Talk:Information Technology Infrastructure Library

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• Archive-Pre-April-06

Contents 1 Historic Talk Content 2 University of Utrecht ? 3 NPOV Tag added to the page 4 Merging ITIL and ISO 20000 5 Change Management (ITIL) and Change Management process (ITIL) 6 There is always more than you think 6.1 Archiving this talk page 6.2 Process theory section 7 Relationship with ISO 20000 8 Diagram 9 NPOV tag 10 Confusion tag 11 ITIL precursors 12 Restructuring project 13 Proposed reference 14 Citation fixes 15 Re-ordering of Support and Delivery 16 Relevance 17 Method Engineering 18 ITIL disaggregation 19 Large deletions 20 Incident management 21 Bias toward Service Management 22 relevance of external reference? 23 tendency to turn into a religion ? 24 reference to uneven quality in volumes needs clarifying 25 removal of library overview opening paragraph 26 removal of Non Service Management content 27 retention of brief introductions as we move sections out 28 a very small NPOV change 29 A framework or not 30 Service Desk reversion 31 Let's archive this page... 32 Add link to "Service catalog"? 33 Added to the intro 34 Patches to plug bugs in a software? 35 Registered trademark of initials ITIL?!? 36 Linkspam 37 Version 3 Integration 38 TMF/eTOM 39 The Itil Open Guide 40 Regarding the ITIL_v3 merge proposal 41 SVG version of the Green pin. 42 External Links 43 ITIL Certification

[edit] Historic Talk Content

Due to the volume of discussion, some of which should be kept as it provides a historical understanding of how these pages have developed old talk content has been moved to an archive:Talk Page Archive to April 2006

[edit] University of Utrecht ?

I am a little confused by the banner (that has appeared on this page). While the University seems to be active and is adding valuable content to the Wikipedia, including on ITIL - much of which I hope the community will be able to peer review over the coming weeks/months I do not believe that the banner is either accurate in saying 'is a part of', nor can I find significant contributions from members of the project. I am not sure what the general consensus is with regard to this?

Mark G 22:45, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Full reply on Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/Method_Engineering_Encyclopedia

Also see my talk with the wiki admin R._Koot here: MEE project spamming

--Goonies 07:25, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Edits by members of the project to this article seem to be resticted to the following additions:

• [1] (but also see ITIL Planning to implement service management)
• [2] (but also see ITIL Security Management)
• [3] (but also see Change Management process (ITIL) and Change Management (ITIL))

I haven't carefully read those other articles, but do you have any ideas? Keep them separate (and add {{main}} links), merge them, delete them? Cheers, —Ruud 23:48, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

The other items, specifically listed above are useful elucidations on the basic outline in this main article, I imagine that in the longer term this larger item will need to be broken down into the constituent processes and remain only as a summary and waymarker; this will be particularly important with the introduction of ITILv3 which will share many/most of the processes and will need to co-exist with v2 for some considerable time. I think that for now certainly these articles do not constitute original research and are fully in keeping with Wikipedia ethos (if not style etc). There are minor copyright concerns but I haven't had time to thorougly review them against the defining texts as yet to see how close they are. Mark G 00:41, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV Tag added to the page

I can't see any serious violations of the NPOV criteria on the main page. Would whoever has added it please explain their additions? ITIL is an internationally recognised best practice, embodied in the ISO/IEC 20000 standard and produced by an international co-operation of authors from vendors, government and industry. I would suggest that if there are no specifics provided that we remove the tag in a week or so. Mark G 21:19, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

• The introduction currently says:

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a customizable framework of best practices that promote quality computing services in the information technology (IT) sector. ITIL addresses the organizational structure and skill requirements for an IT organization by presenting a comprehensive set of management procedures with which an organization can manage its IT operations.

This sounds like it comes straight from a press release. Wikipedia should not be making a pronouncement about whether or not the standard does or does not effectively "promote" certain techniques, whether or not those are actually "best practices", whether or not the standard adequately addresses certain needs, and whether or not it is comprehensive.

It may seem like this, one of the key issues here is probably that those proponents with adequate subject knowledge to produce content tend to be proponents of the standard. Unlike any corporate body e.g Microsoft Operations Framework etc. no-one makes money directly from ITIL, it is all service based around ITIL ideas and so the promotion is not so much of a product (although it might appear that way) but of an idea - none-the-less this is a point well taken - I'll see what I can do! Mark G 15:28, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Completed a first pass, would appreciate any comments from others. Mark G 19:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

The CCTA created ITIL in response to the growing dependence on information technology to meet business needs and goals.

Huh? This sounds like marketing PR. What was the actual problem the government was trying to solve, if any?

Have updated this to be more accurage Mark G 15:28, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

It would help a lot if the article explained how this standard is actually used in the real world. Usually this sort of thing is explained up front, so that non-technical readers can understand the social context of the subject of the article, before giving up when they hit the detailed technical sections. I've reordered the sections of the article accordingly. From the article in its current state, it's not at all clear what kinds of "information technology" applications this standard is meant to cover. Software companies? Phone companies?

Unlike many other standards, ITIL is a framework and applied to (as is evident from the core subject areas) all ICT operations from government departments to small five man firms (although its success at the smaller end of the scale is less well demonstrated.

Work still to do here Mark G 19:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Benefits of ITIL

This entire section has a promotional POV.

And is (was) pretty vague. Comprehensiveness is not, in and of itself, a benefit to anyone. If anything, it's a negative because it makes something bigger and more expensive. Comprehensiveness may be a necessary feature of something, but it needs to be explained why comprehensive==good. As there was only one sentance left, I've removed the heading and let the sentance join itself to the introduction. Regards, Ben Aveling 08:08, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

It would perhaps have been better if the original editor had edited the POV rather than removing text. Clearly benefits are going to the Positive, perhaps either changing the 'voice' to a third person or adding some possible problems might ave been the way forward? Mark G 15:28, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Updated POV throughout, comment appreciated. Mark G 19:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Process theory

This section is normative and tells people how something should be done. Wikipedia is not a how-to manual, and neutrality requires that it avoid normative statements.

I don't like Process theory which is a backgrounder being included in the opening section of the article - will look around for a better description elsewhere in Wikipedia and try to link/update this. Mark G 15:28, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

The scope and details of the X set are defined in the book

This statement appears several times, and looks like someone trying to promote sales of their book. The citation to the book is more appropriately contained in a reference-style footnote.

Unless there are objections I will look to move these to reference footnotes (which I had previously done for ICT Infrastructure Management, Service Delivery and Service Support. Mark G 15:28, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup completed. Mark G 19:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Details of the standard

This section contains a huge amount of normative guidelines - "should" statements. These need to be changed to third-person statements. It's the standards body that's proposing these guidelines, not Wikipedia, and the language of the article should reflect that. I would carefully consider the purpose of this article before simply neutralizing these statements. There is currently a lot of content which is simply a regurgitation of the standard itself. Personally, I think an adequate article just needs to establish the social context of the standard, and give a basic summary of what topic it covers and the gist of its recommendations. A point-by-point summary of all its parts and terminology is probably more than is needed. If people want to write something which is really an introduction to the standard for people who want to understand it in detail, or who will be using it in real life, that's going to be very long and boring and abstract and probably not appropriate for an encyclopedia article, but perhaps appropriate for a Wikibook.

