In many enterprise discussions ITIL is assumed. But when have you ever heard Google, AWS, Facebook, Twitter, or Zynga say their success is built on an ITIL framework.
Here may be a reason why the most agile companies don't use ITIL.
ITIL and other IT management frameworks can take our genetic tendency to say "no" and codify it. "You want a new application installed? Well, you're going to have to go through the Change Management Process." Dilbert's pointy-haired boss couldn't have come up with anything better. Users who ask for the simplest things can be told "no," simply because the Rules support that position. Worse, in many companies, admins who step out of the change management framework to help a user with something small are chastised, written up, and put at the bottom of the list for promotions and interesting projects.
The author doesn't hate ITIL.
No, I'm not trying to beat up on ITIL. It's actually a pretty solid, comprehensive framework for managing IT. Given that most of us weren't doing much better of a job, ITIL offers some universal structure. My problem is that ITIL pretty muchabhors change. No, not on paper -- on paper, ITIL manages and controlschange. In practice, IT organizations use ITIL as a blunt instrument to haltchange.
How many of you have run into people who are all into process, and don't really focus on the business impact?