Why ISO 20000 Puts ITIL in Further Peril

The publication of an international generic standard for IT Service Management was always bound to change the landscape. Even ignoring other considerations, the fact that its scope is wide enough to over-arch the different frameworks gives it the higher ground in terms of applicability.

The defining diagram is this one, from ISO 20000 Central:



The key here is that the ITIL block in the triangle is actually INTERCHANGEABLE. It can be another framework such as MOF, or it can be a number of frameworks. It certainly does NOT have to be ITIL.

LONGER TERM
The long term impact of this upon ITIL in particular is likely to be profound. Consider the following: ISO 20000 offers ORGANIZATIONAL certification. This in turn means that it can be a driver for market differentiation, effectively a direct profit driver. The attraction of this to corporates is therefore very clear and obvious.

Now drill down a little deeper. As ISO 20000 can be used to leverage corporate advantage, when corporates are looking to train their ITSM staff and to support INDIVIDUAL level certification, what sort of scheme do you imagine will attract them?

You have got it: an examination/certification scheme that openly embraces ISO 20000 from the bottom up. Is that ITIL? I don't think so.

This is where BCS-ISEB and EXIN may have been extremely cute. Even in their very first joint press release they explicitly mention ISO 20000. When they create their examination and certification process they have the opportunity to fully embrace the new scenario and the new ITSM world. They can link their scheme directly into the corporate objective: directly into ISO 20000. Now that is one hell of a selling point.

This could spell REAL problems for APMG/OGC and their much more contained, inward looking, ITIL scheme. As time progresses, from an executive perspective, this may well begin to look to be a narrow proprietary MOF type diversion. This impression becomes even more acute when instead of seeking ways to open ITIL to the market and to the world, they apparently focus effort on the creation of the hideously titled "Intellectual Property Rights Board".

And whilst they continue to attempt to build these walls around the framework - the relentless tide continues to flow.

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.