In the last several years, ITIL has become a buzzword in management circles. CEO’s and CIO’s anxious to stay at the forefront of business trends have felt some pressure to adopt ―the most widely accepted approach to IT service management in the world.‖1 ITIL has been portrayed by some as a panacea that will suddenly make IT a profit center, while improving services, reliability, infrastructure, and accountability.

However, jumping into ―implementing ITIL without a clear understanding of how best to go about it and what potential benefits and pitfalls you may encounter is tantamount to jumping out of a plane with your company’s resources on your back instead of a parachute.

A significant percentage of ITIL implementations are simply never completed, after months of training, certification tests, and effort, while it is also common to find that an ITIL implementation has actually increased the workload of IT staff members without improving service or reliability.