"The Hitch Hikers Guide to the ITIL Galaxy and Beyond".

I had the pleasure thanks to John Dailey of CCSIT to meet Vernon Lloyd in IT Service Management. Vernon literally "wrote the book" on well working ITIL Processes and recently shared "6 essentials to Implementing ITIL. He is "the master" when it comes to practical process implementation.

CIO Magazine ran a recent article of the ABC's of ITIL that explains about the origins of ITIL.

WHY ITIL: To manage the alignment between investment and customer needs.
CIO Magazine highlights some excellent bottom line benefits attributable to ITIL. What is important with regards to ITIL is that it is not a destination, but the journey.

Australia based Rabobank, working with Sun Managed Services used ITIL best practices to recognize 33% service management savings and 100% data center availability! Clearly there is value to the alignment and definition of ITIL process, roles, and methods.

ITIL IN OVERVIEW: Reference CIO "ITIL IN BRIEF". There are many approaches to the implementation of ITIL, what works best is what is practical for your culture, budget and functional requirements.

I view the ITIL processes as a process wheel, with Service support and configuration management as the hub, service delivery management as the wheel, and each discipline as a supporting "spoke". Service Improvement Process is the capability to align the necessary additional process elemements (Six Sigma, Cobit, and of course Capability Maturity Model) as a means or goal, or even focus for improving the service capacity, maintining the service alignment and continuing to meet present and future requirements.

WHATs ITIL: It is a mechanism for differentiating roles and responsibilities and a common language for how to Deliver Products for Service and Support, and how to Deliver Services for managing value for investment. When it is working well, you see the successes that my dear friend Char LaBounty describes as "Enterprise, Align thyself".

THE (Operational)HUB:
=====================
Service Support is a clear process for day to day operational management, with sufficient clarity and flexible service provision to deliver Problem Management, Incident Management, Change and Release Management with Configuration Management governing what is running where, and who owns it.

THE (Service Management) WHEEL:
================================
Service Delivery is a clear process for the longer term strategic and tactical management details. Intent is to install a plan for quality, stability, flexibility and proactive maintenance measures. Taking the core Service Support Processes into consideration, observing the performance capability and metrics, Service Delivery Process articulates the management requirements for balancing financial and customer requirements for Availability, Capacity, Financial Management, and Continuity Management. In summary Service Management is the strategy, measurement, and process for aligning the Vision and Business Missions with Operational Work Processes, Performance Capability, and Improvement potential.

What are your favorite presentations, blogs or articles on this topic of making a well working ITIL solution?