American ITIL – May well become the standard by which all IT operates.

The British blockbuster finally finds an American audience.

Deep in the heartland of America an experiment is under way. ITIL, a set of best practices for IT service management, has begun to take root in the United States. Popularized in Britain more than 10 years ago, ITIL is only now getting noticed in the United States. Widespread implementation is a ways off, but if what is happening in Oklahoma City and other test beds flourishes, ITIL may well become the standard by which all IT operates.

When looking for a standardized technology framework, Oklahoma City IT director Mark Meier found that ITIL principles best matched the city’s needs.

"I took over IT about three and a half years ago, and there was virtually no governance," recalls Meier. "I think we were typical of most organizations — our performance was pretty abject. We had more than 200 hours of enterprise downtime a year. So we looked at ITIL because it adopted a lot of the philosophies we had engendered into our department."

By Chad Vander Veen

Full Story: http://www.govtech.net/magazine/story.php?id=95672