ITIL certification
I've been diving into ITIL in more detail lately, understanding IT best practices, and how our products and processes match up with the guidance set forth by ITIL.
What is ITIL?
ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) is a public framework that describes Best Practice in IT service management. It provides a framework for the governance of IT, the "service wrap", and focuses on the continual measurement and improvement of the quality of IT service delivered, from both a business and a customer perspective.
Certification
On occasion, people have mentioned ITIL certification, asking if our products are ITIL certified. So I started doing some exploring of ITIL certifications. The predominant company doing ITIL product certifications is PinkElephant. Their certification program is called PinkVerify.
From their website:
PinkVERIFY is a service Pink Elephant has provided to the IT Service Management (ITSM) community since 1999. The PinkVERIFY assessment criteria are based on several sources of industry knowledge and experience:
- High level ITIL tool requirements documented in ITIL and various publications from The Stationary Office (TSO - the official ITIL publishers)
- Practitioner input
- Software vendor input
- Pink’s own consulting experience
PinkVERIFY does not measure ITIL compliance. ITIL is not a standard, but rather a set of best practices that are adapted to address the specific needs of an organization. This being said, there are clear tool related practices that ITIL and other industry sources define as good practice; therefore, PinkVERIFY assesses a tool’s compatibility with the ITIL framework and these practices as they are defined within the criteria of this service.
Compatible = The software tool supports the PinkVERIFY criteria and ITIL terminology "out of the box" as part of its standard commercial offering.
ITIL Version 3 (V3)
In 2007, the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) released ITIL version 3 (V3), comprising a new set of five books that follow a Service Lifecycle approach. With the release of ITIL V3, Pink Elephant has developed a new PinkVERIFY certification scheme to reflect support of 14 processes within the Service Lifecycle.
The previous PinkVERIFY model was based on V2; however, all existing PinkVERIFY (V2) vendors with a current license agreement will continue to be recognized because all of the V2 processes are included in V3.
Certified compatibility
There is a set of self-assessments that product vendors can download to determine if a product will be ITIL compliant certified compatible. As we're a replacement for the Amdocs/Clarify product suite, and Amdocs is PinkVerfied, I expected us to match up as well. And we do. Except for one criteria:
Does the tool's use of terms and definitions align with ITIL terms and definitions?
ITIL terms include Incident, Problem, and Request for Change. We use similar, but not exact, terms such as Case, Solution, and Change Request.
I contacted PinkElephant to get some clarification. The answer from them was clear: the terms used must match exactly. For example, an "incident" must be an "incident". It cannot be a "case", "ticket", or "issue". This means that any system or business that uses the term "case", "issue", or "ticket" instead of "incident" would not pass the PinkVerify certification. This implies that any of these systems or businesses would not be ITIL "compatible".
I asked about Amdocs, since I know that they use "case", not "incident". The reply: This was not requirement in the previous version [ITIL V2] and this is why Amdocs is on this list. Under the new model the term Incident must be used.
So under ITIL V2, Amdocs is compliant certified compatible. But not under ITIL V3.
If we had gone through a certification process last year, we would be certified. But not now.
<rant>
I find this absurd. It shows that the focus is no longer on best practices, but on stringent following to terminology, independent of the ubiquitous language of the business. This is a great example of the issue with "certification" organizations - they tend to bear out as revenue generation vehicles, and have lost focus on raising the standards of quality for individuals, organizations, products, and the community as a whole.
Companies like Clarify (Amdocs) and Dovetail have been providing products that support (and in many cases lead the way) in best practices, and have been doing so for years. To say that they no longer meet the requirements for best practices (when in many ways we innovated in these best practices) shows the lack of connection from certification organizations to products, and to organizations that have implemented these products and deliver exemplary service on a daily basis.
This whole rant could be another post. Maybe at a later time...
</rant>
Focus on the best practices
Even though we're not ITIL "PinkVerified", our customers can (and many do) use our software to put in place and ensure the best practices that are at the heart of ITIL. More posts with specific details and examples on this will be coming soon.
