To customise or not to customise, that is the question?
This is an argument I am oh so familier with. having provided Direction to large multinationals on 12 implementations, we always reach the question; of how much of ITIL can we tailor at the local level?
My first point is that when we talk of implementing ITIL we really mean IT Service Management, not the whole set of books. Implementing Service Management is for most, transformational change. This underpinned by a standard set of integrated processe, enabled by tools. When we customise these processes we must also customise the tools that support them. This means expensive development effort and long term maintenance issues.
My main point is that implementing ITIL is implementing a standard approach to Service Management. So that we dont have 20 different change managment processes accross the organisation with 20 different supporting tools, we only have one, with one support tool. This is where the main benefit come from in terms of cost saving and efficencies.
So should you customise? Cutomisation should be avoided at all costs. The only things that should be customised are the metrics i.e. the KPI's agreed in SLA's and the process KPI's that support the delivery of SLA commitments. The other things you customise are the work instructions that support specific environment. Do not customise the process model, definitions and activities within the processes. This is a recipe for disaster.
Hope this is of help
Regards
Andy
