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Software tools can be basis for successful ITIL strategy

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) can be a useful tool — for those who have ventured into it. Just 40% of 169 IT managers at midmarket firms surveyed by SearchCIO-Midmarket.com last year are using ITIL best practices for IT service management, although 57% are planning or investigating the framework.

Of those who are using ITIL, two-thirds say their ITIL strategy has lived up to expectations. The problem is getting started, training staff and getting buy-in from upper management to implement the practices.

Probably the easiest method to get ITIL into your organization is through software tools that have ITIL processes embedded into them.

Jennifer Gianfrancesco, director of IT at Pittsburgh’s Magee-Women’s Research Institute and a certified ITIL practitioner, threw out the old Excel-based help desk system she inherited three years ago and brought in Cherwell Software Inc.’s Cherwell Service Management.

Her staff uses it for asset intelligence, configuration management, incident reporting and software management, among other services. The key, however, she says, is that the tool enables you to apply ITIL where you need it, and doesn’t require you to go for everything. Like ITIL itself, the software enables “a method. It doesn’t tell you how to implement.”

If you are looking for some advice on ITIL strategy and picking ITIL tools, check out contributor Jonathan Hassell’s column on must-have ITIL tool features.

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