Boring is a subjective interpretation. To an IT professional an article on Fish_farming might be boring, to a fish farmer, the inverse. In order to be useful in understanding a topic there has to be enough information to critically evaluate the topic or subject against similar or contrasting topics. Most process, framework and standard material is dry, that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be communicated, shared, evaluated or adopted. Mark G 15:28, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Criticism

There are no negative comments about the standard in the article whatsoever. Surely someone must have published something at some point citing at least one drawback to the standard?

-- Beland 23:00, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Much of the negative that is available is in personal blogs of those who would prefer to avoid 'best practice' or 'standards' as a whole, Wikipedia is against in general making links to such commentary and so it requires that someone write content to include in the article - I am sure that such content if well authored and reasoned would be welcome. Mark G 15:28, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Have reviewed and added some little that I am aware of, a blog identified by Charles at itilskeptic may prove a useful source if any of it is referenced. Mark G 19:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I will talk to the ITIL Skeptic about getting some academic rigour arround some of the blog entries. BTW, the referenced column by Meyer, while excellent, is purely unreferenced opinion. If it is a valid reference then I think the skeptic blog is too ;-)Pukerua 04:44, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

According to the Skeptic, there is little enough positive research let alone any negative so further references in the blog are not possible. What do people think about refering to it along with Dean Meyer? Pukerua 00:15, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

If we hold ourselves to a standard of peer-reviewed research we will not be able to publish any criticism. The fact that a publication of CIO Magazine's stature has published criticisms by one of its staff columnists is a significant fact in and of itself. We don't need to go any further in looking for that columnist's sources, in my opinion. He has the professional standing to make these statements and they are ipso facto relevant.

The only concern I have about the blog is its possibly more transient nature. CIO Magazine will be referenceable for the forseeable future, by virtue of print copies being held in libraries. The blog might disappear tomorrow. On the other hand, this is the virtue of Wikipedia, in being able to respond more quickly to such transience.

So, if pointers are put into the article to ITIL Skeptic I for one will be OK with that. However, there is a freelance vigilante (with no constructive material to offer) who is obsessed with purging Wikipedia of all links to advertising-supported blogs. We've had some disputatious go-rounds on that very topic. I for one think that this obsession is unhealthy and unconstructive, and am willing to take that vigilante on if others will back me. I have a blog myself (www.erp4it.com) with a few ads on it. (I have garnered a total of $1.00 from those ads, against a $15.00/month blog maintenance charge.) Charles T. Betz 01:28, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Not that I intend to link to myself. I think that's bad form. Charles T. Betz 01:43, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Now for the reality. Many many 'blogs' exist for one thing and one thing only: to get clicks of their adsense links and thus derive income. They have lightweight content, and are heavy on ads. They have no place on this Wiki or any other. They are simply a device to make money. Your actual income Mr Betz is immaterial. The concept of placing 'MFA' sites here is not ('Made for Adsense'). You will find that there are many people prepared to combat this. If I were you I would support those attmepting to keep the Wiki clean, rather than those trying to make a fast $.

And how pray tell do you distinguish between MFA sites and those who have a valid message or content to communicate but prefer not to fund the site out of their own pocket if a simple mechansim exists to generate a few bucks? Are you objecting to every bit of content on the web that carries advertising? and just where do you draw that line? The itSMF and the OGC sell ITIL books, and for far more than the cost of printing. ITIL is not available free anywhere. How do you rationalise that with your position? If you were to be reasonable about this, you would understand that any content should stand or fall on its merits regardless of how it might be delivered. Pukerua 10:14, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

No, I am objecting to MFA "blogs" which are full of ads to line the authors pockets. Almost all of these add no value and are designed for clicks. I might also point out one other issue: blogs are almost all OPINION. That is their nature. Wikipedia is not a message board or forum for opinion. Don't you understand that? Don't you see the difference? Let me guess: you have a blog too right (like Mr Betz, surprise surprise)? Thought so.

A personal log (blog) is normally heavy in opinion and not fact. Thus is not ideal for a wiki, which is factual. If Wikipedia was the platform for opinion it would disintegrate into anarchy. That will not be allowed. Hence the careful approach to blogs: for this reason, and because they are too often cluttered with Google ads, being largely MFAs. Surely this is clear to anyone who bothers to think about it (or actually look at these 'blogs').

I see it as Blog=opinion, Adsense-Blog=made-for-adverts, Wikipedia=Factual. Therefore Adsense-Blog=Not-Appropriate-For-Wikipedia. There may be exceptions if the content is truly remarkable, but none of the above is anything like that. Audit9 11:16, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

The tone here continues to be not constructive. Wikipedia is not about pretending there are no opinions. There is nothing in the NPOV guidance to suggest this. If an industry thought leader has a blog, and posts a criticism of ITIL to it, that in and of itself may be significant, just as an ITIL criticism in a magazine article may be significant. The more interesting question is how do you define an industry thought leader? IMHO it would hinge on professional standing, i.e. academic credentials, positions held, appearances at professional conferences, quality of writing (including blog and Wikipedia contributions), and publication in forums other than the personal blog. Again, my concern is more regarding the transient (and therefore unreferenceable) nature of blogs. Charles T. Betz 12:32, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

My final comment on this one: Audit9 has a valid point about Wikipedia not being a forum for debate. However we are now veering into the post-modernist tarpits of distinguishing between fact and opinion. If Audit9 is unable to differentiate between MFA and advertising then I prefer not to go there. Pukerua 21:51, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that it is key here that blogs only be added if they have significant, deep content to add. In fact even then I would only support the linking of specific articles. Unless the blog is by an appropriately well respected luminary then without references the blog fails to carry adequate weight. If it contains valid points then summarise them and include them in the article here. Certainly without some general rules like that pages will end up simply terminated in 10, 20 , 30 or more blogs that are perhaps vaguely relevant. How then do we decide which to keep, or which are 'of value'. There is enough work to do in extending, maintaining and editing WP content without having to assess and judge blogs on their merit. By deinfition, most blogs are POV rich, if a POV is to be included IMHO then it should be explained why - if we are going that far why not summarise and include rather than link. WP is, after all, not a directory. Mark G 11:22, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Further on criticism of ITIL: how about the published articles on ITSMWatch by the IT Skeptic? Unless we get into a debate on CIO website vs Datamation website, then these articles would seem to have equivalent status to the Meyer article. They also open fresh areas of criticism: the closed, non-participatory nature of the content development process, and whether ITIL can validly be described as "best" practice Pukerua 23:20, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Sheesh! Back again eh Pukerua? Do you never give up? It is obvious that you have a blog or your colleague does, probably one to entice Adsense clicks as suggested above. Banging on and on to try and change opinion so that you can use Wiki as a vehicle to get those clicks is not going to work. If there is a unique essential insight, simply explain briefly what it is. It does not need a link to a page designed to get clicks. I see this too often on Wiki pages. Bloated opinion rather than fact, usually created for Adsense. Others articulate this better above than I do, but it is clear. The answer is simple: just summarize what the ideas or schools of thought are in the Wiki. Job then done.(unsigned, added by 70.84.56.177)

