Introduction
IT Service
Management is a strategy by which information systems are offered under
contract to customers and performance is managed as a service. As such, IT
service management promises real benefit to the business customer and IT
organizations. Information systems researchers have acknowledged that ITSM is
an emerging area for further study and that it should be incorporated into the
IT and IS curricula of business schools (Cater-Steel et al. 2007b; Galup et al.
2007; Rai et al. 2006). According to Galup et al. (2007), providers of IT
services can no longer afford to just focus on technology but should also
consider the quality of the services they provide and the relationship with
customers. They further note that ITSM is process-focused, shares common themes
with the process improvement movement (e.g., TQM, Six Sigma, Business Process
Management, and CMMI) and facilitates interactions of IT technical personnel
with business customers and users.
The IT
Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is evolving as the most commonly used reference
for many IT organizations considering, or actively adopting a service
management strategy. Each framework comprises a complex set of processes.
Academic research related to the adoption of these frameworks is scarce despite
the obvious challenges associated with their adoption and implementation. Those
researchers who have explored this phenomenon (e.g. Cater-Steel et al. 2006b)
have reported a preponderance of positive perceptions of ITIL’s ability to meet
or exceed expectations.
The IT Service
Management Institute reports that typically, a service management initiative
grounded in ITIL requires a management leap of faith (IT Service Management
Institute 2007). There is no common approach
offered within the ITIL guidance
to adopt,
adapt or
implement as part of a service management strategy, proven to result in
specific, measurable benefits. In a recent survey, Cater-Steel and Tan (2005)
surveyed 110 Australian organizations and differences were revealed between
private and public sector firms implementations.
The objective
of this research is to explore these different approaches to the adoption of
ITIL and identify a set of critical success factors (CSFs) for implementation.
It is hoped that this will help alleviate the confusion experienced by
organizations faced with conflicting advice on best practices for ITIL adoption
and implementation.
The research questions which
motivate the study are as follows:
RQ 1: How are
public and private firms implementing ITIL to support IT Service Management?
RQ2: What are the CSFs for
implementing IT service management improvement?
What is ITIL?
The ITIL
framework is a set of comprehensive and coherent publications providing
descriptive guidance on ITSM. It was developed by a British Government agency
in the 1980s to promote efficient and cost-effective IT operations within
government controlled computing centres. The framework is currently
administrated by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC). Version 3 of ITIL had
been recently released prior to this study, but the focus of this study is
version 2. The two primary components of the ITIL version 2 framework, service
delivery and service support, consist of core processes that IT organizations
must put in place in order to provide quality IT services for their customers.
The focus of this paper is the service support processes as shown in Table 1.
Literature review
To date there
has been little research undertaken into ITIL implementation. In South Africa, Potgieter, Botha and Lew
(2005) conducted a case study with a government organization and concluded that
both customer satisfaction and operational performance improve as the
activities in the ITIL framework increase. Cater-Steel et al. (2006b)
replicated the research conducted with six German organizations (Hochstein et
al. 2005) with 12 organizations in Australia, United Kingdom and New Zealand,
and found the benefits realised by ITIL included improved focus on IT service
management, more predictable infrastructure, improved consultation with IT
groups within the organization, smoother negotiation of service level
agreements and seamless end-to-end service.
Although
Cater-Steel et al. (2006a) reported on the phenomenon of organizations adopting
ITIL concurrently with other frameworks such as CobiT, CMMI and ISO 9000, the
authors are aware of only two research articles examining the process of
implementing ITIL. Cater- Steel and McBride (2007a) used actor network theory
to examine the successful adoption of ITIL by a large UK financial institution;
while Tan et al. (2007) considered factors associated with successful adoption
in a large Australian-based public sector organization.
The
researchers noticed that ITIL is implemented as a project in some organizations
and for others it is seen as continuous
process improvement (CPI) or business as usual (BAU). The approach is markedly
different. When implemented as a project, the service manager seeks approval
from senior management, develops a business case with cost-benefit analysis,
defines deadlines and applies dedicated staff or consultants to the project. On
the other hand, taking the CPI or BAU approach does not require approval from
executive level, staff are expected to absorb extra work into their existing
workloads, and are empowered to effect change.
Methodology
The
researchers used case studies for an empirical inquiry into a contemporary
phenomenon within its natural context (Yin 1994). The case study method
provides the opportunity to ask penetrating questions and to capture the
richness of organizational behaviour,
but it is recognised that the conclusions drawn may be specific to the
particular organization studied and may not be generalizable (Gable 1994).
Three strengths of case study research were identified by Benbasat, Goldstein
and Mead (1987): the natural setting offers an opportunity to learn about the
state of the art technology and the ability to derive general theories from
practice; it allows an understanding of the nature and complexity of the
process; and, it allows valuable learning about emerging topics. The three
phases prescribed by Yin (1994) – define and design; select cases and collect
data; and analyze and conclude are described next.
Define and design – a preliminary
literature review was used to develop the research questions. A plan was
developed to conduct the research.
