The IT Skeptic posted over the weekend about his review of the book Building an ITIL-based Service Management Department and it reminded me of what a pet peeve of mine this is.
I haven't read the book, but I completely agree with both the Skeptic and Hank Marquis in terms of the purpose of service management processes. They are supposed to transcend the organizational structure - not become them. It annoys me to no end when I see organizations try to turn Service Management process areas into just another functional area.
My biggest problem with this approach is that it destroys the foundation of Service Management - namely, that it's everyone's problem (or opportunity, if you prefer). Once you begin structuring the organization around process areas, well then clearly the only people that need to worry about Incident Management is the Incident Management team and so forth.
Why would anyone think this makes sense? Maybe it's just that the concept of a process that actually transcends organizational and political boundaries is too off-the-wall to be real for some people. I don't know, but I wish they'd stop wasting their time trying to make ITSM processes something that they're not and simply build them to do the job they're intended for. Just my humble opinion.
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