6 Benefits of ITIL

There are six high-level benefits of ITIL® that are achieved by aligning process areas with a desired business outcome. ITIL focuses on solving business issues rather than just improving IT capabilities.

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ITSM vs. ITIL: What’s the Difference?

If you’re not sure whether you need ITSM or ITIL®, then I’m pretty sure you’re asking the wrong question. It’s not an “either/or” decision. IT service management (ITSM) is what you do to manage the services you deliver to your customers, even if you don’t actually use that term. ITIL is a best practice framework for ITSM, and you should think about adopting some ideas from ITIL to help you work more effectively.

Here’s what you need to know about ITSM and ITIL, and how each can contribute to the success of your IT organization.

Difference between ITSM & ITIL

Let’s start with a quick overview of what these terms stand for:

• ITSM is an acronym for IT service management. It simply means how you manage the information systems that deliver value to your customers. Even if you’ve never heard the term ITSM, if you’re running IT systems, then you are doing ITSM. ITSM could include activities like planning and managing changes so they don’t cause disruption to the business, fixing things when they go wrong, or managing a budget to ensure you can pay the bills when they arrive. People who use the term ITSM tend to think of IT as a means of delivering valuable services to their customers, rather than as a way to manage technology—but even if you have a completely technical focus, your work still needs to be managed, and that’s what we call ITSM.
• ITIL is the name of the world’s most widely recognized framework for ITSM. ITIL is a registered trademark of AXELOS, which owns a range of best practice solutions and their corresponding publications and exams. ITIL has been adopted by many organizations, and there are millions of certified ITIL practitioners worldwide.

Benefits for ITIL

It is likely that some—probably many—of the ITIL best practices would prove beneficial to your organization. Organizations that adopt ITIL often find that they:

• Improve the alignment of IT to their business, providing services that better meet the needs of their customers.
• Improve the quality of the IT services they deliver by understanding the required levels of availability, security, capacity, and continuity, and then planning solutions that are able to deliver these.
• Lower the cost of delivering IT by reducing wasted effort and focusing on getting things right the first time.

You don’t have to adopt ITIL to manage your IT services effectively and efficiently, but it can certainly help. Some organizations simply create their own set of processes for running IT, and this can work. But it’s hard to develop something original that matches the years of experience that have gone into the development of the ITIL best practice framework that has now been adopted by many thousands of organizations.

Adopt and Adapt to Fit Your Needs
IT organizations that make use of ITIL decide for themselves which aspects to adopt. Many IT organizations choose to adopt only the operational processes, such as incident management and change management. On their own, these do provide some value, of course, but they are only a small part of the whole ITIL framework. However, you’ll get the best value from ITIL by taking a lifecycle approach to ITSM. This covers everything from your overall IT strategy through the design, transition, and operation of services; and it incorporates continual improvement into everything you do.

When your organization has made the decision to adopt a best practice framework, a smart strategy is to understand which approach will be a good fit for your organizational culture and to incorporate it into your own management system in a sympathetic way. I have worked with many organizations that start our relationship by telling me they tried ITIL a few years ago, but it didn’t deliver any value. When I investigate what happened, I usually discover they attempted to adopt a rigid set of processes, with no understanding of how they would fit within the culture of their organization. As a result, people would ignore the new processes—so the money spent on the project ended up being wasted. The right way to use ITIL is summarized in the phrase “adopt and adapt.” You only adopt the parts that you need, and you adapt the ideas to fit your environment rather than slavishly following the guidance.

Additional Frameworks to Explore

The smartest organizations tend to use other standards or best practice frameworks in combination with ITIL. This can be very effective as each approach brings something different to the mix. For example:

• COBIT is a very good framework for governance, audit, and compliance. It is much stronger than ITIL in these areas, and the two work very well together.
• Agile and DevOps help to ensure the IT organization quickly delivers new business functionality. They often conflict with ITIL because of cultural differences between the people who adopt them, but they can fit together very well if the organization understands the value provided by each.
• Lean can be used to drive continual improvement and elimination of wasted effort. It is a great fit with ITIL continual improvement.

If you run IT services, you owe it to your customers to adopt ideas that will make you effective, efficient, and agile. So maybe it’s time you had another look at ITIL to see what it has to offer.

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What is PRINCE2?

Discover how PRINCE2 can help you achieve your goals and manage projects effectively. Use the quick links to scroll to a relevant section.

PRINCE2 Definition

PRINCE2 (an acronym for PRojects IN Controlled Environments) is a de facto process-based method for effective project management. Used extensively by the UK Government, PRINCE2 is also widely recognised and used in the private sector, both in the UK and internationally. The PRINCE2 method is in the public domain, and offers non-proprietorial best practice guidance on project management.

Key features of PRINCE2:

• Focus on business justification
• Defined organisation structure for the project management team
• Product-based planning approach
• Emphasis on dividing the project into manageable and controllable stages
• Flexibility that can be applied at a level appropriate to the project.

PRINCE2 History

PRINCE was established in 1989 by CCTA (the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency), since renamed the OGC (the Office of Government Commerce). In June 2010, the Office of Government Commerce Best Practice Management functions moved into the Cabinet Office.

PRINCE was originally based on PROMPT, a project management method created by Simpact Systems Ltd in 1975, and adopted by CCTA in 1979 as the standard to be used for all Government information system projects.

When PRINCE was launched in 1989, it effectively superseded PROMPT within Government projects. PRINCE remains in the public domain and copyright is retained by the Crown. PRINCE2 was published in 1996, having been contributed to by a consortium of some 150 European organisations.

How Can PRINCE2 Benefit You?

Using PRINCE2 provides you with greater control of resources, and the ability to manage business and project risk more effectively. This will benefit:

• Individuals seeking leading project management skills and greater employment prospects
• Project managers
• Directors/executives (senior responsible owners) of projects, and
• Organisations.

For individuals, PRINCE2 certification is an invaluable asset to your career as it increases employment prospects and helps you do your job more effectively. This is true for any job function. A 2016 AXELOS survey questioned individuals in project management and other roles, such as IT, senior management and operations. They reported that "regardless of function, candidates do find that PRINCE2 is valuable to their career".

How Can PRINCE2 Benefit Your Organisation?

For organisations, PRINCE2's formal recognition of responsibilities within a project, together with its focus on what a project is to deliver (the why, when and for whom) provides your organisation's projects with:

• A common, consistent approach
• A controlled and organised start, middle and end
• Regular reviews of progress against plan
• Assurance that the project continues to have a business justification
• For further benefits, visit "Why PRINCE2?"

PricewaterhouseCoopers, in a 2007 survey, found that "higher-performing projects are significantly more likely to be staffed with certified project managers". Out of all the certificates that enable higher-performing projects, Arras People's 2011 survey named PRINCE2 the most popular.

The 2016 PRINCE2 report by AXELOS studied the level of PRINCE2 adoption by different organisations. They found an even size split in the level of PRINCE2 adoption, regardless of the organisation's size. PRINCE2 is useful for small or large companies, especially because it's so adaptable and compatible with the likes of agile.

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