With the transition from ITIL Version 2.0 to 3.0 and the increasing exposure of Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) the terminology and organization of the terminology used in the industry is changing and evolving.  But am I confusing my customers when I use the old ITIL terms or am I confusing them worse using the new terms they have less experience with? I need a way to figure out what is still the same and what is different in ITIL version 2 and version 3.

So I looked out to the web to see if anyone had done a direct comparison of the terms and books of ITIL v2 and v3.  I found where someone had done a pretty nice write up and several other sources plagiarized the work; but, it was still all written comparisons and I wanted more of a diagram, a drawing, something with arrows!  I never found what I was looking for so between episodes of NCIS last night I resolved my problem.

So without delay here is the Elsinore Technologies ITIL v2 vs. v3 comparison diagram.  If you note any mistakes on my part please let me know and I will correct my oversight immediately.  Regarding the diagram ITIL v2 books are broken out on the left and v3 on the right, the type of arrow doesn’t matter I used a few different styles for aesthetics only, also I added the service desk and variations thereof to the Service Operations book of ITIL v3.

A higher resolution version can be downloaded from our Oversight website at:

ITILv2-vs-v3-Diagram

It doesn’t take but a few hours of searching the web to find that there are quite a few players in the world of certification and IT Operations Frameworks.  The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) developed in the UK in 1989 by CCTA which now resides under the ownership of the UK Office of Government Commerce (OGC) was one of the first attempts at documenting the concepts, policies, and best practices for managing information technology (IT) infrastructure.  Over the past few decades IT departments have seen the development of websites, blogs, certification processes, revision changes of ITIL strategies, and teams of consultants grow at staggering rates.  A lot of this could be contributed to many economic factors but I believe the biggest changes are contributed to IT alignment with business units.  As IT services becomes more measurable in conjunction with business unit profitability, company executives can better see the bottom line revenue potential of investing in their IT department processes, training, and service management; not just the hardware and software assets.  With this shift in visibility IT departments go from black boxes which few executives understood to glass boxes that play an immediate role in productivity, revenue generation, and customer satisfaction visible to everyone.  And with this visibility comes money and as companies start spending more of it the private sector reacts providing an increasing number of services and solutions to help fill the needs.

Since its inception both formally and informally the playing field has changed and grown springing up new players such as ITSMF International, ITSMPA.org, ISACA, COBIT, ISO 20000, and Microsoft Operations Framework just to name a few.  These companies coupled with mandated compliances such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPPA, and SOX have made IT operations a huge growth area for companies of all types who want to provide their touch, insight, and experience to this unquestionably fast moving and high growth business segment.

But with all of these new players and the push by companies like Microsoft into the market defining new terms and best practices which organizations and sectors of this model will be the industry leaders moving forward.  The direction of operations is changing, in the past few years we have seen the process driven ITIL version 2.0 replaced with a business aligned version 3.0.  And now Microsoft is providing their version of operations framework which is similar to ITIL but has its own unique twists.  So who is going to jump into the mix next?  One thing is for sure competition sparks productivity, new ideas, and new ways of approaching problems.  All though I would like to see continued alignment in terminology I like the idea of new companies pushing the incumbents, if nothing else it gives me something to blog about!

So you need to develop a workflow to resolve an issue but you are not sure where to start?  The following is an 8 step strategy for defining how to resolve an issue.  As long as your workflow encompasses these stages you are probably good to go.  There are always exceptions but these guidelines are a good starting point.

Identify the issue – You need some process or tool that provides the capability to identify what issue you are trying to resolve.  This could be customer focusing but don’t forget about your own employees.

Classify the issue – Ok so what sort of problem are we dealing with?  Is it a software bug, an enhancement request, a customer question, or a flat tire on a school bus?  Classification allows you to determine which workflow should be assigned and directs the issue to the appropriate group or process.

Rank the issue – All issues are not created equal. Say it with me, “All issues are not created equal!” Now that does not mean that any of them should be ignored but it does mean that a problem that has caused your sales to plummet 80% should have more weight than a problem regarding the soda machine in the cafeteria.  Develop a simple but yet flexible weighting scheme a lot of software companies will use a critical, high, medium, low scale while a lot of retail organizations may choose a numerical scale such as 1-10.

