This article will be useful for those organisations that are yet to start using ITIL and also organisations that have used ITIL but are disappointed in the results. We provide you with 5 practical tips to ensure that you are able to avoid some of the more common pitfalls associated with using.

1. Introduction
In order to improve the quality of IT services being provided and their overall effectiveness as an IT
service provider, many IT organisations have of course turned to ITIL.
Unfortunately, very few IT organisations achieve anywhere near the anticipated benefits from their use
of ITIL. For most IT organisations the time, money and effort they invest in ITIL is simply a waste.
Yes, they will have had lots of people trained, and now have an IT department full of people who have
ITIL qualifications. Typically, they will also now have lots of processes…or to be more accurate a whole
raft of (largely useless) documents containing Visio diagrams. Quite often they will also have a nice new
“all singing and dancing” toolset.
However, what will the benefit be of all these things? How will the business and the users of IT benefit
from all this investment?
Well the answer is unfortunately, that the benefit will be very limited (if there is in fact any benefit at
all). Neither the quality of services being provided or the effectiveness and efficiency of the IT
organisation will have improved to any noticeable extent. Questions will start to be asked about ITIL.
‘How come we have invested this much in ITIL and nothing has improved?’. The common reaction is
then to blame ITIL. It is a classic case of the poor workman blaming his tools.
So, how do you avoid the above situation? Well this article provides you with 5 practical tips to ensure
that you are able to avoid some of the more common pitfalls associated with using ITIL; and to ensure
that you will be able to get some real and tangible benefits from your use of ITIL.
This document will be useful for both those organisations that are yet to start using ITIL and also
organisations that have used ITIL but are disappointed in the results.
Now these tips are not intended to provide an exhaustive and definitive list of all the things you need to
consider when using ITIL
Instead they are intended to provide you with some key nuggets of practical advice that are not found in
any of the standard ITIL books. They come from our experience of helping multiple organisations to use
ITIL effectively and to get some real, tangible, benefits from it.
Charles Fraser, Partner Consultant (ITIL/ISO20000)
5 Tips for Using ITIL effectively

2. Using ITIL effectively
September 2015 © CIH Solutions Limited (www.cihs.co.uk) Page 2 of 5
Tip 1
ITIL is the means to an end, not an end in itself
ITIL should not be your goal. ITIL is not a standard. ITIL should not be an end in itself.
Many IT organisations see ITIL as something to be achieved or something to be implemented,
i.e. they treat ITIL as an end in itself. This is a serious mistake.
ITIL is not something to be achieved; rather it is simply a means to help you to achieve
improvement. So, rather than aim to implement ITIL you should instead aim to use it to help
achieve wider goals (e.g. – improve the quality of your service provision).
An important first step when using ITIL is therefore to very clearly define what it is you are
trying to achieve. What are your goals? What aspect of your Service or your performance as
an IT Service Provider are you trying to improve? This will naturally lead you to think about
which parts of IITL to use (which parts to Adopt and Adapt – see tip 4).
Ideally the goals that you do define should be measurable and should be expressed in some
form of benefit to the business or the users of IT.
Try to avoid ‘vague’ goals such as ‘better visibility of changes’. This means nothing. What is
the benefit of that? Instead, try to clearly articulate what the benefit to the business / IT users
will be (in measurable terms).
I would suggest that if you cannot identify the business benefit and benefit to the IT users of
your goals in quantifiable terms then you need to re-think your goals and give some serious
consideration to what you are trying to achieve.
So… use ITIL to achieve a goal…but remember that achieving ITIL is never a goal in itself.
Oh… and never call what you are doing an ITIL implementation or an ITIL project…call it what
it is …a Service Improvement initiative.

