ITIL® Practitioner –

A guiding light for

service management
Karen Ferris,
Marcel Foederer,
Mauricio Corona,
Simone Jo Moore,
Barry Corless,
Arjan van der Poel,
Hitesh Patel Practical Guidance
July 2018
Contents
1 Introduction 03

2 Design for experience, progress iteratively 04

3 Observe directly, focus on value 05

4 Keep it simple, progress iteratively 06

5 Work holistically, work collaboratively 07

6 Be transparent 08

7 Start where you are, progress iteratively 09

8 Work collaboratively, keep it simple 10

9 About AXELOS 11

10 Trade marks and statements 11

02 ITIL® Practitioner - A guiding light for service management AXELOS.COM

1. Introduction
How can IT service managers and other professionals, who are responsible for delivering services
to internal and external customers, use their knowledge of ITIL® to provide the most value for their
organization?

ITIL Practitioner was launched in 2016 as the ‘how’ that built on ITIL Foundations’ ‘what’. It offers a wealth
of practical guidance for the modern service manager. At its heart sit the nine ITIL guiding principles.

This article brings together the thoughts of leading IT service management professionals on how the
guiding principles have worked for them.

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2. Design for experience, progress iteratively
Karen Ferris, Director, ITIL Practitioner Architect Team Member
How and why would an IT team employ the ITIL Practitioner guiding principle of design for experience?

One situation would be establishing a service request catalogue to automate fulfilment of the most
commonly requested services, and allowing customers to log their support requests. This would meet the
objective of reducing the calls to the service desk and eliminate the need to increase the number of service
desk personnel. It might also increase customer satisfaction with IT, as the customer experience would be
improved with the provision of self-service facilities.

However, to achieve these outcomes the service request catalogue must be user-friendly and be designed
with the customer experience in mind. This is where design for experience comes into play.

The first step, for example, could involve a series of design workshops with the customer base to ensure
the terminology used in the catalogue resonates with the customer, that the navigation will be intuitive and
that the categorization of services makes sense from a business perspective.

When the catalogue is operational, IT should use other critical competencies highlighted in the ITIL
Practitioner guidance to increase usage and customer satisfaction:

zz Using metrics and measurements of uptake of the service request catalogue would provide objective evidence that could
be used to demonstrate usage levels, encouraging more customers to consider the catalogue.
zz Organizational change management would be needed to identify areas of resistance and put in place tactics to overcome
the resistance, as well as reinforcing the benefits of using the catalogue to those who had already adopted it.
zz A process of continual service improvement would be applied to the service request catalogue to keep improving the
experience for the customer.
zz Overall, adopting the guiding principle of design for experience should show the IT Service Management (ITSM)
professional:
zz not to design anything without customer/business involvement. You need to design for the customer experience;
zz that everything IT does needs to map, directly or indirectly, to value for the customer;
zz not to over-engineer solutions – keep it simple.

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3. Observe directly, focus on value
Marcel Foederer, Master Trainer at ITpreneurs
Using the ITIL Practitioner guiding principle of observe directly, managers can ensure they focus on the
right things for the customer. Often IT organizations analyze their own performance rather than what’s key
for the client, which leads to a conflicting picture of success.

This discrepancy can happen frequently within organizations because key performance indicators (KPIs)
are often developed without proper consideration and understanding of the reasons behind the measure.

Some KPIs can actually create undesired behaviours. For example, on the service desk, many organizations
focus on the length of a call or the time to pick up the phone: these are not quality metrics and do not
encourage customer-focused outcomes.

It is important to remember there’s more to service management than metrics. Businesses need to ask:
‘why are we measuring this and what’s the purpose?’, and to be effective, metrics must be aligned with
the corporate mission and objectives. To develop these measures, the people creating them must observe
directly.

In many organizations, managers are tempted to stay safe in the comfort of their office, but this means
they aren’t on the front line where things happen. This leads to an old-school management style where
managers know (or think they know) what’s needed. Yet what’s actually required is a style of management
that coaches and facilitates the people on the frontline, who often know more about the work they need to
accomplish, and what is stopping them accomplishing it, than their manager does.

By getting out of the office and seeing what’s really happening, managers get a clearer sense of the
direction of a project. This allows them to offer the appropriate support. They’ll know what’s going on,
recognize if the work is off track, and can intervene where needed.

Focus on the value that is required by the organization and its customers. Providers and customers must
work together as a team and take responsibility for realizing that value. That can’t be done by managing
from a separate room.

