One thing folks in IT must have in common is a drive to learn. I’ve recently been thinking about how fast the technology industry changes, and how someone working in this industry needs to stay on top of his or her knowledge in order to maintain relevant skills. I knew courses existed, but then I found what could be the key to maintaining your skills while being a dynamic and complex asset to any company.
ITIL, or traditionally known as the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, has been regarded as the gold standard for best practices in the industry for more than 25 years. Individuals and organizations alike have utilized ITIL’s guidance to facilitate a changing, transforming, and growing business. Some of their more mentionable clients have included NASA, Microsoft, and Procter & Gamble.
ITIL is built on five core publications for best practices, including service strategy, design, transition, operation and continual improvement. These guidelines can be catered in order to identify the needs and requirements for individual companies, startup or Fortune 500.
PC Magazine looked into the best help desk software of 2015, and concluded the best ones out there were rooted in an adherence to ITIL. The best practices set in place by ITIL may be strict, but the processes, procedures, tasks and checklists set in place prove to be more effective, according to the article.
While a solid client-base of big companies can speak for itself, the smaller ones with a little more scrappiness and DIY character could be turned off from the rigid service framework ITIL is known for. However, a case study of a small mining rescue service would say otherwise. The company had somewhat of an IT department in place for event and alert detection, but had not considered putting more into it. The implementation of ITIL changed the company’s thinking from a technological point of view to a focus on service. The company was then able to see exactly what 100 percent of its customers needed and was able to address it directly and efficiently with this new insight.
My parents are small business owners, which has inspired my entrepreneurial spirit in my various freelance gigs. While discovering valuable insights is helpful, it typically comes at a timely and costly toll. If you are a small business and are considering upping the IT or curious about exploring insights, I’d highly recommend looking into ITIL. But do your homework first, and find out if the value could result in a worthy profit.
Would you go with ITIL to address IT in your own company?