Creating ITIL Readiness Through Simulation

As the Middle East becomes a rapidly developing service economy, it is critical that underpinning IT services are of a ‘world-class’ standard, argues Linda King.

Because of this, organisations in the Middle East need ways to help ensure ongoing IT reliability as well as achieve required performance improvements. One of the best ways to do this is through the use of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), which is an internationally recognised best practice framework for IT service management (ITSM).

ITIL has proven invaluable to thousands of organisations in all industries across the globe as a best practice framework to manage and improve effective IT services. Since its inception in the late 1980s, it has become the single most important and accepted framework for ITSM. It has also been used as the basis for the only international standard for quality IT service management, ISO/IEC 20000.

Many organisations are investing heavily in deploying service management improvement programmes based around ITIL, or looking to achieve certification against the ISO/IEC 20000 standard. Whilst getting standards and processes in place is an important part of preparing for successful change, it is only half the race – and it’s generally the easy half. The bigger challenge is getting all the people affected ready for the change, then using the changes as a springboard to future improvement. This is called readiness – the ability of an organisation to embrace change, and adopt it to the point of acceptance, effectiveness and beyond.

So, how do you get the people involved or affected by the changes on board and committed? To truly understand ITIL, you have to experience it. The majority of organisations seeking to understand and adopt ITIL best practices tend to opt for formal, classroom-based ITIL education to foundation level (or higher). Traditional education communicates theory and provides learners with a valuable industry qualification – but the way people learn has changed significantly over the last decade. The speed of change, the complexity of information, all combined with today’s rapid work pace make training courses of a formal ‘classroom’ nature often inappropriate and too slow for many people. People need learning that is immediate, relevant and in the context of their work.

A new generation of learning is here. Simulations are a high-impact way to accelerate understanding and acceptance of ITSM best practice across organisations. ITIL simulations bring to life the service management and process issues faced by organisations through realistic scenarios to which participants can directly relate and have actual experience of. Rather than focus on theory or technology, the simulations focus on the benefits of process in a practical and energetic manner.

Simulations create breakthrough understanding of IT service management best practice and transform learning into an engaging, fun and highly memorable shared experience. Unpredictability, interaction and realism are game elements that draw on participants’ emotions and competitiveness to ultimately create high levels of engagement.

ITIL simulations are also highly effective enablers of change. A recent report from industry analysts Forrester suggests that in over half of organisations undergoing a change such as an ITIL implementation, internal resistance occurred – to such an extent that 52 percent of organisations listed it as the most significant negative element of the entire implementation. Transforming an IT organisation to be truly ready to successfully follow a best practice framework such as ITIL or achieve a standard such as ISO/IEC 20000 requires commitment and understanding at every level of the IT organisation. The problem is that influencing the mindset of such a wide spread of staff through traditional education will be virtually impossible, due to time, budgets, availability and other common organisational constraints. ITIL simulations can help by practically demonstrating the benefits of best practice to large audiences and fast. All those involved will immediately understand the ITSM terminology and ITIL processes in the context of their roles. So within a day, everyone is talking the same language.

Linda King is Head of Marketing for G2G3, and has over 17 years of experience in the IT industry, focusing on technology product strategy, development and marketing. To learn more about creating ITIL readiness through simulations, please visit www.g2g3.com.