Perhaps the criticism of ITIL sub-section should have its own wiki page. I feel that the criticisms themselves are generally growing in intensity, and cannot be reflected properly as a sub-section of this page. The risk is that opinion is obviously a major factor here, which is why the row has errupted above. A new page would provide the space for the criticisms to be properly documented, without the need for links to blogs, articles and forum posts. Would this not address the concerns of both parties above, at least partially? Binarygal

I do not favor splitting out derivative "criticism" articles. I think that we have at least 3 new ITIL criticisms:

• closed refresh process
• lack of quantitative support for value proposition
• difficulty of CMDB implementations

We can summarize and cite these concisely by linking to the ITSMWatch site, which is not a blog. Let's not link to it generally, however, let's cite specific online articles appropriately according to WP:REF. Charles T. Betz 18:30, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

ITIL itself is but a point of view. It is in the opinions of the authors the "best" way to do something. It is therefore by definition subject to debate. It is not fact, it is a postulate. It has become a significant phenomenon in its own right and therefore deserves the Wikipedia entry it has, but it does not deserve to be defended from debate. Yes I and my associates have a POV but in this context a POV is valid content if substantiated. the Meyer article which has been cited here for a long time is pure opinion without evidence, from someone who is not, as far as I am aware, otherwise a thought leader in the ITIL community. But his article deserves to be here as an influential piece. Personally I don't give a toss whether we cite or summarise the concepts in the recent Skeptic activity; I'm not here to "get clicks". Pukerua 03:43, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging ITIL and ISO 20000

(thanks for adding the merge-tag and not opening a discussion section here)

IMHO the Articles should not be merged. Yes, ITIL and ISO 20000 are covering the same field of information service management and ITIL was one source when ISO 20000 was developed, but they are developing into different directions. I.e. it is not possible to certify an organisation after ITIL, ISO 20000 is a certification standard. The ISO 20000 article is rather short and needs to be expanded, but also the standard is rather young. There is no need to put apples and tomatoes into one article just because some of them are red. -- ghw 05:56, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

No. I would definitely disagree with this. They are NOT the same thing at all. ISO 20000 operates at a much higher level and is designed to work along side different frameworks, not just ITIL. To treat them as part of the same would be a serious error. BinaryGal

What about Service Level Management and Change Management (ITIL). They seem pretty stubby and look like they're completely covered here. I think they could replaced by redirects to here with no great loss of information? Regards, Ben Aveling 08:00, 24 May 2006 (UTC) PS. the usual way to sign your post is with ~~~~. Wikipedia automagically expands 4 tildas to your name and a date.

I think folks need to understand the difference between all these things before commenting. The idea of merging them can only have come from someone who is clueless on the topics themselves. - unknown/anon

Currently some articles about ITIL are a little 'stubby' but this doesn't mean that they don't have value in and of themselves, nor that they should be merged back into the main ITIL page. In many ways, I would advocate splitting the ITIL page down into its constituent processes/functions and leaving the main ITIL page as more of an index. There has much been written about each process individually and increasingly there is overlap between CoBIT, ITIL, ISO/IEC20000 and other standards and methodologies such as PrinceII where harmonisation of techniques and approaches are concerned. I have to admit to being bias in these matters as an ITIL qualified practitioner in a number of areas. On merging, the reduction ad-absurdum is to suggest that all processes or methodologies in ICT should be merged because they are all processes/frameworks or methodologies. In some cases the differences will only ever be understood by the professionals (as an analogy we might have one page for anti-biotics in medicine but I would expect each family of antibiotics to have its own discreet description - their function, composition and application are different). ISO 20000 (or in-fact correctly ISO/IEC 20000 is a proscriptive standard and most importantly only covers ITIL Service Management and not the other ITIL disciplines, ITIL is not a proscriptive standard but a framework of processes for adoption and adaptation the two are related but quite separate IMHO. Wikipedia is unique in offering no limit as to scale (number of pages) and so unlike a print encyclopedia the need to edit is not driven by the need to reduce detail, but to improve quality. I don't see how quality is served by the reduction in overall accuracy or detail that would result from content being eliminated. Mark G 00:32, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

That is a very good summary Mark. BinaryGal

Along the same lines, the proposed Service Level Management merge is also inadvisable. ITIL did not define this. I agree with Mark's direction I think - we should call out the individual practice areas, and reference the frameworks that attempt to define them. That would 1) reduce the length of the ITIL article and 2) recognize the non-ITIL contributions (and perhaps divergences) on key concepts such as Change and Configuration Management. The main question I have is how to identify these concepts as IT domain concepts. I wouldn't want to see a Wikipedia article on "Change Management," it should probably be on "IT change management." This won't be easy or quick. Charles T. Betz 18:21, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I added the merge tags because the version of the ISO 20000 article that was up at the time made it sound like it was simply an officialization of ITIL. I've posted a request on the ISO 20000 talk page for expansion, to explain what it actually is. I've also removed the merger tags. Thank you all for the clarification. -- Beland 00:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Change Management (ITIL) and Change Management process (ITIL)

There have been concerns raised by myself and others about the level of overlap between the blue book and the Change Management process (ITIL) page, there is also a proposal to merge the separate Change Management (ITIL) page into this page, which I believe is a mistake (see below). Anyone wishing to assist with remediation of these two issues is welcome to contribute to the Change Management (ITIL) page where I hope it will be possible to generate a replacent (actually the Change Management (ITIL) page appears to pre-date the Change Management process (ITIL) page that was developed by the Utrecht Method Engineering guys.

Okay so why not merge in here?

1. There is much of value in the Change Management Process (ITIL) page that is useful to the community and that clearly describes the purpose, function and best practice ideals of the ITIL Change Management process,this is valuable in any comprehensive reference and adds to the IT Management content in wikipedia.
2. I believe that in the medium term the ITIL page itself will have to fragment into its constituent processes as it is already long and the main page should aim to serve the wider community who's interest is more in an overview that the detail.
3. I believe that with the impending arrival of v3 there will be considerable overlap and duplication of content under v3 will be avoided by referencing common content.
4. As it is likely that many orgnaisations ?Microsoft included? may at least in the short term stick with v2 it will be neccesary for the two to co-exist, and indeed there may be critisism of the v3 approach or modifications that will be more easily represented by maintaining a single page for each core process and allowing the page to explain the critisism that exists.

