Last week I wrote an opinion piece around ITIL and I had some good feedback from a reader about how ITIL v3 introduced some improvements.

I see ITIL v3 as a bit of a mixed bag - there are some key improvements, but also some of the aspects I mentioned in the last article tarnished those improvements. So to present both the good and the bad, below are some of the improvements as I see them:

• The lifecycle approach to Service Management - This is the biggest improvement in my opinion.   Services are not static, they are created, maintained, upgraded and then finally retired.   ITIL v2 neglected this concept.   I do think V3 is very light on the development of those services - for example in a lot of the organizations I've been involved in, when the services are being developed there is little thought that goes into how they will be managed and I think this part of v3 is rather light, but at least it touches on it.
• Knowledge Management - I think knowledge management is probably the least well understood improvement as it seems that most see it as some kind of a knowledge base attached to the service desk.   There is a lot of potential to create a Service Knowledge Management System (SKMS) that addresses some of the shortcomings of the CMDB in V3; by taking the data that already exists in the organization, correlating it together and presenting it in a way that employees at all levels can use to make decisions.
• Configuration Management - Realizing that the CMDB is not the center of the universe and there could be multiple CMDBs in the same organization that need to be thought of as one federated model was a useful improvement, althought I maintain that a CMDB is counterproductive for most organizations, and unless there are specific projects like Data Center Consolidation, M&A activity etc the massive costs simply can't be justified.
• Continual Service Improvement - A mixed bag here.  I think it was valid to remove this from Service Level Management; but I'm not sure why they created a whole new process here when there are better ones like Six Sigma DMIAC available.   The new process has little content around how to sustain the improvement.
• Service Portfolio Management - Multiple improvements, for example taking into account suppliers, external service providers and so on.
• Business Service Management - An acknowledgement of the role of Business Service Management in modern IT organizations
• Other Standards and Best Practices - An acknowledgement of other standards such as CoBIT, ISO20000 and so on.

In summary, ITIL v3 introduced some useful improvements, but I see it as a missed opportunity to really focus on how IT can support business needs.