Implementing ITIL Using the PMBOK Guide in Four Repeatable
Steps
Author: Lawrence Cooper
Abstract
This white paper will provide the reader with an overview of the
PMBOK® Guide as well as the key process areas and functions within
the IT Infrastructure Library. It will also compare and contrast
the two bodies of knowledge. After setting the foundation for
discussion, it will look at why many IT projects fail, followed by
delivery risk management. Using that construct, the reader will be
provided with a project roadmap to implementing IT Service
Management based on ITIL.
This ITIL training white paper does not attempt to teach you
either project management or ITIL, but rather to describe by
example how implementing the ITIL framework can best be
accomplished when done under the control of good project management
practice.
PMBOK® Guide
While there are numerous project management methodologies around
the world, the quintessential project management methodology in the
North American marketplace is the PMBOK® Guide from the Project
Management Institute.
Project management, in a general sense, is the discipline of
defining and achieving targets while managing and optimizing the
use of resources (time, money, people, materials, energy, space,
etc). The utilization of project management practices has become
essential for a business to deliver value and services. The PMBOK®
Guide defines project management as "the application of knowledge,
skills, tools, and techniques to project activities in order to
meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations." The emphasis is
on projects as a "temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique
product or service."
Within the PMBOK®Guide there are nine knowledge areas and 44
processes. These knowledge areas provide a set of best practices in
Project Management that are industry and project agnostic. The
PMBOK® Project Management processes are further divided into five
process groups:
- Initiating
- Planning
- Executing
- Monitoring and Controlling
- Closing
As noted, each PMBOK® Guide knowledge area includes several
processes, each of which is designed to pro-vide guidance on how to
apply it to a real project. For example, Project Scope Management
(5 in Figure 1) pro-vides guidance on how to define the scope of
your project, how to translate that scope into identified
deliverables, how to define the work needed to create those
deliverables (the Work Breakdown Structure), and how to verify that
your scope is being met (neither under nor over scope) through
scope control and verification.
IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a
framework of best practices for quality IT Service Management; IT
Service Management is defined as the delivery and support of IT
services to meet the business needs of an organization. These
procedures are vendor-independent and apply to all aspects of IT
infra-structure. ITIL is made up of a collection of books that
describe the different aspects of IT Service Management. The
Service Support and Service Delivery manuals are viewed as the core
of ITIL, which is built on a process-model view of controlling and
managing operations.
The recommendations of ITIL were developed in the late 1980s by
the United Kingdom Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency
(CCTA), which later merged into the Office of Government Commerce
(OGC). ITIL has been readily adopted and accepted as a global
standard for IT Service Management since the mid-1990s.
The subjects of the individual books are referred to as sets.
The sets are further divided into disciplines, each of which
focuses on a specific subject. The ITIL sets and their disciplines
are:
1. Service Support-stabilization of
services:
- Service Desk
- Incident Management
- Problem Management
- Configuration Management
- Change Management
- Release Management
2. Service Delivery-services that must be provided to
the business:
- Service Level Management
- Availability Management
- Capacity Management
- IT Service Continuity Management
- IT Financial Management
3. Planning to Implement Service Management-how to adopt
ITIL; how an organization could benefit from ITIL and how to reap
such benefits.
4. Security Management-how to manage
security
5. ICT Infrastructure Management-processes,
organization, and tools that are needed to provide a stable IT and
communications infrastructure:
- Network Service Management
- Operations Management
- Management of local processors
- Computer installation and acceptance
- Systems Management
6. The Business Perspective-how IT services relate to
the requirements and operation of a business.
7. Application Management-how to manage the software
development life cycle.
8. Software Asset Management-how to
manage software assets
Project Management and ITIL - A BoK Comparison
The table below provides a side-by-side comparison of the
Project Management and ITIL Bodies of Knowledge (BoK). As can be
seen, they are similar in age (20+ years) and rely on the active
involvement of practitioners to update them to reflect current best
practice. They also share remarkably similar objectives. The key
differentiators between them are that project management can be
applied to any domain, whereas ITIL has application
only within the IT domain. Also, the PMBOK® Guide contains a code
of ethics for professional conduct that can result in suspension or
loss of accreditation for ethical breeches, whereas ITIL does
not.
While the PMBOK® Guide certainly has a wider sphere of influence
and the Project Management Professional (PMP®) is a very widely
recognized certification in the IT industry and elsewhere, the past
several years have witnessed a strong surge in ITIL awareness and
interest within the IT community.
IT Project Failures
Anyone who has ever worked on a very large IT project likely has
experiences with massive project failure. Some of the more common
causes are listed below:
- Project timelines beyond 6–12 months generally result in a
project going over budget and failure to deliver on the promised
benefits—detailed project planning is hard to do beyond 6
months
- Failed projects usually suffer from a lack of focus and
momentum after about the 5-6 month mark
- Poorly defined scope (and requirements) and scope creep because
of unclear goals objectives
- No change control system to handle scope changes
- Lack of executive commitment and user interest due to the long
timelines involved
- Failure to communicate and act as a team
- The wrong skills or not enough of the right skills
Related Courses
ITIL® v2 Service Manager Exam Prep Boot Camp
IT Project Management
ITIL® v3 Foundation
ITIL® v2 Practitioner: Agree and Define Management
ITIL® v2 Practitioner: Release and Control Management
ITIL® v2 Practitioner: Support and Restore Management