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4. Keep it simple, progress iteratively
Mauricio Corona, PhD, Associate Director of BP Guru
One of the reasons that businesses overcomplicate processes in transition projects is because they are
trying to develop an approach that meets all the principles of best practice.

Quite often, the people in charge or accountable for transition projects want to achieve perfection when
designing a service; it’s a natural desire and they want to do their best. However, in ITSM, you can never
achieve perfection. Continual service improvement is critical and it’s important to, as ITIL Practitioner
states, progress iteratively.

Project owners can overcomplicate processes by trying to provide a solution for every exception. When
creating a process, service designers do need to think about exceptions, but they can’t cover them all.

But as well as trying to get a state of perfection that they may never achieve, those leading a project
are often trying to consolidate services in order to do more with less. In those instances, it’s even more
challenging to achieve best practice; this is why organizations need to keep it simple.

4.1 HOW TO KEEP IT SIMPLE

Working with businesses ranging from telecoms to financial institutions, I’ve seen many examples of
processes being overcomplicated and confusing. However, I’ve also seen how they can be handled
effectively – and that isn’t through employing lots of people.

A good service desk is achieved through simple, thought-through processes that are efficiently automated
and staffed by well-trained professionals. In fact, I once encountered a huge financial organization that had
an effective service desk manned by just four people, which goes to show it isn’t all about numbers.

To keep it simple, I’d recommend the following considerations:

zz Ensure value. Every process should provide value and every activity should have a purpose.
zz Define your metrics. What does success actually look like?
zz Worse is better. Don’t expect too much from the first iteration; it should allow you to evolve and improve.
zz Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Leonardo Da Vinci’s advice is as true today as ever: It may seem harder to
simplify but it’s more effective.
zz Do fewer things but better. Focus on the essence of what you’re trying to achieve.
zz Respect the time of the people. A 1 000-step process might be perfect but it’s too complicated, bureaucratic and,
ultimately, is a poor use of customers’ time.
zz Easier to understand, more likely to adopt. To embed a process, make sure it’s easy to follow.
zz Simplicity is the best way to achieve quick wins. On any project, quick wins are important because they demonstrate
value. By keeping it simple, you can demonstrate success more quickly.

06 ITIL® Practitioner – A guiding light for service management AXELOS.COM

5 Work holistically, work collaboratively
Simone Jo Moore, ITSM Consultant and Master Trainer
Approximately 70 per cent of all ITSM transformation projects fail, according to researchers from Gartner to
McKinsey. Of these failed projects, about half are unsuccessful because of internal resistance.

But resistance isn’t always bad. It’s good to ask questions and be challenged on your assumptions, as it helps
you refine your ideas and make improvements. Yet resistance without engagement can’t be channelled positively.
Choosing to work holistically and collaboratively with others is critical to the success of a transition project.

One of the reasons negative resistance occurs is a lack of clarity on the goals and vision of a project. This
often highlights an absence of leadership and governance at the top. If you’re going to be affected by a project
and you’re not aware of the goal and why it’s happening, why would you engage with it or look forward to it
happening? A project implemented without clear, well-communicated goals and vision is always going to struggle.

For an ITSM transformation project to be successful, it must support the business strategy and customer
objectives; it can’t be done in isolation from other projects. Therefore, the guiding principle of work holistically
must align with another guiding principle, work collaboratively.

Within a company, an ITSM project may be one of many streams of activity happening simultaneously. An HR
project, for example, could also be running, with an impact on the same stakeholders. For this reason, project
management offices (PMOs) of different projects must work together and have a responsibility to align and
collaborate with others.

By consulting and collaborating with other departments, you can also identify where different teams can support
and be a resource for the successful delivery of your project. For example, could the marketing team help with
internal communications? Is there a research team better placed to poll stakeholders and gather insight? This
expert support will make your life easier, while getting wider team involvement means the teams you consult can
be additional internal champions for your project. Ultimately, this approach will also ensure momentum and help
the change get traction.

During the initial analysis stage of an ITSM transformation project, you must access the power and influence of
different stakeholders; their support can be of great benefit to the change initiative.

By understanding their relationships and attitudes, their ways of working and the cultural aspects that impact
on how they use and integrate IT, you can create a communication plan that collaborates with and engages
stakeholders.

Having a strong insight into your stakeholders additionally supports on-boarding planning and makes sure that
once the ‘go live’ button is hit, every person has the necessary knowledge and skills. Undoubtedly, there will be
deficits in knowledge within an organization, but by being aware of this in advance, PMOs can address the gap
before they push the button.

For an ITSM transformation project to be successful, PMOs need to have an eagle-eye view and grasp the
relationships and interdependencies of all aspects of an organization and its stakeholders. Having an overall view
of the project is great, but when it comes to fruition, it’s important not to forget these relationships.

