I spent Memorial Day weekend in San Francisco and got some much needed mental rest. Over the course of the weekend, I had a couple of experiences that made me think about the meaning of ITIL, but it might surprise you what they were.
First, I stumbled into a fair trade shop in Healdsburg and came across a map with the fun title, "What's up? South!" An image is below. It was simply a map of the world printed "upside down" but with the name of each country, ocean, etc. printed "correctly." The result is an entirely new view of the world. If you step back and look at this with "fresh" eyes and don't let your mind automatically flip it around for you, you will realize how an arbitrary decision (who decided that north was "up"?) can inform our perspective to the point that we don't challenge it. I must have spent 10 minutes just taking it in.
Later in the weekend, we were wandering down (or was it up?) to North Beach for some good Italian and rather than cutting over on Green as we had intended, we continued down Powell....and stumbled across this little restaurant called Pena Pachamama - an amazing Bolivian restaurant in the middle of Little Italy. They had a Bolivian band playing which was followed by a Middle Eastern band - complete with belly dancers!
It was quite an experience. There were a number of locals who were obviously of Bolivian descent and they were interacting and dancing traditional dances to the band. My wife and I felt like we had almost crashed a family party. What I found most interesting was that while there were a number of similarities to my Mexican culture, there were also some very strong differences. It was an experience that opened my eyes to a way of life that was both familiar and unfamiliar and challenged my perspective of what I would find in "Little Italy."
So what does all of this have to do with ITIL? Well, maybe I'm turning into too much of an ITIL-geek these days, but these two experiences exemplify two of the greatest challenges that we encounter while trying to adopt ITIL within an IT organization:
- Recognizing that it is less that what we are doing is new and more that we are challenged to look at what we do and who we are in a different and new way
- Understanding that while all IT organizations come from a similar place, every organization has its own unique cultural elements that must be understood and accounted for in order to make an ITIL adoption successful
ITIL IS NOT NEW
One of the greatest challenges that we have to overcome is the recognition that, for the most part, ITIL is not new. Most IT organizations are already doing large parts of ITIL in some way - you almost have to if you're going to function as an IT organization. But like the map, ITIL is about changing how you look at what is already there and challenging some of the preconceived notions of how IT should operate. Yet, when an organization embarks on an ITIL adoption effort, what's the first thing that they start with? Process development. There is always this significant effort involved with tearing everything down and "developing the new XXX process."
In reality, however, I have typically found that most organizations have a lot of the building blocks already in place. It doesn't necessarily require that everything be thrown out. What is really needed is a deliberate review of what's there, what's working and what isn't - and the conceptualization of the behaviors that will drive change. It's all about organizational change - and that means changing perspectives and changing the assumed way of doing things so that new, more effective and efficient ways of operating can be envisioned.
THE CULTURAL QUOTIENT
Culture is a powerful thing. Even when cultures come from a similar history and share many common elements small, subtle differences can have a profound effect. My brief experience with Bolivian culture, contrasted with my Mexican upbringing brought that into sharp relief. And so it goes with IT organizations. Over the years, I have probably been on the "inside" of 30-40 IT organizations and no two are ever alike. Sure, almost all IT organizations operate using a lot of the same elements. There are only so many ways to structure an organization and most IT groups are responsible for broadly the same types of services, but the subtleties of how those services are delivered and how interactions take place between management and staff (among other elements of culture) make all the difference.
So remembering that adopting ITIL is really about driving cultural and organizational change, you must understand the cultural nuances of your organization before you can set out to change it. That's why an initial, singular focus on "process development" or any other type of process-focused work is often misguided. The focus must always be on understanding and quantifying those outcomes that will support the goals of the business and then undertaking those tasks that will change operating behaviors in a way that will result in the desired outcomes. Will the redevelopment of processes be required? Probably, but as those process changes are rolled out, it must be done in the context of the unique and subtle elements of the organizational culture.
That's why when it comes to ITIL, one size does not fit all. Any attempt to adopt ITIL "out of the box" without applying the filter of your organizational culture and unique perspectives will find limited success, at best. The contrast, however, is also true. You can drive significant value for your organization, making IT more effective, more efficient and more business focused if you begin by embracing the role that your organizational culture plays in both your successes and your failures and by recognizing that you must change the perspective of how both of these are viewed to truly affect change.
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