trained and have their Foundation Certificate. I know we're behind some other Universities who have already implemented these processes, but we can learn from their experience and share their good practice. Sometimes it's good not to be at the bleeding edge.

Internal resistance to change is often cited as the hardest thing to overcome in any ITIL implementation, particularly as it will involve some major changes! But I hope the benefits will outweigh some of the discomfort that these changes might initially cause. The benefits I hope to see include better incident managment and review (so that when things do go wrong we know why and can put measures in place to stop or reduce the liklihood of them happening again) and better change management (so that both costs and the effect on users are reduced). Of course there are many more, and I've been impressed talking to other Universities who are further down the road how many benefits have been realised. One which we are already seeing is how defining ourselves in terms of services rather than systems is improving our communication with the University and our customers.