Stranger in a Strange Land

The world beyond ITIL

@mainville

DavidMainville

Ever feel dazed and confused?

Like a stranger in a strange land…

DevOpsIT4IT™

COBIT™

VeriSM ™

Is ITIL™ still relevant? Is ITIL™ still relevant? Is ITIL™ still relevant? Is ITIL™ still relevant?

With so many competing frameworks, it’s hard

not to - is ITIL® even relevant? ITIL® is a (registered) Trade Mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved.”

IT4ITTM is a trademark of the OpenGroup. COBITTM is a trademark of ISACA. VeriSMTM is a trademark of the International Foundation for Digital

Competences (IFDC).

But first, a little about our journey…

80’s 90’s 00’s

Field Engineering

(Service Operation)

Enterprise Systems

Management (ESM)

ITSM Consulting

Process / Tools

10’s

ITSM Consulting

SaaS Software

• 2009 we released a SaaS product to support our consulting business

• 2016 we transitioned out of consulting to focus fully on the software (a 16 year old startup)

• 2016 to today – addressing the challenges that came with our transformation

A little about our journey

2009to

Today

A little about our challenges

People were

changing roles

Process needed to

become more nimble

Technology and tools

required updating

A faster path to business value!

We had a destination in mind

To get there required

• Improving time-to-market

• Higher quality code

• Improvement in sales & renewals

• Eliminating waste & improving efficiency

• Better alignment of our teams

We chose a vehicle

DevOps & Agile

But wait, weren't we an ITIL®

shop?

• We were an ITSM consulting company

• Collectively we had 100’s of years of ITIL/ITSM process & tool experience

• Why change?

"ITIL® is a (registered) Trade Mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved."

I can’t recall ITIL®

saying…

Move slowly and ignore the needs of the business!

"ITIL® is a (registered) Trade Mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved."

Let’s compare ITIL®

to DevOps

"ITIL® is a (registered) Trade Mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved."

DevOpsITIL®

Notice anything?

ITIL®

Advocates that IT services are aligned to the needs of

the business and support its core processes.

DevOps

Enables a business to maximize the speed of its

delivery of a product or service, from initial idea to

production

Let’s dive a bit deeper

"ITIL® is a (registered) Trade Mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved."

ITIL® Service Strategy

• Develop a strategy

• Work with the business (BRM)

• Manage demand and portfolio

• Ensure proper financial management

DevOps - Steer

• Establish business goals

• Collaborate with the business

• Prioritize based on feedback

• Eliminate waste and improve efficiency

Let’s dive a bit deeper

"ITIL® is a (registered) Trade Mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved."

ITIL® Service Design

• Design services to meet the needs of the business

• Build & operate within timelines and budgets

• Include CSI in designs

DevOps –Develop & Test

• Execute the priorities defined during “steer”

• Continuously collaborate with the business during development

• Continuous testing and integration

Let’s dive a bit deeper

"ITIL® is a (registered) Trade Mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved."

ITIL® Service Transition

• Plan and manage changes to services

• Manage the risks involved

• Deploy those changes into operation as releases

• Ensure that full business value is obtained

DevOps - Deploy

• Perform change management

• Collaborate with the business on release planning

• Conduct continuous delivery

Let’s dive a bit deeper

"ITIL® is a (registered) Trade Mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved."

ITIL® Service Operations

• Event Management

• Incident Management

• Problem Management

• Request Fulfillment

• Access Management

DevOps - Operate

• Perform continuous monitoring on both application and infrastructure

• Obtain continuous customer feedback and perform optimization

Let’s dive a bit deeper

"ITIL® is a (registered) Trade Mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved."

Let’s dive a bit deeper

• Both ITIL and DevOps stress CSI

• DevOps stresses continuous business planning, development, testing, release, monitoring and customer feedback

• DevOps closely aligns to Lean and Agile

• ITIL has the 7-Step Improvement process but also uses Lean techniques

"ITIL® is a (registered) Trade Mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved."

Continual Service Improvement

I wonder…

“Is it easier to change the name of what we do, than to change the way we do it?”

“Frameworks tell you what to do,

not how to do it”

“It’s the how that drives competitive

advantage”

The perils of Best Practice: Should you emulate Apple

McKinsey & Company

So why travel to the “strange land”?

DevOps and Agile is not about leaving the past behind

• It is more about a new mindset

• It is an evolution, not a radical change

A new way of thinking

Maximize the speed of delivery of a product or service, from initial idea to production

Source: DevOps Reference Architecture, Source: IBM, SanJeev Sharma

Steer

Develop / Test

Deploy

OperateDevOps

Continuous Business Planning

Collaborative Development

ContinuousTesting

Continuous Release & Deployment

Continuous Monitoring

Continuous Customer Feedback &

OptimizationContinuous Feedback

• We took a Lean IT approach to Agile

• Improve quality, speed and customer alignment

• Eliminate waste and improve flow

• Enhance collaboration and communication

• Place accountability closer to source

• Be more retrospective and continually improve

The application of Agile principles

• Start with the why (Simon Sinek)

• Get everyone on the bus (Jim Collins)

• Change is a process (Dr. John Kotter)

• Engage the team – it’s our change

• Keep communication open and constant

Addressing organizational change

• Process is your Owners Manual

• Simplify the toolset, reduce redundancy

• Visualize work through dashboards

• Integrate and automate where possible

• Take the time to learn the tools

Automate everything you can

• It is a skill, position or department

• DevOps is a technology

• It’s only about automation

• It’s only for modern tools / developers

• No planning – just do it

• DevOps clashes with process / ITIL

• We don’t need DevOps, we do Agile

• DevOps only relates to development

DevOps myths

Source: Smit Patel www.scriptrock.com/blog/devops-mythsPeter Measey www.computerweekly.com/opinion/The-top-10-myths-about-agile-development

• Sometimes it’s good to get lost / make mistakes

• Be nimble, flexible and collaborative

• Listen to your people – they’re the experts

• Input should be welcomed and encouraged

• Reduce bureaucracy

• Reduce technical debt

• Celebrate success

Lessons learned

• ITIL is still relevant – it underpins other frameworks

• The How is more important than the framework

• DevOps / Agile shifts focus to speed and agility

Key takeaways

No need to be a “stranger in a strange land”

Incorporate the past into your journey forward

In conclusion

Thank you!

@mainvilledmainville@Navvia.com