Service Management 101 - The Knowledge

Ignorance is the opium of the shirking classes

I was asked by Ian Clayton if I would like to write a retrospective about ITIL, a sort of back to the future where what I can remember about those early days is put into a context that explains for many the who, where, when, what, how, and most important, the ‘why’ of ITIL. I’m sure it will bust a few myths (and hits….) on the way. This is the first of three articles covering the beginning, the period through to the publication of ‘version 2’, and my observations, opinions and comments about the current release – ‘version 3’. Being Ian, he asked for the unexpurgated version and that is what I commit to in this attempt to offer my view of the ITIL history.

The intention here is not simply a history lesson for (self or other) aggrandizement or indeed a walk through memory lane for the sake of it. ITIL has come a long way from its inception in the brain cells of Dr. John Stewart and along the way it has (unlike a rolling stone) gathered a lot of unwelcome moss. No, I want to nail down the ‘why ITIL’ question first, and worry a lot less about the where, when and what.

If My Memory Serves Me...

First a caveat. Or two. This is the history is as I remember it. I will not tell lies or amplify (or even be economic with) the truth. If I get a fact wrong (and I am sure I will), someone with a better memory should feel free to point it out. I will also name names where credit is due, and not name names where criticism is implied or due. If I can’t write something nice about someone, I will not write anything.

Second, ITIL began more than twenty years ago. Carts and horses had not been invented and laptops were large wooden abacuses (abaci??) more than six feet across weighing four hundred pounds. In other words, I may not get the timelines precise, but they will be close enough for government.

Where to start then? Well back at the very beginning, when government still used tablets of stone to write upon and six inch nails to write with because they were too mean to buy chisels, and I of course was only five years old, but an infant prodigy in National Savings Office in Durham….ok, I was not an infant and perhaps not a prodigy but I certainly was a business systems analyst working on three of the major design suites of the project, Repayments of savings certificates, post payment accounting and cancellations of issued repayment warrants. And I was very interested in how our new IT operations (an entirely new IT infrastructure was one part of the entire project) was going to be able to handle new business!