Momentum is a key part of any transformational change; as well as working holistically at the start it’s important
to maintain and nurture the power and influence of stakeholders throughout the change.

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6. Be transparent
Barry Corless, Business Development Director for Best Practice,
Global Knowledge
Why is the ITIL Practitioner guiding principle, Be transparent, so important to get right?

At times, the resolution of an incident isn’t communicated back to the service desk, and they may have
nothing more to report to the customer than ‘it’s fixed’. This can leave the service desk feeling exposed,
as they cannot advise the user on what was learned that might help them spot a problem in the future, or
how they could lessen the impacts of these problems. Equally, there might be a perceived lack of time and
resource required to send out effective communications.

As laid down in service level agreements, IT may be allowed to resolve an incident, send an email and
close down the incident after a couple of days. However, that might not work well within the culture of the
organization.

The ITIL guiding principle be transparent recommends meeting the customer, gathering feedback, being
transparent and managing expectations. This is pertinent to people who lead service improvement
initiatives; they should understand that transparency starts at home. If a service provider is transparent
within itself, then chances are it will be transparent with the external customer, too.

I will share an example of successful transparency, but first it’s useful to recognize what can happen when
an organization isn’t transparent:

In this real-life scenario, an organization was looking to introduce an ITIL-based problem management
process. But, as there was a lack of transparency about what they were trying to achieve, namely looking
for underlying causes and reducing incidents – the staff saw it as a way to put incident management out of
business, and make service desk staff redundant.

Ultimately, the organization’s goal was to reduce the number of incidents, particularly where a customer
was unhappy with a repeated problem. But by not being transparent and communicating fully, the IT
department created its own negative story, which had a direct effect on the team’s enthusiasm for the job.
However, with the appointment of a new service delivery manager, the full facts were communicated and
everything changed, practically overnight.

Conversely, in a different organization, transparency was used to impressive effect: as the organization was
considering service improvement, the CIO wanted to ensure as many people as possible were involved.
Teams were brought together in ‘town hall’ style meetings and were asked what they would do to make
their jobs easier and what effect that would have on the customer.

This generated a wealth of ideas about toolsets and ways of working across the organization. Each idea
was recorded in a continual service improvement (CSI) register and made available so everyone could see
the ideas. This resulted in about 35 different ideas for improvement that could be used, with transparency
about who would be using them and why. It created a completely different environment for service
improvement and customer focus; the IT team felt, for the first time, measured on the value it added to the
organization, which was a real boost and bonus to them.

It takes a change in attitude to drive transparent behaviour, which then affects culture. Transparency
shouldn’t be difficult but, as my experience in organizations has shown, a lack of it will affect people’s state
of mind for the worse.

08 ITIL® Practitioner – A guiding light for service management AXELOS.COM

7. Start where you are, progress iteratively
Arjan van der Poel, Leadership and Management Trainer/Coach,
Suerte Academy
When embedding a configuration management approach in an organization, the ITIL Practitioner guiding
principle of start where you are is critical. Configuration management underpins all other processes. A
configuration management database (CMDB) is dependent on the maturity of all other processes.

When beginning a configuration management journey, professionals should start by looking at the maturity
of their other processes. This should be done with process managers to understand what’s working and
what isn’t.

As a consultant, I came across an organization exploring configuration management. Its project lead asked
technical experts for their opinions on what would be good in the CMDB. The project they wanted would’ve
cost millions of Euros, yet would have been impossible to implement. Instead, if the project lead had
focused on speaking with the process managers, and asking where they are now – rather than where they
want to be – they would’ve ended up with a very different and much more achievable result.

So, as well as starting where you are, it’s important to take small steps in configuration management. By
breaking down an activity or project into smaller parts, it’s more manageable and maintains the integrity
of the CMDB. It also ensures that you can show senior stakeholders the benefits of your changes more
immediately.

For consultants, or someone internal tasked with configuration management, it might seem easier to start
from scratch with useable elements already in existence. By completing a thorough assessment of where
a business is at the start of the process, you’ll get a sense of its maturity, what is working and what is not,
plus what’s been done before and failed.

Walking into a business and immediately dismissing existing systems, approaches and processes is
disrespectful and undermining to people within the company. Ultimately, this team has done the best they
could in the circumstances so, rather than rejecting their efforts, you can learn from them. If configuration
management was an easy task within their business, they would’ve already done it. Therefore, you can use
the team’s input to understand why previous efforts didn’t succeed and use what they learned to inform
future approaches.

