Dear Bob ... What's your take on ITIL as the new "process" management answer for IT in the 2000's? In some ways, such as evaluation, it seems rather - vacuous. Or like a Brit acquaintance of mine likes to say of the British themselves - too cynical for his tastes (and that's why he lives in the states). - Cautious Dear Cautious ... From what I know about ITIL, it's pretty good. I'd go so far to say that any big Dear Bob …What’s your take on ITIL as the new “process” management answer for IT in the 2000’s? In some ways, such as evaluation, it seems rather – vacuous. Or like a Brit acquaintance of mine likes to say of the British themselves – too cynical for his tastes (and that’s why he lives in the states).– Cautious Dear Cautious …From what I know about ITIL, it’s pretty good. I’d go so far to say that any big IT shop with a sizeable data center should use it as the starting point for its data center processes and procedures. It isn’t the answer, but it’s very good as an answer, and much better than starting from scratch.I do have a few issues with it, though. First, as others have pointed out, ITIL doesn’t include an assessment process. That isn’t fatal by any means – assessment processes are full employment for consultants (not that this is a bad thing, of course). Since it’s a set of processes, I don’t see this flaw to be all that serious. As a manager, you’re either following ITIL or you aren’t. The bigger issue I have with it is that it’s a pure process model, and process models are inherently incomplete. Our own IT performance model includes 140 linked factors, and while more of them are process factors than any other category, the process factors don’t even reach a majority. More significantly, IT leaders can’t directly institute processes – trying to do so is like (as George Burns said in a different context) trying to play pool with a rope. So ITIL also falls short as an implementation model.But that doesn’t make it wrong or poorly constructed (the process elements of our model bear a strong and not accidental resemblance to ITIL). It makes it incomplete.Definitely worth learning a lot about if you’re in this business; definitely not a Bible to be accepted without careful evaluation for suitability to your particular circumstances. – Bob ——– Technology Industry