Built on ITIL: training for transformation
- Blog
- Incident management
- Service catalogue
- Service desk
- Training
- ITIL
March 15, 2019 |
4 min read
- Blog
- Incident management
- Service catalogue
- Service desk
- Training
- ITIL
AXELOS guest blogger, Charlotte Morison, has been providing training and consultancy to companies for more than 15 years, helping them satisfy customers and achieve strategic objectives through improving business processes including IT services and functions.
How effective is ITIL® training for organizations? It’s critical.
ITIL provides the language that translates what IT does for the business; without a common language and process-based approach it would be difficult to communicate that.
Adopting ITIL to help organizational transformation is both about enabling automation and helping organizations see what ITIL actually means to them.
For example, when implementing a tool an organization might “do some training”, though this is often overlooked as the value of training isn’t recognized at the beginning of a change initiative.
Instead, training should be seen as part of the transformation process; an opportunity to teach people how to use a tool but also to understand the benefits of ITIL.
ITIL – what’s in it for me?
In my previous experience as training manager for Keystone, an implementer of ITSM tool ServiceNow, companies needed help to understand the relevance of ITIL to their situation. By defining practical examples that both the business and the service desk understood, the use of ITIL became more than just supporting tool implementation.
For example, a general ITIL user base will obtain the most immediate benefit from the service catalogue, especially in automating on-boarding/off-boarding tasks involving staff.
Beyond that, configuration management in ITIL – particularly linking with incident management – offers enormous benefits and provides the next steps to problem management.
In addition, the management information available via ITIL gives you the ability to make pragmatic decisions, as long as it doesn’t become a weekly report that gets filed away.
ITIL training in practice
ITIL training for service desks works well in a classroom-type environment: creating an incident, gathering information and talking about the benefits of the information which helps you do your job better!
I’ve seen service desks, following ITIL Foundation training, wanting to understand more about how ITIL can help them identify trends and be more proactive. I’ve also seen how change managers develop a greater understanding about bundling releases and managing risk through release management.
ITIL outcomes
From an IT perspective, ITIL training and certification creates higher levels of tool use, better use of information in the organization, more effective communications between service desk and business users and improved record keeping all round.
And, from a business perspective, organizations are more able to manage resources (people), IT resources (hardware and software) and have a more definite focus on business outcomes.
Ultimately, training and certifying people in ITIL is important for transformation because:
- Best practice gives people a strong foundation so they are able to make improvements
- It is consistent in terms of language which gives people confidence
- The processes are tried and tested
- It provides the skills to introduce new processes that will support transformation
- Teams will know how to measure real value delivered to the organization
Trainer tips
In all my time as an ITIL trainer, I saw most enthusiasm, interest, engagement and uptake when the learning was tailored to the audience. Adopting and adapting the training very much reflects a core ITIL ethos and practising what you preach is an effective way to win over the cynics.
For more information, see our Built on ITIL pages.
Read more Blog Posts in the Built on ITIL series
Built on ITIL: a steady stream of employment
Built on ITIL: benefiting business at a time of transformation
Built on ITIL: Putting a rocket under your career
Built on ITIL: quality and consistency in service delivery
Built on ITIL: a service management foundation for the future
Built on ITIL: ITIL – the tool that just keeps giving
Built on ITIL: digital transformation is an organizational challenge
Built on ITIL: taking ITSM to the next level
Read more AXELOS Blog Posts from Charlotte Morison
ITSM best-practice for delivering digital transformation
Progress iteratively – why “baby steps” are better than all or nothing
How to plan for major incidents in ITSM
How to prove effectiveness and value in ITIL®