How Much ITIL is Enough?

ITIL can be challenging when you implement it within an organization but once you are successful instituting ITIL how much is enough?  Some senior management officials feel ITIL is too complex and some IT professionals tend to feel ITIL is unnecessary since they possess the skills to employ an ITIL infrastructure on their own.

ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is a framework that assists IT operations management with bringing business and IT together. Hence it is necessary to determine how significant a role ITIL should play in daily operations and how much an organization should implement the components relevant to precise areas of business.

So how do you come to terms with the amount of ITIL which is necessary within an organization? The best place to begin determining the solution is through measurement.

Measuring the Significance of ITIL

As an ITIL professional you can measure the performance improvements which result from implementing an Information Technology Infrastructure Library using the following criteria:

• Productivity Measurement: Since ITIL is a framework and the elements that are required by the organization are integrated, focusing on the processes can help you gauge productivity.  This type of measurement will reveal how well ITIL reallocates the organization’s focus from how things work to concentrating on the business methods being deployed.
• NPV: Use the Net Present Value to help determine the importance of ITIL to the organization.  This is accomplished by quantifying the NPV for the IT services which are used within the organization. Then perform industry measurements to determine cost savings incurred by change, incident, and problem management processes.  If the savings are significant then ITIL proves to be an important contributor to the bottom line which is increasing the profit margin of the organization.
• Impact on End Users of ITIL: Does the current ITIL infrastructure meet the goals and objectives for the project? What importance do the end users of ITIL get from the current infrastructure?  What metrics are in place to assist with quantifying the number of users? How frequently is ITIL utilized and how often are updates carried out on the current data?  These are all questions to ask when determining the significance of ITIL.

To gain an accurate perspective, it is necessary to use ITIL performance metrics which are applicable to the organization and provide the highest measurable value.  Then design the metrics which precisely compute ITIL effectiveness before you create the model you will use for scoring the results.

Measuring the high value is the key to getting accurate performance metrics for ITIL.  It is also important to automate the collection of data instead of trying to gather it manually.  This serves two purposes:  1) It helps you to react faster to consumer needs and make real time decisions and, 2) It saves you hours trying to gather the data manually.

ITIL Metrics help an IT organization to determine how much ITIL is enough by defining metrics that help to measure ITIL performance against the consumer experience.  It also helps to define the IT services that will be needed now and in the future of the organization. To learn more about how Thrive can help manage your IT infrastructure contact us here!