Does focusing on ITIL drivers ensure a successful transformation initiative?

Culture & Values IT Strategy & Roadmap Portfolio, Program & Project Management

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Senior Executive Advisor in Software, 10,001+ employees

Focusing on the ITIL drivers is necessary but insufficient for a transformation. Changing the operating model of an organization requires a cultural transformation in addition to people, process and technologies, which are the most common operating model drivers for any business transformation. Unfortunately, since many organizations do not acknowledge this, some common anti-patterns manifest on a transformation journey, such as lack of prioritization or low empowerment. Reducing their impact would help transformational leaders to influence the workforce so they align with suggested changes. This will accelerate the business transformation, so creating an organizational framework to address these anti-patterns and identify change agents is key.

Organizations tend to start with implementing new technology first, since that is the domain that they are familiar with, and that is what they believe they have the most control over. Other organizations start with improving processes through lean or agile methodologies, but they approach it either through brute force or democratic methods. In such approaches, some or all of the workforce is sent to agile workshops, and once they return, the expectation is that teams will adopt those processes and use them to miraculously improve productivity, happiness and mean time to deployment. This can result in cargo cult science of team agility, where the team appears to be going through the motions of agile frameworks without realizing their true benefits.

Enterprise transformation journeys are daunting and arduous as they impact almost every facet of the organization. When cultural anti-patterns emerge, they can hinder the transformation and increase entropy within the organization. Addressing these and implementing countermeasures will help transformational leaders lay the path for a generative culture, which is the key to driving a successful business transformation.

IT Operating Unit Director in Education, 10,001+ employees

It’s an important part of a transformation initiative and deserves considerable focus and attention but as a single variable it by no means ensures that the transformation will be successful.

Director of IT in Healthcare and Biotech, 10,001+ employees

ITIL drivers can be thought of as important criteria to think about but in no way shape or form is it going to help ensure a successful transformation initiative. For a successful initiative, there needs to be multiple factors and considerations that will impact the overall success. It depends on culture, leadership buy-in, financial situation, adoption drivers, strategy formation, to name a few.

It's important to realize that these might be important principles to consider, however it's only part of equation.

IT Strategist in Government, 1,001 - 5,000 employees

In our experience focus on ITIL only partially contributed to the success of the transformation initiative. Have a good analysis on underlying problems and creating a good vision on the future organization contributed the most to the success of the transformation.

Director of IT in Software, 10,001+ employees

Focusing on ITIL drivers does not in any way ensure a successful transformation journey. We have found that focusing on ITIL is important from a strategic perspective, but has very little to do with transformation initiatives.

Director of Enterprise Technology Advisory in Software, 10,001+ employees

I'm not sure any single thing alone will make a transformation initiative succesful. Will ITIL help? Most likely, but many other factors must be considered. ITIL is not a silver bullet.

Director Of Information Technology in Healthcare and Biotech, 1,001 - 5,000 employees

ITIL Drivers do not ensue a successful transformation if your cooperation dose not fully adopt the ITIL felicity!! We all have to be on the same page.

Assistant Director IT Auditor in Education, 10,001+ employees

Focusing on ITIL is an important part of transformation initiative, but initiatives have to defined and goals agreed and set. People has to work together to execute the strategy and align IT with the business objectives to ensure the organization goals are met.

VP( Network Engineering and Delivery) in Telecommunication, 10,001+ employees

Focussing on ITIL drivers alone may not be sufficient for a successful transformation initiative, though it is a prerequisite. Lot of other initiatives like organisation alignment, change in mindset of leadership, digitisation and focus on automation are some of the other requirements to drive it.

Founder and CTO in Software, 51 - 200 employees

ITIL drivers can for sure assist in the transformation journey but by no means are the single, magical ingredient of the recipe to success.

Transformation is a continuous process focusing on culture, inclusion, assessment-adjustment and communication.