We interviewed Rudolf Slaba, an IT process implementation expert, ITIL expert and process specialist at O2 IT Services s.r.o.. You will learn who in the organization should know ITIL, how large companies should implement ITIL, and what ITIL 4 is worth noting. Furthermore, what implementation of ITIL was the most interesting for him, and what he enjoys in the processes.
Who in the organization should know ITIL first and foremost, and what role will this knowledge bring?
The ITIL process framework based on best practices effectively helps in the management and administration of IT services in any segment. It is primarily intended for employees of the IT department. I can recommend basic ITIL® 4 Foundation training to everyone around IT - from service desk operators, through technical specialists, developers, testers, service managers to IT management. It not only provides a basic overview of individual processes and their activities, but also allows you to gain an understanding of their relationships and especially the meaning of why these activities are done. ITIL's knowledge also helps to unify the terminology used not only among colleagues, but also towards partners and customers.
For managerial roles, a holistic view and strategic management is added, which is necessary for long-term building and maintaining the relationship between the IT service provider and customers. A specific group I met is the HR department in corporate companies. The aim was to understand how IT departments work in their company and to better formulate qualification and selection requirements for specific IT positions.
From how many employees should the company start using ITIL processes? Who was your biggest customer, and the smallest customer, where did you implement the ITIL processes and how did it help them?
The principles defined by the ITIL methodology work in any large organization. Even a company with two IT employees can use the ITIL approach very well. Of course, with the growing size of the organization, the number of IT services provided increases and the emergence of a process-driven service environment is de facto inevitable, so the use of the ITIL process framework predominates in larger companies, government agencies and corporations. I have personally participated in implementation projects both in multinational corporations (hundreds of thousands of employees) and in organizations with up to 50 employees. Municipal or regional self-government bodies, which already use ITIL quite often and have their employees from the IT department trained in this field, or hire us consultants for implementation projects, can also be considered a small organization.
What do you enjoy about the trials?
I'm not a very planning type of person, but the reality of work and personal life pushes me into planning quite strongly. Functional processes, where there is a clear trigger, responsibilities of mine and other roles and sequences of required activities, can often simplify and automate this planning activity, which is not dear to me. On the contrary, I am more of a type of "statistics", I like to process, evaluate and record past activities. On processes, I enjoy that on the one hand you insert inputs into the process, on the other hand you get out outputs.
What implementation of ITIL was interesting / exceptional for you?
Each implementation is unique in its own way. It's always about the people in the team involved in the processes, the corporate culture also has a big influence. For me, unforgettable implementations are those where the result (after debugging the process) exceeds the customer's expectations in a very significant way. I remember a project in a banking institution where a redesign of their service process fundamentally changed the position of IT, in a positive way, and when the bank's threats in the style of "We will probably outsource you" turned into questions such as: "What would you need for your further development? ”. That honestly made me very happy.
What should not be missing from ITIL 4 in any company?
In addition to a number of processes that ITIL has defined since its 1st version (service desk, incident management, change management, etc.), I consider Guiding Principles to be a great benefit of ITIL 4. It is a set of 7 relatively general recommendations that can be well understood and that can effectively help in deciding each role and at each level of management. They are also very well compatible with a number of other methodologies and approaches (Agile, DevOps, Prince2 and others). If these principles can be brought to the attention of the company's employees, it can be expected to improve and increase efficiency in significant values.
Questions answered by:
- ITIL Expert / ITIL 4 Managing Professional
- ITIL Practitioner Certificate
- Certified Project Management Associate – IPMA
- COBIT Foundation Certificate