3. Using ITIL effectively
September 2015 © CIH Solutions Limited (www.cihs.co.uk) Page 3 of 5
Tip 2
Don’t forget about the people
Most ITIL initiatives focus on revising processes or the implementing of new toolsets (sometimes both).
Often the only consideration given to the people element is the provision of ITIL training.
But any effective use of ITIL is likely to be associated with some form of organisational change within
the IT department. Revised working practices will be introduced. People will be asked to change the
way they work – all of this needs to be carefully managed!
The need to formally manage these organisational changes is critical to the success of any ITIL initiative,
yet it is often not considered.
So if you want your ITIL initiative to succeed you will need to ensure that management of organisational
change (including overcoming resistance to change) is recognised as an issue and is effectively
managed.
Tip 3
Ensure effective Governance
All ITIL initiatives should be about improvement. The scale, nature and the justification for the intended
improvement should be clearly stated at the outset of any initiative (these are the measurable goals
that were mentioned in Tip 1). It is then vital that progress against these goals is measured.
To do this each ITIL initiative needs some form of Governance where progress is monitored and
corrective actions identified. It should be anticipated that as progress is made the goals might change.
As business and service needs evolve over time, the required scale and nature of the intended
improvements might need to be modified. Taking this into consideration is an integral part of the
Governance activity.
It is recommended that instead of rigid and fixed goals - a service improvement road map that uses a
cyclical or (3 month?) phased approach to improvement is created. For each phase, the specific
objectives, benefits, and resources required will be identified.
At regular periods the team responsible for Governance will meet to review progress, the relevance
and value of the stated goals, and to revise these as necessary to ensure on-going effectiveness.
By doing the above you will be able to achieve two very important things:
That you will be able to measure and demonstrate the benefit of what it is that you are doing.
You will embed the concept and practice of Continual Improvement in your IT organisation. This is
critical as Continual Improvements can be seen as the one of the most important underpinning
principles of ITIL.

4. Using ITIL effectively
September 2015 © CIH Solutions Limited (www.cihs.co.uk) Page 4 of 5
Tip 4
Adopt & Adapt
ITIL was never intended to be prescriptive. It is essentially a framework that provides advice, guidance
and recommendations. It does not dictate. Nor was it ever intended that you should use all of the parts
(the processes) of ITIL.
Adopt – you should only use (adopt) those parts of ITIL that will be of value to you.
How do you know what these are? Well they are the parts of ITIL that will help you to achieve your stated
goals. For example; if you want to reduce the number of service outages then you might look to adopt
the ITIL Problem Management process; if you want to reduce the time taken to resolve outages then
Incident Management might be of benefit, etc.
So, don't fall into the trap of using all the various parts of ITIL, or of simply picking arbitrary processes
from some sort of 'wish list'. Use (adopt) only those parts of ITIL that will help you to achieve your goals.
Adapt - A major strength of ITIL is that it is inclusive, and that it applies to all types and sizes of IT
organisation. However in order for ITIL to be effective in any single organisation you need to take what
ITIL offers and then ADAPT this for your particular situation.
Many IT organisations fail to do this. They view what ITIL provides as prescriptive, and they fail to adapt
it to meet the needs of their organisation. The result – instead of improvement, in these organisations
things often get worse…and ITIL is wrongly blamed for this.
So, don't be afraid to adapt what ITIL offers for your particular organisation. Don't be afraid to come to
the conclusion that some parts of ITIL are simply not right for you. After all you, and not ITIL, is the
expert on your organisation.

5. Using ITIL effectively
September 2015 © CIH Solutions Limited (www.cihs.co.uk) Page 5 of 5
Tip 5
Use ISO/IEC20000 to help guide your use of ITIL
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that ISO/IEC20000 is only worthwhile if you are going for formal
certification. Many organisations, who will never go for formal certification, find ISO/IEC20000 to be a
very useful source of guidance on how to build, maintain and develop an effective Service Management
System in their organisation.
Very much based on the principles of ITIL, ISO/IEC20000 is the formal standard for IT Service
Management.
Where ISO/IEC20000 does have some potential advantages over ITIL - is the greater detail it provides
(in the various Shall and Should statements) of the key activities and output associated processes such
as Availability management, Capacity management, Supplier management etc.
ISO/IEC20000 also makes the need to develop, maintain and improve a Service Management System
much clearer (see section 4.5 of Part 1 of the standard). In particular section 4.5.4 of Part1 of the
standard makes clear the need for “structured and formal” internal audits to be undertaken at planned
intervals in order to ensure that your processes and overall Service Management System continue to
be ‘fit for purpose’.
So using and referencing ISO/IEC20000 can be a very useful source of additional guidance and
clarification for organisations seeking to use ITIL.
The methods and techniques described in this paper are based on the service offerings for ITSM, ITIL
and ISO20000 available from CIH Solutions. For more information please contact Tanya Marshall at
info@cihs.co.uk. Also visit www.cihs.co.uk