Mark G 16:20, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] There is always more than you think

I have come to this link via Service Level Management where it has been commented that that article could be moved into an Information Technology Infrastructure Library. My perspective is business management. I believe Service Level Management relates to all kinds of 'Business Process Outsourcing' Service Level Agreements such as legal services, billing, customer services, etc not just IT.

The information is undoubtably more advanced in the IT sector because BPO is further along the outsourcing evolutionary chain than IT outsourcing. However, it is now growing more quickly than ITO because the savings that BPO can provide were identified some years after ITO became popular. The outsourcing industry is currently split approximately 75:25 IT to BPO and worth approximately $75bn (source: The Economist Magazine).

Therefore the common principles should be identified distilled and recorded under a general top line heading 'Service Level Management'. The IT actions required will be different to the BPO actions but the management rationale will be the same.

Translation is time consuming but also a learning process. To mitigate this, the IT stuff could be held in detail in the ITIL and for the meantime be referenced from the Service Level Management section which can then develop organically as a top line heading.

PS I too am not sufficiently expert to edit this entry.

MS

I also come to the ITIL page via the redirection from Service Level Management, which I referenced while editing Rich Internet Applications. Because I am a specialist in the field of information technology, with a focus on software and application performance management, I am also familiar with ITIL. Even so -- and without even considering the concerns expressed above by contributor "MS" -- I agree that it is not ideal for the only material about the subject to be buried under ITIL. Even within the domain of software and information technology, the term Service Level Management has a wider meaning than the way it is defined in the ITIL standard.

The ITIL standard, because of its focus on IT, tends to emphasize those aspects of SLM that have traditionally been the responsibilities of IT organizations. It pays less attention to the design, creation, and testing of software applications, because traditionally most IT organizations are responsible only for deploying already developed applications. However, to be really effective, SLM concerns have to be considered more holistically, because it is much easier to deliver acceptable levels of service if they have been designed and built in from the start.

Merging SLM into ITIL removes the opportunity to discuss wider SLM concerns like this, and reinforces existing misconceptions about who is really responsible for delivering acceptable service levels.

Chris Loosley 00:41, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archiving this talk page

Can we do so? How? Charles T. Betz 03:15, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

We could move everything before the 'University of Utrecht' section to Talk:Information_Technology_Infrastructure_Library/Archive-Pre-April-06 ?

I vote yes, but not sure how to create a new talk page. Charles T. Betz 19:29, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Done - old content now located at : Talk Page Archive to April 2006 Mark G 21:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Process theory section

I deleted this section. Process principles are referenced briefly elsewhere, and this section is not germane to ITIL per se, especially given the article's considerable length challenges - more cross references can be added if desired.

I also disagree that ITIL is an especially good example of an application of process theory. It's more a set of best practices. Many of what it calls "processes" are actually just functions.

Next up: figuring out what to do with each of the detailed sections that (in the eyes of some) are simply regurgitating the standard in a manner incompatible with Wikipedia's goals. Charles T. Betz 19:55, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Excellent - an improvement, think we need to mention a little more clearly the extent that ITIL draws on Deming in order to develop it's approach. Mark G 21:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Relationship with ISO 20000

ITIL Service Management is currently embodied in the ISO 20000

What does "embodied" mean? Inspired by? Quoted verbatim in its entirety? Excerpted? --- Beland 01:47, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

To me, it means "officially instantiated." The OGC is not a de jure standards body. ISO is. Charles T. Betz 02:03, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

So you're saying that ISO 20000 is simply ITIL quoted verbatim in its entirety with an official stamp of approval? -- Beland 02:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Not quite, and there are others paying attention here I would defer to. I do not personally have the ISO20000 source doc, and so am somewhat limited in my ability to comment. The ISO standards have their own approach, objectives, standard format, etc, but there is no question the provenance of ISO20000 originates with ITIL.

Can we be clear here. There is no such thing as ISO 20000, ISO/IEC 20000 is a standard for Service Management and draws heavily on ITIL Service Management, this is narrow and includes only reference to Red and Blue book contents. Furthermore, not all of the red and blue book suggestions are embodied in the standard (Part1) and not all of the remainder are included in the Guidelines (Part2). Mark G 11:25, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diagram

Image:ITIL framework.PNG does not seem to be adding anything to the article. Perhaps it is simply missing an explanation. What is the significance of the arrangement of the various boxes? What relationships are being diagrammed?

Is it essentially copied from the handbook it mentions as its source, or is it a re-creation of a similar diagram based on the underlying ideas? I ask for copyright reasons. It is currently marked as "fair use", which for a diagram which could be easily re-created, is not an adequate license. -- Beland

[edit] NPOV tag

It was requested that given the recent work done on the article, that I review the need for the NPOV tag. The introduction has indeed improved quite a bit, though there is still one problematic statement, which I have marked. The addition of a criticism section has also helped round out the overall perspective of the article. The "Details of the ITIL Framework" section still has POV problems because it contains normative ("should") "how-to" suggestions. It is an official policy that Wikipedia is not an instruction manual. This is mostly to enforce the vision of writing an encyclopedia, rather than simply a collection of all the useful information in the universe. The value of information which is too detailed for an encyclopedia is recognized, and Wikibooks is provided to host such useful works, including how-to manuals. -- Beland 02:23, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

---

I continue to think that the best solution for the details section will be based on splitting each practice area into its own article, and noting that ITIL basically was neither the first nor the last word on any of them. I have a 1980 IBM publication in hand for example that details Change Control, Capacity Management, Problem Control, Recovery Planning, and Service Level Planning.

I am still concerned about the namespace issue, and would recommend that (instead of tagging the practice areas with ITIL) we tag them with ITSM. For example,

• Change Management (ITSM)
• Capacity Planning (ITSM)
• Service Level Management (ITSM)

We can then go into origins and pros and cons of each one systematically. But I think the ITSM page should be the master, not the ITIL page.

Thoughts?

-Charlie

Charles T. Betz 02:32, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

You only need add a parenthetical tag to the title of articles if it would be ambiguous. Since there is no existing article on change management, for example, it would be fine to put an article on change-management-in-general under the title "Change management". Certainly articles discussing these topics in general would be much more appropriate to an encyclopedia than merely documenting the subsections of one particular government standard. And any respectable encylopedia should have an article on something as important as change management. -- Beland 02:47, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

My concern is that we will quickly get into disambiguation. "Change management" would also merit an entry for "organizational change management" which is a different beast. Agreed that the parenthetical shouldn't be ITIL though. ITSM is a discipline and not owned by anyone, that's why I propose it.Charles T. Betz 04:12, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Can one of you guys better qualified than me also take a look at Service management please? In my view the existing entry needs work Pukerua 04:44, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confusion tag

I've added the confusion tag to the overview section because it uses lots of jargony acronyms, does not define the technical terms that it uses in plain language, merely lists the names of subsections instead of explaining what they say, and may be duplicative as an outline. Both the "Details" section and the automatically generated table of contents already provide outlines of the rest of the article. I think what lay readers may need from an overview is less of a table of contents, and more of a prose explanation summarizing the recommendations of the framework.

