ITIL for System Developers

Many IT organizations attempting to increase service levels, decrease costs and improve security look to the ITIL framework for guidance. ITIL, or the IT Infrastructure Library, is widely accepted as the world's leading compilation of IT best practices and hence the use of ITIL for System Developers.

Business and Process Modeling tools, as a means of enabling effective communication in the organization, are now a necessity. The need for unambiguous communication, documentation and agreement is as important to the IT department as it is to the business, administrative, clerical and manufacturing communities within an organization along with ITIL for System Developers is used extensively.

ITIL for System Developers can and should have more understanding of the reasoning and needs behind a computer system than they do currently. Business and Process Modeling tools enable this to happen due to their ability to extend BPM into the world of Object Models, or Class Diagrams as they're know in UML circles, allowing the system developers to gain a quick and accurate insight into the requirement. Developers now finally have a means of explaining a planned system to the end-users in end-user language, using the models developed by the end-users and by ITIL for System Developers. Thus, swift agreement on the computer system spec can be reached. The users can even be shown example screens without a line of code having to be written.

Organizations should thoroughly plan for change. Obvious but rarely practiced. In times of change it is necessary to study the re-structuring options but organizations are well-advised to not re-engineer people and departments without first understanding their true worth and role within the organization. This need for understanding applies particularly to organizations implementing software solutions such as ERP and CRM systems along with uses of ITIL for System Developers. Have you ever wondered why there are so few success stories surrounding these products - well, now you know the reason - there aren't many to talk about. There's too much emphasis on technology and not enough on understanding the people and agreeing the processes.

By communicating effectively, organizations can plan for the future and implement change strategies that stand a good chance of working due to high levels of agreement and understanding having been gained at all levels of the organization prior to any change and ITIL for System Developers. With talk of recession looming, businesses had better start planning now for change - including consultation with and agreement from the workforce. It is important to note that not every business process needs to be automated - simply gaining an understanding of what's going on and discussing how to improve things may be all that's required in certain cases.

According to the glossy brochures and the sales talk, Service Management tools are indispensable such as ITIL for System Developers. However, good people, good process descriptions, and good procedures and working instructions are the basis for successful Service Management. The need for, and the sophistication of, the tools required depends on the business need for IT Services and, to some extent, the size of the organization.

Automation of core processes is a good starting point. These include things like Incident logging and tracking, Problem Management and Configuration management tools along with ITIL for System Developers. Other tools include:

• interactive voice response (IVR) systems
• the Internet, internal electronic mail, voice mail
• self-help knowledge
• case-based reasoning/search systems
• network management tools (including remote support capabilities)
• System monitoring
• Configuration and Change Management systems
• release and distribution systems
• security monitoring and control, including password control, detection of violations and virus protection
• capacity planning
• IT Service Continuity Management (including automatic back-ups).

Products such as ProVision Workbench (PVW) go a long way in helping to document and understand the organization but to truly make an impression on the future, it is likely that that these tools will need to extend their functionality into the areas of Knowledge Management and Workflow Engines such as ERP and CRM systems and hence ITIL for System Developers. Rather than re-invention of the perfectly good wheels already in existence, a sensible approach to achieving these ends may include interfaces between the environments. PVW, for example, has such an interface to JD Edwards' OneWorld ERP system. PVW is soon to have its own enhanced Knowledge Management facilities by way of indexing and tracking of the files (eg. Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, MPEG movies) that can be attached to PVW's Objects.

These approaches to integrating and enhancing modeling tools will revolutionize the way in which companies operate. With good systems for communication in place, it will be possible to constantly re-asses and improve processes and to then immediately apply these amended processes via the interfaced Workflow Engine and the integrated Knowledge Management facilities to see clearly the advantages of ITIL for System Developers.