Gotta love government (even the foreign ones) and their acronyms. The United Kingdom's Office of Government Commerce has developed a framework of best practices to deliver IT services called the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). On a recent engagement with a government client, we were asked if we were an ITIL-compliant practitioner. After admitting we were not, the client shared with us the wisdom of a formalized IT service delivery model that ITIL comprises in a series of eight books:

• Service Delivery
• Service Support
• Infrastructure Management
• Security Management
• Business Perspective
• Application Management
• Software Asset Management
• Planning to implement Service Management

This particular client's entire IT operations (from helpdesk to senior network engineers) had taken the certification as well as changed their business operations to fit into the framework. Now, I know that there are many readers in the "certifications are for the birds" camp, but stick with me: there are many IT shops that we walk into that lack even the most basic formalized procedures on how to do what it is they are asked to do. Formalized doesn't have to mean thick binders and triplicate carbon forms; just writing things down in a 1-2-3 list format would make a staggering difference in providing an organization with some insulation from employee turnover.
How many of your own IT organizations are sent into a tailspin for a few weeks when a key IT employee leaves, taking pertinent procedural information with him/her?

The client didn't require us to be certified but one of our D.C. office principals rose to the challenge and had a favorable experience with both the exam and (more importantly) learning the framework. I don't know if ITIL is something that will catch on in the private sector, but if you (or your customers) don't have a formalized service delivery system in place, you may want to suggest that at the next staff/consultant meeting.

Oh, and one last thing: congrats, Mark Orlando, for adding yet another set of letters behind your name for folks to ridicule you! (possible blog topic: why do online forum dwellers end up berating those that achieve certifications?)