There are several lists of things which sound to lay ears like synonyms, which the article seems to think are technical terms with distinct meanings:

• "systems, applications and services"
• "processes, functions or disciplines"
• "strategic management, operations management and financial mangement"
• "technical implementation and operations"

If these distinctions are important, they should be explained, preferably with concrete examples.

The mysterious acronyms ICT, CSF and KPI, are used without explanation.

-- Beland 02:42, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Yep, lots of things to noodle on here. All of those apparent synonyms do indeed have distinct meanings. But to expand on them is perhaps a secondary priority to figuring out a more workable, modular article structure? Current state is just too much of a muddle IMHO.

ICT: Information and Communications Technology

CSF: Critical Success Factor

KPI: Key Process Indicator

There should be brief articles for all of them.

I really do appreciate your keeping us honest and taking time to bring an experienced Wikipedia eye to this set of articles; this is a great partnership. Some of what you are asking will take some time...

Charles T. Betz 02:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Likewise, I definitely appreciate the interest that people have taken in these articles lately. I figure that the least I can do is ask questions that will help later readers, even if I can't answer them myself. 8) -- Beland 02:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and we do actually have the articles Critical success factor, Information technology (apparently a synonym or other-dialect equivalent for ICT), and Key performance indicators. -- Beland 02:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

ICT is not quite IT. It's a linguistic distinction meriting further digging. Its provenance is more Brit than US. Any comments from that side of the pond?Charles T. Betz 03:02, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again Beland (and Charles - it's good to collaborate) for the input. Lets see where we can go with this. I'd suggest we make modules within the article more independent and then look to graduate them out of the article - but we need to ensure that they are strong enough to stand on their own - otherwise other wikipedians will likely seek to merge them back in! Mark G 21:50, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

On the ICT side, the inclusion of 'Communications' moves the emphasis away from 'just' the 'technology' required to host a service, and to include the communications infrastructure and communications services. Typically an ICT department will manage telecommunications (both switched and VoIP).

[edit] ITIL precursors

Added this, and it's a rich field for plowing. The yellow books aren't everything! In particular would like to get some of the Brit/Dutch history I hear about from time to time.

I have no financial stake in IBM but their role here is clearly of historic interest; I hope no-one feels this is overly commercial.Charles T. Betz 04:12, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Restructuring project

Let's start a new thread. In response to Mark - if we "make the modules more independent" that means (to my mind) including non-ITIL background in the process areas; we may run into objections there as well... it's kind of a Catch-22.

Do we need a dedicated project page to coordinate this?

How many of the process areas already have their own articles? Charles T. Betz 12:07, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed reference

They are a commercial operation (with whom i have no connection) but I do think we should include a reference to the Visible Ops group as an alternate approach to ITIL based on some solid research. Thoughts? Pukerua 10:51, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Agree. We cannot ignore the commercial contributions here; if it weren't for IBM, HP, and the rest, ITIL and IT Service Management as we know them today would not exist. Just need to be extremely NPOV when referencing a vendor's material. Charles T. Betz 11:39, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citation fixes

I put all citations in strict Chicago style. The Office of Government Commerce is the only name that appears on the title page, so that is the ITIL author for the formal cite - the Chicago Manual of Style is very clear on this. The only exception is the security book; I have the hard copy and the authors of that book do appear on its title page. Charles T. Betz 11:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re-ordering of Support and Delivery

I also put the Service Support section before the Service Delivery section. I am not aware that Service Delivery comes "before" Service Support in any meaningful way (as was stated) - please provide evidence if I am wrong. Most organizations start with Service Support. Charles T. Betz 11:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, I think that Service Delivery does come before Service Support as Service Delivery covers those areas that requre the engagement of the customer and the setting up of Service Level Agreements and Financial targets / budgets etc. Without these implementing Service Support fails to have the business buy-in etc that is required for a propper implementation. The Continuous Service Improvement Programme that ITIL prescribes be used for implementation (Planning to Implement) is expected to be under the management of Service Level Management and so from that perspective again SD comes before SS. However, I agree that in practice most organisations implement SS first (or at least a component of it) as typically they look to ITIL as a part of a 'new Helpdesk/Service Desk' project. There are however others who arrive through governance with an initial priority on IT Service Continuity and others still who start with Service Level Agreements (actually usually an iterative process starting with SLR). Mark G 18:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Relevance

I propose that the first paragraph needs to state how many organizations say they have adopted these practices, or perhaps how many organizations claim to require them of vendors. Without a statement like this, it's impossible to definitively state this topic is even notable. Tempshill 07:07, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not convinced that the topic's notability hinges on this. There is much discussion and coverage of ITIL in the computing press, and the national ITSMF meetings attract thousands. It is probably the most significant development in large-scale IT management in some years. Metrics as to ITIL uptake would be good, but not essential to justifying the article's existence. The trouble is that such surveys are typically undertaken by fee for service organizations. Charles T. Betz 11:54, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Since this reads like a big ad in some ways, or at least an article attempting to convince IT managers that the topic is important and that they need to purchase a large number of seminars and workshops for their staff, I think the notability has to be established up front. If you have any statistic that's comparable to uptake, then that might very well suffice. This isn't just to avoid editors posting this article to AFD, by the way; it's also for the benefit of the layman reader, who would otherwise conclude quickly this is useless marketing jargon, and go elsewhere. Tempshill 22:07, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

We have significant disagreements over interpretation. Can you provide specific support for your assertion that "this reads like a big ad in some ways, or at least an article attempting to convince IT managers that the topic is important and that they need to purchase a large number of seminars and workshops for their staff." Which sections?

Re: business motivation implication. ITIL is owned by a governmental agency; the framework itself is quite inexpensive. Charles T. Betz 00:06, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Moving our discussion from Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Method Engineering Encyclopedia to here, the appropriate spot: The Google search is ample proof of notability, thank you. I for some reason didn't bother to do the most elementary step. My comment still stands that the article at present doesn't adequately assert its subject's notability right up front, which will cost you readers. Tempshill 04:02, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Method Engineering

I have removed this tag because I do not believe there is any basis for it any more. ITIL is a significant topic in and of itself, not owned by the Utrecht group. The article does need to continue to be pared down and split out into constituent ITSM process areas as discussed. Charles T. Betz 22:54, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ITIL disaggregation

As discussed earlier, I have started moving the detailed ITIL material into standalone sections, such as Change Management (ITSM). Speak now or hold your peace... Assistance please...Charles T. Betz 01:19, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Large deletions