Assign roles and responsibilities – This is an important step that’s often overlooked, a good example is when you send an email asking a question and you put ten people in the To: list of the email and label the subject “can you please do this.” Don’t know about you but this doesn’t usually yield a lot of productivity for me, typically I get no responses.  You have to develop a process of accountability with each workflow, make sure each person associated knows what he/she is required to do as part of the process.

*Note – Talk to the team members they know their jobs and where they can best help, maybe you can streamline the number of people required.

Assessment – The team on the other end needs to know what to do with the issue, are they supposed to have a meeting to discuss the best course of action or simply pray to the senior management and await a sign from above.  I have seen both methods work but I typically recommend the more structured path to start.

Recommendations – The team should be instructed to provide a resolution or several possible resolutions to the problem with some pros/cons of each.  From those recommendations a business decision would be made of the best path. 

*Note – The assessment and recommendations stage can sometimes happen at the same time assuming that a representative from all responsible teams is present.  For software developers that might be development, marketing, and sales.  For a municipality that might be someone from city planning, finance, and other relative departments.

Call to action – Once the decision has been made there has to be a way to kick off the work.  This is usually a transition from one stage of the workflow to the next or in technical jargon a workflow state change.  This could be a simple email or as elaborate as your process requires but the point is to make sure all the relevant data and expectations are communicated clearly.

Closure and communication – Alright were done, so what now?  We need some step here to notify the relevant stakeholders of the completion.  In a lot of cases this would just be an email but in others it will be the starting point of your next workflow.  For example the issue might have been a problem with our product documentation so we have fixed the problem but who is responsible for posting the document to the web or reworking the product CD image so that the proper revision is available.  For some organizations this is someone’s job and a workflow is not required but for some larger companies this is another process altogether.

Yesterday I was talking with a friend who asked me what it is I do at Elsinore.  I explained we are an issue management company and the minute the words came out of my mouth I realized the vagueness of the statement.  If I wasn’t already sure, the confused and pondering look on his face confirmed my suspicions.  So like most people I dug into examples, explaining how customers use our software for help desks, call centers, software bug & defect tracking, and a few other examples.  The entire process took me about 5 minutes and if it had been giving an elevator pitch I would have failed miserably.  I needed to be able to explain what issue management is without giving a 10 minute dissertation on the subject. I still need to be able to explain how our products relate to issue management but explaining the term issue management correctly was my first hurdle.

So like most people today I went directly to the almighty source of wisdom, Wikipedia.  There I found a pretty good definition of the term; Issue management is the discipline and process of managing business issues and usually implies using technology to electronically automate the process.   I say pretty good because I am not convinced that if I share this with my friend he will not still have a similar look of confusion but it’s a starting point.

My next step was to interview about a dozen colleagues and friends to get their response to what issue management meant to them.  I did my best to find a random sampling of different backgrounds and experiences.  I contacted people in staffing, construction, software development, stay at home parents, teachers, and engineers.  The responses I got were varied but not surprising, every person I talked with related issue management to their own day to day life and industry.  Staffing people described services to manage labor cost and customer issues, construction managers related the term to managing and coordinating the problems with each build, developers talked about tracking software bugs, and stay at home parents gave examples of scheduling conflicts and work that needed to be completed at home. 

It was becoming apparent that issue management was a marketing buzz word that meant different things to different people, maybe not as vague as terms like “business intelligence” and “B2B” or as over used as “out of the box” or “best in class” but still difficult to quickly explain.  But there was something about this term that resonated with everyone I spoke with today.  They were all able to relate the term issue management to a problem they were having and needed a way to resolve.  I read through everyone’s responses again and it started to mesh, stilling a bit from different passages I have a working definition that I am pretty happy with going forward.  It may still raise a few questions from time to time but overall I think it works. Issue management is a methodology by which problems, events, and other issues are identified, tracked, and ultimately resolved.