Ten Years Later

This week, ITSM Academy will celebrate its tenth anniversary.    Our whole team will be in Fort Lauderdale at our annual “all hands” meeting. We will use this time to draw on each other’s energies, ideas and capabilities to review the past, assess the present and prepare for the future to ensure that we continue to deliver value to our customers and to each other.

Ten years ago, many organizations were unfamiliar with ITIL or service management.  Awareness was slow and mostly at the large enterprise level.    There was not a lot of ITIL education available in the US.  The primary areas of focus were Incident and Change Management. Lisa and I helped found the 9^th itSMF USA Local Interest Group in South Florida. 

Things have certainly changed.  Here are a few of my observations:

• ITIL is no longer just for the Fortune 1000 organization.  The need for service management programs and practices has transcended every vertical market including government, non-profit, global and local organizations.  This is a very positive indicator about scalability and the fact that you do not need a million dollar budget to manage your services.
• Service Management is shifting the focus from apps to services.  The definition of “service” is still not as business-centric as it should be but we are closer than ever before.  Service Catalogs are more common and are being used to request and understand services by both the business and IT.
• Service Management programs are maturing and moving beyond Incident and Change Management.  Today’s roadmaps include processes such as Problem Management, Demand/Capacity Management and Service Portfolio/Service Catalog/Service Level Management.
• More organizations are interested in implementing Service Management Offices (SMOs).
• While ITIL is a great service management framework, it is not perfect and cannot stand alone.  More and more organizations are integrating their service management practices with frameworks such as Agile, Lean, DevOps, Project Management and Cobit.
• Interest in organizational change concepts is increasing.  Change the way people think and you are more likely to change the way they behave.
• Mobile computing, the cloud, BYOD and other influences are forcing IT to move faster and be more efficient.   Traditional service management will need to upgrade to Agile Service Management and leverage methodologies such as Scrum to improve velocity and workflow.
• DevOps is revolutionizing the relationship and flow between IT development and operational teams. Organizations will have to assess and improve culture, automation, measurements and sharing (CAMs) in order to compete.
• The future is now.

Technical innovations over the past ten years have been remarkable – from desktops to laptops to smartphones, tablets and beyond.   The next ten years will be an even wilder ride.  We are getting ready - are you?