I have made some very large deletions and condensations. The material was good, just too much of it. We need to drive towards more terse, link-rich material. Apologies for oxes gored, but there are well-justified challenges from the Wikipedia community on this article's length.Charles T. Betz 03:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Just realized we lost the actual citations for the 6 non-ITSM ITIL books. That's a loss. I will replace or someone else can.Charles T. Betz 13:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I am very disapointed on a number of fronts with the significant restructuring that has occurred over the past couple of weeks. Firstly, the very large volume of material that was on these pages, while messy was (like ITIL itself) the voices of many editors built up over many many months. The changes now leave the pages with a withered very single sided view of ITIL that fundamentally excludes the disciplines outside of Service Management. This is one of the biggest failings of the community as a whole (to fail to understand ITIL as a suite of best practice) who are so focussed on the Service Management elements as to loose sight of the whole. Your comment about 'link rich' is only valid if the links are to sources within Wikipedia, there has again been a tendency to link to blogs from these pages over the past few weeks, something that I find a problem as it cannot be done with a single blog or small number without inviting everyone and their dog to add their blog to the article - more significantly it is against the Wikipedia ethos of being itself definintive. The goal of Wikipedia to offer itself up as a single source is diminished each time an external reference must be used in description or explanation. Also, when those links added are by the blogger themselves (not in your case but in others) then there is a statement here that their own publishing medium is more important, they have the ability to contribute 'content' here and the NPOV advises against including opinion or advocacy which clearly blogs promote. I need to take a step back and read through the changes and the new daughter pages, I am wary about re-adding much of what has been deleted and think that reverting the whole page would be inflamatory and would throw out much of the good summarisation that has been performed. I am fully in favour and belive that it is the right way to go for these pages to be broken down into their re-usable parts and advocated this some time ago, however I think that moving so hastily and without discussion or input risks alienating the community, and certainly the current article has a much less balanced and comprehensive view of ITIL than we had only seven or eight days ago. Mark G 09:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing that can't be un-done, lost material that people feel added value can easily be restored short of a wholesale reversion - nor would I take the restoration of material personally. I've restored some of the sections you've expressed disappointment in losing in the interest of harmony. Link rich to me does mean mainly within Wikipedia, although there are valid exceptions.

I've addressed most of the rest of the points below. Not sure how the blogs are relevant here - that's a different discussion.Charles T. Betz 13:06, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I suspect this does validate the point I made on evolution, rather than revolution. These changes have ocurred way too quickly. Regarding "link-rich", I suspect Mark is referring to your comment "We need to drive towards more terse, link-rich material". Fast on the back of the blog discussion, this gave the impression that you referring to blog links. Like Mark, and many others, I do not think they are generally appropriate here. I'm glad to see that some of the other content is returning really, because I think plenty of others will be taken aback when they come here to see such large removals in such a short time frame. Kudos for the flexibility in terms of response though. Binarygal

[edit] Incident management

Split this out tonight. Little bit at a time. At this rate I'll be done breaking up the article in a week or so. Help would be appreciated. Haven't had ANY comments pro or con since I started this - a little surprised. Considered making Incident and Problem just one article, but figured that would cause too much angst. ITIL article no longer shows up with a length warning on edit, that is progress I think. Charles T. Betz 02:00, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

The reason you have not had any comments is probably because you have rushed into your next change. People do not visit here every day. I think that you should wait weeks between significant changes like this, rather than just a couple of days. The page has been like this for a long time, and merits collective evolution, not revolution. Binarygal

Well, Wikipedia says Be Bold - and these issues have been in active discussion for some time now. Do you agree with the direction? Charles T. Betz 12:16, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Rationalization is fine in concept, but you do have to give people a chance to review this before pressing on ever further. If it was a brand new topic, dramatic changes may be expected. But this page has served visitors well for a long time, and radical change should be introduced at a rate that enables due consultation. Binarygal

There is no hurry. I will wait as you suggest. But (while a stub existed as early as 2002) most of the content in question seems to have been created last spring and summer, which is not a particularly long time in my view. Charles T. Betz 15:51, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Charles, over 35 people had added their voices in the past year to this and its related pages. Many as a passing interest, small correction here or there or addition/enhancement of a section. Like you I am driven by a desire to see the information here be as accurate and accessible as possible, but the terms baby and bathwater spring to mind as well as some serious concerns that the pages end up 'owned' by one or two individuals rather than by the community. I think that persuing this one section at a time and giving people a week or more in-between section moves would have been more appropriate - people have lives and jobs and the risk of loosing their contribution is high, especially if content drops from their watchlist because it has moved or there are so many more pages that they don't have the desire or will to visit each one. Moving page/section at a time would be more likely to encourage them to visit the new page, add their thoughts and return every now and again. All at once changes like this risk loosing more than we gain. Also - IHMO - it is difficult to present something like ITIL with its strong devotion to a level of control without drawing people used to that environment, to then make ad-hoc major changes is likely to pull against the opinions as to what is 'best practice' that the subject matter experts believe. Is this fixable? Mark G 11:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Three sections have been moved, and I am happy to wait for a while. I have had a sense of urgency due to other postings from more mainstream Wikipedians who seemed to be increasingly critical of the article, which did merit the criticms and template tags being applied to it IMHO. (I was not the person who added those tags.)

I honestly can't quite parse your last sentence. Can you please re-state? Of course everything is fixable - this is Wikipedia. Charles T. Betz 11:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bias toward Service Management

The precursors section in this new page talks about service management exclusively. This innaccurately represents ITIL. Mark G 10:43, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Not sure that "representing ITIL" is the purpose of that section. Simply trying to accurately identify the history, which started with the IBM Yellow Books. If there are other documented precursors let's put them in.Charles T. Betz 11:22, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] relevance of external reference?

The Enterprise Computing Institute publishes a set of coordinated books covering general issues of large scale IT management. This may be a fact but what has it to do with ITIL ?

ITIL is a library. The ECI library is the only other coordinated collection covering the same ground I am aware of. Helps put ITIL in context. We could put this in the ITSM article instead perhaps. Charles T. Betz 11:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Great - thanks for the clarification. Mark G 09:31, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] tendency to turn into a religion ?

This seems a bit extreeme? I think that this critisism needs to be removed, or re-described from an NPOV and without the loaded metaphor. I have been working in environments where ITIL is heavily used for many years and have yet to encounter anyone who believes it is a religion. Plenty of people who become obsessed with process over purpose maybe but never anyone who has formed a formal belief system around it. Mark G 10:47, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

This is clearly in bounds for Wikipedia. If you want to further NPOV it (which I did try to do) go ahead, but the simple fact is that a noted CIO magazine columnist said this in print. I have heard it said by many others. It's a valid criticism of ITIL. Maybe it's more of a problem in the U.S. where ITIL is having the misfortune to be the "next big thing."

