Lessons Learned in ITIL Implementation Failure

Mohammad Sharifi, Masarat Ayat, Azizah Abd Rahman, Shamsul Sahibudin

Centre for Advanced Software Engineering (CASE), University Teknologi Malaysia
81310 UTM,Skudai,Johor,Malaysia
{sharifi1400,nahadineh_122}@yahoo.com, {azizahar,shamsul}@utm.my

Abstract
ITIL is the most widely used IT framework in
majority of organizations in the world now.
However, implementing such best practice
experiences in an organization comes with some
implementation challenges such as staff resistance,
task conflicts and ambiguous orders. It means that
implementing such framework is not easy and it
can be caused of the organization destruction. This
paper tries to describe overall view of ITIL
framework and address major reasons on the
failure of this frameworks implementation in the
organizations

1. Introduction
Information technology (IT) is a category of
services utilized by business. They are typically IT
applications and infrastructure that are packaged
and offered as services by internal IT organizations
or external service providers [1,2]. IT has
increasing role in the companies and every
organization tries to use it to achieve its business
objectives. Therefore it is crucial to implement and
manage IT in the organizations. There are several
standards, tools, frameworks and best practices to
manage and maintain IT services. The most
applicable and widely used framework is ITIL [3].
This framework is a de-facto standard which is use
in the majority of IT companies and organizations
in the world. In order to implement this framework,
every organization or company should adapt its
activities with ITIL instructions. It means that, staff
should change their behaviors based on ITIL
methodology. In addition, there are several
considerations to success implementation of ITIL
in the target organizations. If implementers do not
pay attention to such considerations,implementing
of ITIL will be fail. There are a lot of such cases

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inthe world [4,5,6,7 ]. This paper tries to describe

structure of ITIL framework and addresses reasons
which are cause to fail implementing of ITIL
framework in the target organizations.

2. ITIL
ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure
Library) is a de-facto standard which was
introduced and distributed by Office of
Government Commerce (OGC) in UK and includes
all IT parts of organizations [8]. At present ITIL is
the most widely accepted approach to IT Service
Management in the world. It has an iterative,
multidimensional and lifecycle form structure. ITIL
has an integrated approach as required by the
ISO/IEC 20000 standard with following guidance:
[9]

I. Service Strategy
The Service Strategy provides guidance on how
to design, develop and implement service
management from organizational capability
perspective and strategic asset. It provides guidance
on the principles underpinning the practice of
service management which are useful for
developing
service
management
policies,
guidelines and processes across the ITIL service
lifecycle. Service Strategy guidance is applicable in
the context of other parts of ITL lifecycle. Service
Strategy covers these parts of IT systems: the
development of markets, internal and external,
service
assets,
service
catalogue
and
implementation of strategy through the service
lifecycle.
Service Strategy includes these processes:

Financial Management

Service Portfolio Management

Demand
Management
[10].

II. Service Design

It is guidance for the design and development of
services and service management processes. It
covers design principles and methods for
converting strategic objectives into portfolios of
services and service assets. The scope of Service
Design is includes the changes and improvements
necessary to increase or maintain value to
customers over the lifecycle of services, the
continuity of services, achievement of service
levels and conformance to standards and
regulations. It guides organizations on how to
develop design capabilities for service management.
Service Design includes these processes:
Service Catalogue Management
Service Level Management
Capacity Management
Availability Management
IT service Continuity Management
Information Security Management Supplier
Management, Application Management
Data and Information Management Business
Service Management [11].

III.Service Transition
It is guidance for the development and
improvement of capabilities for transitioning new
and changed services into operations. Service
Transition provides guidance on how the
requirements of Service Strategy encoded in
Service Design are effectively realized in Service
Operation while controlling the risks of failure and
disruption. This part of ITIL framework combines
practices in release management, program
management and risk management and places them
in the practical context of service management.
Service Transition processes are:
Change Management

Event Management
Incident Management
Request Management
Problem Management
Access management [13].

V.Continual Service Improvement

This is including of instrumental guidance in
creating and maintaining value for customers
through better design, introduction and operation of
services. It combines principles, practices and
methods from quality management, Change
Management
and
capability
improvement.
Organizations learn to realize incremental and
large-scale improvements in service quality,
operational efficiency and business continuity.
Its processes are:
The 7-Step Improving Process
Service Level Management [14].

3. Implementations failure
There are several major reasons on failing ITIL
implementation in the organizations. Most of the
reasons are on practical implementation issues of
ITIL in the several organizations in the world,
which are [4,5,6,7]:

I.Lack of management commitment

It can be said that no project can be succeed
without management commitment and drive. It is
possible to achieve isolated wins with ITIL without
management commitment, but these wins will be
few and far between. In addition, management
should involve on project to access organization to
its objectives. Fry(2005) notes that commitment
itself is not enough [6]

Service asset and Configuration Management

Release and deployment Management

Knowledge Management
Stakeholder Management
Transition Planning
Support and Service Evaluation [12].

IV.Service Operation
Service Operation tries to embody practices in
the management of Service Operation. It includes
guidance on achieving effectiveness and efficiency
in the delivery and support of services so as to
ensure value for the customer and the service
provider. Strategic objectives are ultimately
realized through Service Operation, therefore
making it a critical capability.
It processes are:

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II.Spending too much time

complicated process diagrams

on

In the first step of implementing ITIL in such

organizations, there is a great temptation to
produce complex and detailed process maps. But it
seems that producing such complex processes it is
not necessary for most of the processes and it is
wastes valuable time and resources. For example
some processes, such as incident management, are
performed hundreds of times daily, and do not need
rigid process maps, and that simple process maps
need to be created for some of the ITIL
processes[7].