By breaking configuration management into small steps, assessing where the business is now and learning
lessons from the past, organizations can create a more sustainable solution. They’ll also see greater
collaboration and willingness to participate from the whole business and ensure configuration management
happens longer term.

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8. Work collaboratively, keep it simple
Hitesh Patel, ITIL Implementation Consultant, Trainer, Coach and
Author at Learning Tree International
A lot of organizations experience frustration with their service desk.

While that’s not a criticism – the majority get things done quickly – end users get annoyed by the speed of
service desk support. Interestingly, what’s usually at fault is effectiveness rather than efficiency.

In some instances, service desks, and more broadly other IT teams, aren’t as effective as they could be
because there’s a disconnect between the team and the rest of the business. They don’t have a relationship
with other departments and often work in a silo. This can create a ‘them versus us’ attitude, when really
what’s needed to be efficient and effective is a ‘we’ approach.

The ITIL Practitioner guiding principle, work collaboratively, helps to break down these barriers.

Knowing how and where to start are often the biggest challenges to collaboration and a common mistake is
to start too big and end up in information overload. To avoid this, I’d recommend that collaboration is used
alongside two other ITIL® Practitioner guiding principles: keep it simple and progress iteratively.

Rather than thinking of all the things that can be improved, instead decide on three things. The principle of
focus on value should come into play here, as the three changes should make the biggest difference to the
organization and the end user.

Knowing which stakeholders to engage can also be a barrier but, again, refer to ITIL Practitioner.
Remember to start where you are: who are the people already involved? Could you begin with the service
desk team themselves? After all, they do encounter the issues on a daily basis.

Ultimately, you want to find the key stakeholders and get a clear picture of the current situation. Engaging
a business relationship manager (BRM) is absolutely critical at this stage, as they’ll be instrumental in
helping you uncover the biggest pain points and what’s important to the customer.

Collaboration is a great way to identify issues with current processes, but it should be maintained
throughout the lifecycle, too – and this is where a BRM can help as the conduit between the service desk
and the end user.

It’s also important to remember the other guiding principles of be transparent and design for experience at
this stage.

Collaborative approaches such as workshops and group activities can help identify issues. Maintaining
communication channels ensures true collaboration throughout the lifecycle and means teams are efficient
and effective.

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9. About AXELOS
AXELOS is a joint venture company co-owned by the UK Government’s Cabinet Office and
Capita plc.

It is responsible for developing, enhancing and promoting a number of best practice

methodologies used globally by professionals working primarily in project, programme and
portfolio management, IT service management and cyber resilience.

The methodologies, including ITIL®, PRINCE2®, MSP® and the new collection of cyber
resilience best practice products, RESILIA®, are adopted in more than 150 countries to
improve employees’ skills, knowledge and competence in order to make both individuals and
organizations work more effectively.

In addition to globally recognized qualifications, AXELOS equips professionals with a wide range
of content, templates and toolkits through the CPD aligned AXELOS Membership and our online
community of practitioners and experts.

Visit www.AXELOS.com for the latest news about how AXELOS is ‘Making organizations
more effective’ and registration details to join AXELOS’ online community. If you have
specific queries, requests or would like to be added to the AXELOS mailing list please contact
[email protected].

10. Trade marks and statements

AXELOS®, the AXELOS swirl logo®, ITIL®, PRINCE2®, PRINCE2 Agile®, MSP®, M_o_R®,
P3M3®, P3O®, MoP®, MoV®, RESILIA® are registered trade marks of AXELOS Limited. All
rights reserved.

Copyright © AXELOS Limited 2018.

Cover image is copyright Jose A. Bernat Bacete

Reuse of any content in this Practical Guidance is permitted solely in accordance with the
permission terms at https://www.axelos.com/policies/legal/permitted-use-of-white-papers-and-
case-studies

A copy of these terms can be provided on application to AXELOS at [email protected]

Our Practical Guidance series should not be taken as constituting advice of any sort and no
liability is accepted for any loss resulting from or use of or reliance on its content. While every
effort is made to ensure the accuracy and reliability of information, AXELOS cannot accept
responsibility for errors, omissions or inaccuracies. Content, diagrams, logos, and jackets are
correct at time of going to press but may be subject to change without notice.

Sourced and published on www.AXELOS.com

AXELOS.COM ITIL® Practitioner – A guiding light for service management 11

About this Practical Guidance
This article brings together the thoughts of leading IT
service management professionals on how the nine
ITIL guiding principles have worked for them.

WWW.AXELOS.COM @AXELOS_GBP AXELOS AXELOS Global Best Practice AXELOS