One of the criticisms of this Wikipedia article was that it was too rah-rah ITIL, which I agree with. We need more material in the criticisms section for a balanced view. Charles T. Betz 11:27, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Not in my experience: it most certainly can be a bit of a religion sometimes. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:02, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe "cult" or "fad" are less emotive terms than "religion". Meyer used the word "religion" - I remember thinking that was a bit extreme when I read it. "Fad" is a bit too mild but "cult" sounds about right to me Pukerua 22:41, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

In the context of IT "religion" is commonly used to refer to anything that people form an emotional attachment to. It could be used to describe either technology or process. Once people have bought into something, they can become quite heated defending it. It doesn't mean they've actually formed a belief system around it. It just describes their behavior. It should be considered jargon, and should be avoided for that reason. Jayscore 19:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] reference to uneven quality in volumes needs clarifying

There is a reference to 'uneven quality' in the main article. Does this refer to format (lack of consistency often critisised), rigour (some areas clearly less rigourously defined than others) or validity/accuracy (not sure?). Quality here needs defining in order for it to avoid being an 'empty' statement. Mark G 10:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Rigor and consistency, I think, also proper domain coverage. The thing I have heard is that the Application Management and Security Management volumes are viewed as particularly weak. The AM volume was criticized in a keynote speech at the Chicago ITSMF last year that I personally attended. However, that statement is not verifiable, so I used the quote included, which is verifiable. It's not the place of the article to do original research into the quality question, just noting that it is an issue is I think sufficient. By the way, I personally think the AM volume is useful. I am simply trying to provide some balance.

Do you have any criticisms of ITIL that you can add? Or is the thrust of your comments that the Criticism section should be removed? I would be concerned that that is a step backwards. Charles T. Betz 11:33, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we need to retain the critisism section, although in an ideal world i would include the critique with each of teh relevant sections just to balance the article rather than adding this section as a counterweight, at least for the moment I think it should stay. Mark G 09:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] removal of library overview opening paragraph

This was, i believe useful to non initiates. Not sure how it's removal adds value. Comment in article says for 'brevity', however see : [[4]] for a description of why brevity need not be an aim in itself. I believe that many valuable contributions by other editors to these pages have been lost in an unneccesary quest for brevity. Clarity, yes please. Division/Separation of pages for re-use elsewhere - yes please. Removal of valid content - no thank-you. Mark G 10:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I have restored this in the interests of working through these issues amicably. I do think that the text needs some further tweaking.Charles T. Betz 11:50, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Charles - I'll have a look at it again from a clarity perspective. Mark G 09:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] removal of Non Service Management content

IMHO this is not acceptable, these sections have been removed while others have been relocated out of this main page. Relocation - sure no problem. Deletion without re-provision amounts to the willfull removal of valuable information. A reader of this article could now quickly and very wrongly form a view that ITIL simply covered Service Management. These sections should be restored or reprovided in their own page-space. I am concerned that there needs to be a solid committment (consensus) from the WP community before proliferating pages as I have previously suggested and was waiting for, without such a consensus there will be insufficient voices to defend the content from deletion by those wikipedians who (incorrectly IHMO) believe that this content is not relevant. I really don't think that meeting an arbitrary 34k page size limit is really a good reason to jetison valuable information, especially when the net result is to weaken the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the article such that it risks rendering it misleading.

Sad that we are back to almost a April 2005 view of ITIL from a WP perspective and have lost many of the contributions of the 30+ individuals who have added their voice over that period of time. We must progress, but with consent and consensus and without being bound by unneccesary and arbitrary guidelines that serve more as information than regulation. Mark G 10:58, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

My view is that describing the non-Service Management volumes is not the place of Wikipedia. It's simply providing advertising for the OGC. Splitting them out doesn't work for me - I'd question the value of a page dedicated to (for example) the Planning to Implement Service Management volume. It's not notable enough, nor is it an established IT practice area in the sense that Service Desk or Change Management are. That said, if those volume descriptions are restored to the ITIL artcle, I will defer. Charles T. Betz 11:39, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm a little concerned that we have lost Security and the ICT Infrastructure Management, clearly the 'in small units' and 'planning to implement' can be accomodated to some degree or another in the Service Management pages. However Application Management, Security, ICT Infrastructure Management and to a lesser extent 'The Business Perspective' do not overlap with ITSM in the ITIL/MOF/CoBIT sense and describe distinct management processes and functions for areas of IT Management outside of ITSM. Of note, Capacity Management relies on 'managed Technical Support' from the Orange Book which is heavily drawn on by other disciplines. Release Management requires (often but not always) input from 'Deployment Management' from ICT IM. Application Management has key application lifecycle management elements and creates the interface between an ITIL 'world' and development methodologies such as Unified, RUP, XP, etc etc. Security, while being not a perfect volume provides the interface between ITIL and ISO/IEC 17799 and several other security processes. The Business Perspective covers processes and functions for the operation of an ICT unit as a business unit and is very relevant to both modern outsourcing operations and internal 'profit centre' based ICT as well as being the predicate upon which many of the moves from 'IT Director' to 'CIO' as the strategic position in large businesses - it helps to clearly define the provider/customer boundry for IT - often a problem in the implementation of large systems. Why do you believe that ITSM elements of ITIL deserve Wikipedia coverage and these other valuable 'practices' don't? Mark G 12:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I have added these back in in the interest of working through this amicably. I do think that all these practices should be covered in Wikipedia, but not necessarily using ITIL-based names for the articles. The Application Management and Business Perspective volumes I think would be covered in Wikipedia by Software Engineering and IT Portfolio Management. I think also that an Application Lifecycle Management article would be good, as that is a term emerging in the industry. Charles T. Betz 12:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Funny, I put in Application Lifecycle Management expecting it to be a new page - but someone just created it today!Charles T. Betz 12:14, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] retention of brief introductions as we move sections out

As sections move out and gain their own independent life e.g. 'Service Desk' etc. I am wondering if we should be keeping a short 2-3 sentence introduction here. I am concerned that for the first time visitor seeking information on ITIL we will be directing them out to maybe up to 20 sub pages that ultimately will make it impossible for them to get a good overview without much reading. Mark G 09:34, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I am fine with this. Charles T. Betz 19:11, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] a very small NPOV change

I changed the wording in the intro re "claim to." It seemed too much a concession to some of the criticism leveled re: not NPOV enough. I think it is more accurate and sufficient to say that ITIL is "intended to" do X. Whether it succeeds in these objectives are where we strive for balance. Picky I know but that wording has been bugging me every time I read it. Charles T. Betz 01:55, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A framework or not

Just a quick comment. The opening sentence of this article begins, "The ITIL is a framwork of ..." One of the criticisms state, "The OGC also doesn’t claim that ITIL is a framework." I would think the OGC is an authorative source for the description of ITIL. So I guess what I'm saying is if the OGC doesn't think ITIL to be a framework, the article should describe it as one.

[edit] Service Desk reversion

I reverted the last change because it wasn't working right - while we've agreed that we can retain brief introductions for individual sections, the change that was made deleted the link to the Service Desk standalone article and had some complications I didn't quite understand.Charles T. Betz 16:08, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Let's archive this page...

OK? Charles T. Betz 18:39, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I think so too, assuming you mean the talk page! Binarygal

[edit] Add link to "Service catalog"?