Select cases, collect data - To answer
the research questions, it was necessary to identify one public sector
organization and one private sector organization that had achieved a successful
ITIL implementation. The organizations were chosen from a number of
presentations that the authors attended during the 2007 itSMF USA conference, a
large practitioner/academic conference on service management. An instrument
previously
developed by
Hochstein et al. (2005) was selected to enable these case studies to be
compared with previous cases. At the conference, the authors observed
conflicting views given by presenters about approaches and critical success
factors when implementing ITIL. The authors arranged to interview two of the
presenters (service managers) from two organizations who had achieved
successful ITIL implementations. The interviews were recorded and transcribed,
checked by the researchers and confirmed by the interviewees as a valid record
of the interviews.
Analyze and conclude – the case studies
are analyzed through content analysis of the transcripts to identify patterns
and summarise the main characteristics of approach and identify select
quotations that are supportive of the patterns and themes identified. The
authors also reviewed the presenters’ slides and their extensive notes from the
presentations. Following Creswell’s (1998) advice, within-case analysis is
followed by a cross-case analysis. The within-case analysis facilitates the
detailed description of each case and any themes that emerge. The cross-case
analysis looks for similar themes and patterns across both cases in the study.
This method helps to build general explanations
that can fit each case, as well as highlighting variations. Conclusions
are drawn based on the themes identified in the cases and a comparison between
the two implementations. The two organizations that are the focus of this
research are described next.
The organizations
In this
section, the final research report will present the salient points from the
interviews of the two organizations and illustrate the themes with quotations
from the managers interviewed. Due to the commercial sensitivity of the
information and comments, the actual names of the organizations cannot be
disclosed. The two cases are referred to as Case A and B.
Case A is a large public sector
organization in which the IT Service Management area supports in excess of
6,000 screens. ITIL implementation was instigated by the CIO and commenced at
the end of 2005 as BAU by internal staff with minimal use of consultants.
Processes are now in place for incident, problem and configuration management.
Case B is a large organization in the
financial services sector. A business case for the ITIL project was approved by
senior management. Consultants are heavily involved in defining the new service
management processes and providing advice on tool selection. Change management
is the most advanced ITIL process at Organization B. Change management is the
most mature process with significant progress on incident, problem and
configuration management. Case B plans to have fully integrated change,
configuration, problem and incident management implemented by the third quarter
of 2008.
Analysis
As stated
earlier, content analysis is applied to the interview transcripts, presentation
slides and notes to identify similarities and differences in the approaches
taken by the two organizations in implementing ITIL. The analysis will describe
the steps undertaken by each organization in adopting ITIL, and will derive a
set of critical success factors that will be useful as a roadmap to
organizations embarking on IT service management
improvement
initiatives. Preliminary analysis has identified some of the critical success
factors and more detailed results will be reported at the conference.
Preliminary
analysis reveals that a business case was not provided in Organisation A. It
was understood and accepted that it was more expensive not to implement best practice, and that a good reason was needed
not to use an industry standard framework. The CIO drove the project and had
support from the senior executive director. It was decided not to treat the
ITIL implementation as a project as it was viewed as continuous service
improvement. Two factors that influenced this decision were previous experience
of failed projects in the organisation, and the absence of a project management
office (PMO). Organisation A
conducted a self-assessment to determine deficiencies in current processes.
Action items and priorities were developed with help from a consultant in a
coaching role with the process managers. An existing under-utilised service
desk tool has been retained and it is expected that training from the tool
vendor will improve the understanding of staff and their ability to use it
effectively. The Manager at Organisation A stated the two most important
factors are senior management commitment and funding for tools. It is also
important to provide training and ensure ITIL resources are available for
process managers. Clearly defining roles and responsibilities helped staff cope
with the burden of performing their regular duties as well as implementing the
ITIL changes.
Prior to
considering ITIL adoption, Organisation B had decided to purchase a
configuration management database (CMDB) system. It was during the
implementation of the CMDB that Organisation B became aware of the need to step
back and consider a more strategic approach to IT service management. In Case B
the most difficult aspect was to identify and engage the right people. The
Manager at Organisation B stated that she believes the cost- benefit analysis
must be the first step to gain support from executive management. Although Case
B tended to purchase tools and then develop processes, in hindsight they
realised it is better to build the processes first, and then select the tool to
suit. The Case B Manager stressed the importance of training, communication and
measurement.
Preliminary
analysis of these two cases has highlighted some important themes. Both
organisations invested in ITIL awareness and foundation training. They relied
heavily on the ITIL books and found them to be a valuable resource. The need to
focus on processes before selecting tools was endorsed by both organisations.
However, it is clear that ‘one size does not fit all’ for ITIL implementation.
The importance of institutional contexts, as highlighted by Chen and Wang in
relation to CRM adoption (2006) is relevant to this case. Specifically, the
relative level of institutional support from senior management, historical
factors in relation to previous projects, industry sector, and the reasons
motivating ITIL adoption were different for these two organisations and may
have contributed to the contrasting approaches taken. Further research will
investigate the importance of these variables.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8e83/2b0a4c3f07c0ade7c4ce46f64332b34dbc2f.pdf
Nama Kelompok :
- M. Lafasha Alfarisi
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