To many people ITIL seems like the antithesis of Agile, with process-heavy, manual checks and approval gates a blocker to rapid delivery. However, at its core ITIL recommends iterative and continual improvement of software services based on the ‘Plan, Do, Check, Act’ (PDCA) cycle of Deming, an approach also central to DevOps. In this talk we’ll explore how – if implemented appropriately – ITIL and Agile can complement each other for a DevOps approach to iterative evolution of successful software systems. From our talk at Unicom DevOps Summit on 26th March 2015 in London.

1. Experiences joining Agile
and ITIL® for DevOps
Unicom DevOps Summit, 26th March 2015, London
#unicomdevops
Rob Thatcher, Skelton Thatcher Consulting

2. Agile (Scrum), ITIL®, DevOps
Aligning Scrum and ITIL®
Focus on feedback

3. Why?
• Building service management from scratch in Agile
organisation
• Digital transformation : software moving from on-
premise to Saas, building service management and
Operations approach
• Software delivery and operations strategy, Agile
with Service management and DevOps initiative

4. Terminology

5. Agile

6. Agile
Iterative, early delivery
Collaboration with stakeholders
Respond to changes
“Working software”

7. Agile
Commercial cannot specify all details
We do not know how users will react
Hypothesis-driven feature development

8. Agile
Allows us to explore a problem domain
Reduced need for analysis
Makes space for learning
Acknowledges that needs evolve

9. Gaps in Agile (?)
Operational features
Software as ‘service’ vs ‘product’
Secondary users
(as practised by many organisations)

10. IT Service
Management

11. ITSM
Effective management of IT services
Services, not products
Ongoing lifetime
ITIL® is a Registered Trade Mark of AXELOS Limited

12. ITIL
(?)
“service desk”
“enterprise”
“cumbersome”
“anti-agile”

13. ITIL®
A library of good practices for ITSM
Not a prescriptive framework!
Continual improvement
Ongoing services, not finished s/w
ITIL® is a Registered Trade Mark of AXELOS Limited

14. Agile, ITIL®
A shared focus on working software
Iterative improvement
Collaboration

15. Observations

16. Anti-ITIL sentiment seems
widespread
Perception of Bureaucracy
‘Belief’ that Agile will fix all..

17. ITSM Purpose Misunderstood
ALL or nothing ITIL approach
*Missing ‘Continual Service
Improvement

18. Aligning Agile and ITIL®

19. Feedback in Agile (Scrum)

20. Feedback in ITIL®

21. Feedback in ITIL®

22. Focus on feedback

23. Feedback
Improve output quality

24. Plan – Do – Check – Act

25. Agile and ITIL®

26. Mapping Agile & ITIL® to PDCA

27. DevOps feedback
Gene Kim, http://itrevolution.com/the-three-ways-principles-underpinning-devops/

28. DevOps feedback
Gene Kim, http://itrevolution.com/the-three-ways-principles-underpinning-devops/

29. DevOps feedback
Gene Kim, http://itrevolution.com/the-three-ways-principles-underpinning-devops/

30. Feedback
“A culture of continual
experimentation and learning”
– Gene Kim

32. Focus on feedback
Feedback is essential for effective software
Agile: feedback during dev
ITIL®: feedback during operation
DevOps: feedback during dev and operation

34. Recapitulation

35. Agile, ITIL®
Complementary, not conflicting
Iterative improvement
Focus on working software

36. Agile, ITIL®
Focus on feedback loops
Shorten the feedback cycles
Encourage collaboration

37. Further reading
Agile and ITIL: and how they integrate
[BCS]
http://bit.ly/BCSAgileITIL
Best practice in the cloud
[Axelos]
http://bit.ly/CloudITIL

38. Thank you!
http://skeltonthatcher.com/
enquiries@skeltonthatcher.com
@SkeltonThatcher
+44 (0)20 8242 4103
Slides © Skelton Thatcher Consulting Ltd. All rights reserved.