The Service Catalog entry is flagged as having few or no incoming links. I would think the ITIL page would be a good place to add a link to service catalog, but being relatively new to ITIL, it's not clear to me where in the ITIL article such a link would go. Any suggestions? Are there other articles which could link to service catalog? West81 18:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

After learning a little more about ITIL, I added a Service Catalog link in the Service Level Management section. West81 15:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Added to the intro

I addded the reference to the Microsoft Operations Framework at the top of the page. I think it is necessary since the page seems to be masquarading an a Goverment lead inititive, but is actually a Microsoft led scheme. I thought it necessary since there is no mention of open standards and this will explain why.

Are you serious? Masquarading as a Goverment lead inititive? Have you checked the history of this? I suspect you will find that if there is any 'masquarading' it is entirely in the opposite direction. I think this needs to be changed back to what it was Binarygal

This is one of the more off the wall edits I've ever seen. Support the revert. Charles T. Betz 16:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. I just couldn't leave such sheer nonsense there Charles. Talk about re-writing history! Binarygal

The following article may put our Miscrosoft friend's edit into perspective: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-01-24-microsoft-wikipedia_x.htm?POE=TECISVA That is simply disgraceful. Binarygal

Hmm. I'm thinking that Rick Jeliffe was probably working more on XML related things. But could be... Charles T. Betz 16:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Patches to plug bugs in a software?

In the section 'Details of the ITIL Framework/Service Support/Release Management' the explanation of the Delta Release uses as an example: "Security patches to plug bugs in a software". I don't believe that this text is correct, but I don't know how to fix it. Someone, please, correct this problem. --Marcelo Pinto 19:56, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Registered trademark of initials ITIL?!?

I'm not an expert in trademarks, but it seems to me strange that this article has a registered trademark symbol after the first use of the initials ITIL. Two questions:

• is it really these four letters in no matter what font etc. which form a registered trademark?
• do we really need to put the symbol here on the Wikipedia article?

Rugops 13:41, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

The trademark covers upper case only. This is, or was, clearly stated on the OGC website. Archive.org will confirm if it isn't still on there now. Binarygal

Nonetheless, we don't need the symbol here, all the less since the text just below makes it explicit that the name is trademarked. Wikipedia style is to avoid trademark symbols, so I've removed it. 81.86.133.45 18:18, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Linkspam

Reverting out ridiculous unproductive row about self-linking. The Wikipedia guidelines are extremely clear: "You should avoid linking to a website that you own, maintain or represent, even if the guidelines otherwise imply that it should be linked".

Please adhere to this.

[edit] Version 3 Integration

Some of the general v3 stuff needs to be cut from this page, with a subset of the v3 page added. Not an easy task, granted.

[edit] TMF/eTOM

I saw this added as an ITIL alternative, and reverted an attempted deletion. The TMF/eTOM work is highly regarded and is in fact a viable ITIL alternative, especially for telecomm providers. (I did not add the reference originally). Charles T. Betz 16:09, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

This is for telecoms. If you are going to add an 'alternative' for every industry it will never stop. Where Do you stop? Think about it for goodness sake.

Nice bit of linkspam adding TWO links as well. We are not daft you know.

Quite apart from that, how many other frameworks on wiki have 'alternatives' listed?

The CORRECT route is to add an INTERNAL wiki link to the wiki page describing the so-called alternative.

It shouldn't be here, but if it HAS to be, THAT is the route.

Not every industry would be relevant. Service Management in an IT context is an essential perspective for the telecomm industry; not so much for other verticals. That's why they built eTOM which I have seen and believe is a notable framework. (I don't have the time to create a new Wiki article. Where does it say that external links aren't permitted, by the way?) There are many other external links within this article and I think they add value as well. Charles T. Betz 19:38, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Itil Open Guide

This external link appears to be covered by the WP:EL guidelines as one of those specifically to be avoided (Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors). I removed it but it was re-added. This site doesn't seem to me to have much useful content that is not either covered in this article or in the other external linked sites. I am not suggesting that this site is not a worthwhile venture (although expanding the ITIL content within Wikipedia seems a more worthwhile activity in my view), but unless it is an authoritative source of information on the subject beyond what is covered in this article and the other sites, the guidelines suggest it shouldn't be linked. Why should it stay? Thanks.--Michig 20:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

This is a long established 'Open' site dedicated to ITIL. I believe that it is associated with an dsupported by at least 3 of the major forums, and I do know that many people edit it (so it does have a substantial number of editors). Further, it includes the voluntary certification register, and the voluntary register of ISO 20000 certifications. Also, the content does extend beyond this Wiki, and in different areas. Your opinion that extending this Wiki is "a more worthwhile activity in my view" is not attractive at all, as it perhaps clouds your judgment. I don't like to see that to be frank, as it introduces Wiki rivalry, which we certainly don't want.

You simply seem to have come along, with limited of ITIL or the history, and taken a pop at another Wiki, for dubious motives. That is widely considered to be an excellent Wiki. Chopping it without commonsense rationale, using a misinterpretation/misuse of a guideline, for questionable motives, is not a positive development.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.210.85.50 (talk • contribs).

Try to take the heat out of the debate guys. FWIW, I wouldn't want to see that link go either. It is quite a pivotal site, fulfilling multiple functions and with some useful information. There is surely room for both wikis. Binarygal

I asked why it should stay, and you replied with a reason - thanks. The site only lists a small number of contributors - if there are in fact many more then the issue would be more clear-cut. Your suggestion that I have dubious or questionable motives and a lack of knowledge veers close to a personal attack in my view. I have explained why I removed the link, and am happy to accept this as an external link if the consensus is to keep it.--Michig 21:10, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding the ITIL_v3 merge proposal

I've suggested over there that indeed a further split is what's warranted. Particularly: All the ITIL#Details_of_the_ITIL_v2_framework should be separated from this article into another. 198.49.180.254 18:30, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SVG version of the Green pin.

I created a first draft for a SVG version of the ITIL green pin at . Maybe we could use at this article? --Pinnecco (talk) 10:15, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

Question the link to BOFH. it is amusing and satirical but lacks notable new thought on ITIL. Not appropriate here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pukerua (talk • contribs) 23:50, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Not sure about that.

Likewise the link to itil.org.uk. This is a commercial website. I nominate this as link spam. Why aren't the MFA nazis up in arms about this one? Pukerua (talk) 23:56, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see Adsense (MFA) on there at all. I see TSO, the publishers of ITIL (in case you didn't know)! I also hear rumours that the site is going to be a dedicated front end for them.

Your zealousness seems to be a little misplaced (as in your previous edit history?). 86.130.173.212 (talk) 08:32, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ITIL Certification

There used to be a large segment explaining the v2 certification scheme (Foundation/Practitioner/Manager). This is an important aspect of ITIL, yet it is now missing. Does anyone know why? Perhaps it has been moved somewhere? 86.130.173.212 (talk) 08:36, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

It was replaced in September with a block of vandalism (see diff). The vandalism was removed but the section was not restored. I have restored the section, since it appears to have been removed inadvertently. Tjarrett (talk) 14:11, 5 February 2008 (UTC)