III.Not creating work instructions

There is no need to create any complicated
complex process map which is waste time
because some of the organizations fail to
establish written work. It is better to have written,
published, and continually reviewed
work
instructions.

IV.Not assigning process owners

Majority of IT departments are silo-based
silo-based, not process-oriented. ITIL is process
based therefore a process owner should be
assigned to each of the ITIL processes that cross
functional silos. It is better to the process owner,
concentrate on the structure and flow of the
process, without having to focus on staffing and
other departmental issues. Process owners should
carefully monitor and manage the assigned
processes, so that it can be continually
improved[5].

V.Concentrating
performance

too

much

on

Usually, the most IT monitoring activities

concentrate on performance, while ignoring
quality and processes. For example, most service
desks can report how quickly they escalate
incidents, but few can report how often they
escalate incidents to the wrong person. It can be
said that Organizations need to spend more time
on improving quality as part of implementing
ITIL[6].

VI.Being too ambitious

Base on ITIL structure, there are several
service management processes. Many of the
organizations attempt to implement all or many
of the ITIL processes at once, that it causes
confusion, staff unrest, and poor integration
between the processes. Therefore it is better to
select the most important processes for target
organization
and
then
schedule
their
implementation.

VII.Failing to maintain momentum

Usually, three to five years is needed to
implement all ITIL processes in the company and
there needs a huge effort to implement all of
these ITIL processes in the target organization.
Therefore, there should maintain a momentum
during this implementation and it is hard
especially if the biggest gains come early in the
ITIL implementation. It should be mention that

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ITIL implementation is like taking a course of

antibiotics when somebody is ill. After a few
doses, Body feels better. But, if patient fail to
complete the whole course of the prescription, he
will soon be back to illness, again[6].

VIII.Allowing departmental demarcation

Every organization has its own structure. ITIL
is best practices which gathered by Central
Computer and Telecommunication Agency
(CCTA) in the United Kingdom[15]. And it does
not mean that every one of these processes is
related to one department. So, one or some
processes cross more than one department, and
often causing conflict among departments.
Especially, where department boundaries are
rigid and ownership is important. Staffs in all
departments should understand that ITIL is a
joint venture and success comes from all working
together; not just some parts of organizations.

IX.Ignoring solutions other than ITIL

Although ITIL is documented the industry
best practices for IT service management, many
other best practices and frameworks is applicable,
too. Control Objectives for Information and
related Technology (COBIT)[16], Six Sigma[17],
and ISO 20000[18]are some frameworks and
standards which are using to increase quality of
services in the organizations too. Therefore, it is
better to use concrete frameworks and standard
to increase quality of activities and tasks in the
organizations. At the end, it is not important
which framework is using, it is important that
quality of the outputs are satisfyable or not.

X.Ignoring reviewing of the ITIL every

time
Although Successful ITIL implementation is
very important but it does not means
organization wins on ITIL implementation. The
more important matter is maintaining ITIL best
practices in the organization. On that time, audit
is very important in the organization time to time.
Especially, it is better to review the security
management process periodically.

XI.Not memorizing ITIL books self

It is not good to just memorize and implement
all of the ITIL books guidelines. It means that
ITIL can not be implemented with some paper
based instructions without any attend to target
organization. ITIL only can be successfully
implemented by understanding how those best

practices apply, based on target organizations IT

strengths and abilities [7].

4. Conclusion and Future work

In every organization today, IT services are
very important and must be delivered in a cost
efficient manner, mitigating security risks and
complying with legal requirements. The most
accepted framework is ITIL in the majority of
organizations, now. Implementing such framework
needs a big effort comply with knowledge on how
to use documented ITIL based best practices in the
target organization?
There are several reasons on why ITIL
implementation fails in the target organizations.
Those reasons which mentioned in this paper were:
Lack of management commitment, spending too
much time on complicated process diagrams, not
creating work instructions, not assigning process
owners, concentrating too much on performance,
being too ambitious, failing to maintain momentum
and allowing departmental demarcation.
There is need to study to find out major reasons
for ITIL implementation failure in the SME
Malaysian companies which already tried to
implement ITIL framework in their companies but
unfortunately, they had some problem or failed to
implement this framework. This investigate has
started as a part of one PHD thesis and it is
continuing. The result will publish later.

5. References
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and ISO/IEC 27002 in Order to Design a Comprehensive
IT
Framework
in
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Transition,TSO publications.Norwith,UK,2007.
[3] Wikipedia,ITIL v3, Information technology
management,
24
November
20,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITIL_v3H

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[4] Nexio Technologies, How to Fail in your ITIL

Implementation - Part 2,417 Saint-Nicolas, Suite 400
Montral,
Qubec,H2Y
2P4,(514)
7983707,itil@nexio.com,2004.
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Reasons for ITIL Implementation Failures.
at Pink Elephant ITIL Case Studies Symposium, San
Francisco, Calif. ,kulesapr.com,August 2005.
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Africa,2005.
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forum(2007),
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to
ITIL,TSO
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