The pitfalls of ITIL

"When you start to approach ITIL, there is a great temptation to produce complex and detailed process maps. This is not necessary for most of the processes, and wastes valuable time and resources." He believes that many of the processes, such as incident management, are performed hundreds of times daily, and do not need rigid process maps, and that simple process maps need to be created for some of the ITIL processes.

Not creating work instructions

Fry says that too often, organizations fail to establish written work instructions because they spend too much time creating complex process maps. These work instructions, he says, must be written, published, and continually reviewed.

Not assigning process owners

"IT, like most other departments, is often silo-based and not process-oriented. A process owner should be assigned to each of the ITIL processes that cross functional silos. The process owner should concentrate on the structure and flow of the process, without having to focus on staffing and other departmental issues," Fry states. He believes the process ownerüs job is to carefully monitor and manage the assigned processes, so that it can be continually improved.