Interested in ITIL?

What is ITIL? What can it do? How do I find out more about it? If you’ve been asking these questions about ITIL, now there is an NIH ITIL interest group focused on giving you answers.

Origins of ITIL

ITIL, which stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library, began in the 1980’s in the UK as an effort to standardize information technology service and delivery practices. Funded by the UK government, ITIL matured into a series of publications outlining a framework of best practices. ITIL’s increasing popularity over time is based on the benefits IT service organizations experience after adopting the best practice framework in their workplaces.

Within information technology groups in the United States, adoption of ITIL has been increasing over the past few years, and NIH is no exception. Of the ongoing NIH initiatives in ITIL, the CIT effort is one of the larger ones.

ITIL at CIT

This August CIT hosted the ITIL@NIH Interest Group’s kick-off meeting, which drew representatives from many NIH ICs and offices. The ITIL@NIH Interest Group is an effort to create a collaborative, self-directing group to share ITIL best practices, learn from one another, and bring benefits to each organization through the shared experience of all participating organizations.

However, the groundwork for ITIL at CIT began long before this summer’s kick-off meeting. Late in 2006, CIT completed an assessment of IT processes. The study’s findings led senior management, seeking to improve service operations across CIT, to embrace the ITIL framework for IT service management because it is based on industry-recognized best practices in IT service and customer support.

Key ITIL benefits:

• Redirects support costs


• Lowers total cost of ownership


• Facilitates outtasking/outsourcing operations


• Represents best practices in the industry


• Is vendor neutral


• Offers consistent concepts and terminology


• Improves customer service


• Improves predictability of IT costs and chargebacks


• Addresses need for an IT Management Process that:
  • Connects all the pieces of systems management
  • Matures into service management

Adopting ITIL represents a paradigm shift for any organization. Focus shifts from IT operations to an ITIL-based service provision, which means that the organizational goal broadens from solely optimizing operations for internal efficiencies to determining the value added to the customer.

Learning more and sharing

The ITIL@NIH Interest Group intends to facilitate organizational learning about ITIL. That includes addressing the following questions: What is the ITIL framework? How does that framework apply to an organization’s current processes? What are the best practices applicable to specific processes?

ITIL is a starting point for process improvement related to service delivery. ITIL is not considered highly prescriptive. Rather, it is a set of "good practice" guidance for IT practitioners to follow. They may adhere to these practices strictly, as outlined in each ITIL book, or, a more likely scenario, practitioners may adapt the ITIL guidance as they deem appropriate.

Thus, the ITIL@NIH Interest Group intends, in part, to serve as a forum where answers to ITIL questions are presented and discussed. The intent is to create a collaborative learning environment for all participants.

The Interest Group

The mission of the newly formed ITIL@NIH Interest Group is …to support the NIH scientific research and business operations by sharing information and best practices among its members concerning ITIL and information technology service management (ITSM).

As indicated in the recently adopted charter, the ITIL@NIH Interest Group was created to do the following:

• Serve as a standing forum for the exchange of ideas and information regarding ITIL and ITSM issues and policies as related to NIH;


• Develop and make recommendations to appropriate NIH organizations and leaders regarding ITIL and ITSM issues and policies that promote improved operational efficiencies and inter-group cooperation;


• Conduct an outreach component bi-directionally with high-level officials and end users regarding ITIL and ITSM issues and policies as related to NIH;


• Develop tangible media to assist in the exchange of information between NIH organizations;


• Support and promote collaboration across NIH ITSM programs;


• Monitor new technologies and/or NIH projects related to ITSM;


• Participate in matters of concern to the NIH community as related to ITIL and ITSM issues and policies.

The ITIL@NIH Interest Group has a website (http://itil.nih.gov - login required) that contains documents, ITIL references, links to various ITIL related articles and websites, and more. Visitors interested in learning more can find meeting schedules, notes, surveys, and discussions groups at the site.

Get involved! Bring positive change to your IT operations. Improve the value delivered to your customers. Participate in the ITIL@NIH Interest Group!