ITIL Against The Tide

The open movement is of course well established, and continues to flourish. It has had a profound influence on most aspects of IT, starting with software and now extending to the core of the internet itself via 'Web2', of which wiki is a part. It is almost a tide of consciousness, as more and more people understand the benefits of the free collective in terms of product and added value.

Oh what a pity that the OGC seems to be so blind to this reality and to this concept. Even greater the irony given that this is supposed to be a government sponsored body.

Consider their flagship products, ITIL and Prince2. In terms of relative global adoption, one is a success, the other a failure. Why is this? An accident? A fluke?

Well, yes, I suppose it was. Almost by accident it would appear that ITIL was allowed out of the box of ultra-protectionism, at least in part. Whole infrastructures evolved around it by virtue of the 'free market', which is a term they do not seem to like at all. Training courses, support products, books, websites: a whole plethora emerged to add real value and to help to spread the framework into the fabric of IT service management.

Not so Prince2. It was boxed in from the start, some would say almost smothered at birth, in a relative sense. There was little 'open' or 'free' in that particular arena, least of all the market. APMG were the OGC appointed 'sheriff', metaphorically handing out deputy badges to 'accredited' suppliers for everything from consultancy to training, in the form of licenses. The results were perhaps inevitable.

So now, as documented widely, we face the staggering scenario of the OGC placing their Prince2 'sheriff' into the heart of ITIL town! It really beggars belief in some respects, but it is a fact.



Whilst we await further developments, and whilst some of the current major players reposition themselves in ways which may potentially damage or ultimately destroy ITIL, I thought I would scan the airways for opinion. There is plenty of it:

Jan van Bon (ITSM Portal)
"I expect that the ITIL case is a simple "repeat business model" for APMG as you say. At this moment the ITIL market is a rather open and free market. As soon as one party is going after the profit of the licenses, we will see a very different kind of market - and frankly, I'm not interested in that kind of market". "It's just like the Microsoft failure with MOF it was so highly protected an heavily licensed that hardly any provider was interested in it. Until now it hasn't come any further than where it was a few years ago - despite of its considerable quality! The very same goes for Prince2"

ITskeptic
"The horse has bolted with ISO/IEC 20000: the world sees it as “the ITIL standard” but OGC and itSMF have zero control of it. All we need is for someone credible to publish and certify ISO/IEC 20000-based guidance, and ITIL is stone dead"

Jayne B
"The PRINCE2 type route would cause severe and lasting damage to ITIL. I firmly believe that a major reason for its success has been its openness. Take that away, and many of those who push it now, will certainly do the opposite"

And so on and so forth.

Sometimes though no comment at all actually says even more, and at present this seems to be the position of the main four public facing entities on this matter:
itSMF: Silence
Itil Community: Silence
Exin: Silence and announcement of launch of rival scheme
ISEB: Silence and announcement of launch of rival scheme

I suppose from all this that the message to the OGC and APMG is that ITIL is already out of the box. If they try to put it back in there, they will surely kill it. Perhaps they care about that, perhaps they don't, but we will find out eventually. In the meantime, the relentless tide continues to flow.