A History of ITIL and itSMF

(Perhaps a little less inaccurate than most)
 

In the 1980s many people in the British government and civil service were looking for more efficient and less expensive solutions to their information technology requirements.

Much of the drive for the developments that followed came from the highest levels of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government.

That drive was focused by several people working in Britain’s Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) -- later the Office of Government Commerce (OGC)*.

According to our research -- aided by some first-hand recollections (see the end of this article) -- the core of the idea that would become ITIL seems to have originated with Peter Skinner and John Stewart at CCTA.  Their belief that government agencies were spending too much on IT echoed the concerns of the Thatcher government, which was extremely interested in figuring out how to operate more effectively and at lower cost.

Alan Nance recalls:  “The winds of change that the CCTA were responding to were blown by Thatcherism.  In fact when Ruth Kerry took charge there was to my mind an even greater sense of business acumen introduced in addition to the quality vision that had been John Stewart’s major drive.”

The project began as the Government Information Technology Infrastructure Management Method (GITIMM).

At this point, and for some time to come, no one involved seems to have thought of applying the developing approach to the private sector.  GITIMM had originated as a government project, and that’s where the developers were directing all or most of their attention.

Perhaps the central concept of GITIMM was that people would become portable:  Different departments and organizations would manage their IT infrastructure in more or less the same way, enabling IT professionals to apply similar standards and practices to quite different projects.  It was theorized (and hoped) that this approach would increase efficiency and reduce costs.

Skinner and Stewart’s first proposals were rejected by the CCTA board of directors.  (Brian Johnson, currently a Director of Pink Elephant, quotes Stewart as saying that the board thought he and Skinner were lunatics.)

At some point fairly early on, Roy Dibble of CCTA (Peter Skinner's superior) took exception to the use of the word “Method” in “Government Information Technology Infrastructure Management Method.”  He pointed out that GITIMM was actually not supposed to be a method, but rather a means of providing “guidance.”

In fact terms like “Codes of Practice” were used to describe the goals of GITIMM during this development stage, with emphasis on providing guidance, rather than (as Ivor Macfarlane, another early team member, terms it) holy writ.  Brian Johnson noted recently that many people do tend to think of ITIL as a “methodology,” which implies more rigid structure than a “code of practice” or “guidelines.”

Back to our story:  In 1986 John Stewart was instructed to develop a plan to create this Government Information Technology Infrastructure Management Method, and started recruiting a team.

Johnson joined in 1988 and worked on cost, capacity, availability, quality and software lifecycle support modules.  He was also made responsible for creating a users group -- called at that time the IT Infrastructure Management Forum.  This later evolved into itSMF.

Some of the other members of the original team were:  Andy Carty, John Coles, Neil Croft, Hans Dithmar, Neville Greenlalgh, Andy MacDonnell, Susan Keeler, Dave Ruffles and Mike Withey.

The team consulted with many private sector companies (including a review of an old IBM method) and came up with proposals principally around what has become known as service support and delivery.

According to some reports, Stewart and his team approached this task in quite a creative and efficient manner.  They invited a number of corporations to contribute expertise in various areas.  Rival companies then reviewed and edited each other’s documentation.  The GITIMM team then did the final editing and published the results -- retaining the copyright for the UK government.

It’s interesting to note that this experience may have constituted the foundation for today’s itSMF policy of independence or neutrality for vendor participation in itSMF.  The process of having one company edit another company’s documentation was very effective in removing self-promotion and any specific references to proprietary systems or technology.

How did GITIMM morph into ITIL?

According to Ivor Macfarlane’s recollection, “It was Roy Dibble and John Stewart in a corridor in Gildengate House in Norwich in August 1989” who came up with the term ITIL:

When told it couldn't be GITIMM, John Stewart said “so what shall we call it?”  John said “don't know.”

Roy asked what it was going to be. The answer was a set of books. So they agreed you call a set of books a library and so agreed “IT Infrastructure Library."

I recall that the whole conversation took about 40 seconds.  The most important part of the story is that, on the basis of this conversation we accidentally lost the “G for Government” off the front.

If that had not happened then ITIL (or GITIM as it would have been) would never have been taken up outside government and we would not be still working with it today.  On such small matters do universes turn!

I have heard lots of other stories about why it is called ITIL -- but sorry to those who like them -- I was there -- this one is true!

Alan Nance remembers telling Roy Dibble that GITMM was “an ugly acronym,” and that having the word “government” in the title might get in the way of acceptance by the private sector.

He says:

On another note, I refuse to take any credit for ITIL.  In fact, at the time I thought it barely better than GITMM. . . .

I can claim some influence on the change to the term ITSMF.  I have always spoken of IT Service Management and never of IT Infrastructure Management. J ust like I believe in Business Service Levels and not Service Level Agreements.

Sometimes one is just stubborn.

I always believed that ITIMF was a limiting title and when we had the opportunity to push the ITISMF chapter in Holland we lobbied hard for the name change.  Ivor Evans, a close friend and fellow founding brother of the movement, was Chairman at the time and through an appropriate meeting of the minds with people like Brian -- the deed was quickly done and we have never looked back.

Where does itSMF come in?

Brian Johnson recalls that:

Gradually ITSM became the domain name in which we all worked and ITIL the underpinning method (even though ITIL did not really cover all of the issues); the ITIMF/itSMF name change came about largely because of the evolution. . . .  There is a booklet created by itSMF on its tenth birthday, written by people who clearly were either suffering from Alzheimer’s or selective memory loss, if you want to read a revisionist history. . . .

Johnson says that the name changed to itSMF around 1994 or 1995.  The first chairman was Mick Brown.  Alan McCarthy of Pink Elephant was the treasurer and Dave Wheeldon (formerly of CCTA) was the secretary.  Wheeldon is credited by Johnson with much of ITSM’s current popularity.

As ITIL developed, its applicability outside of government agencies became more evident.  Ivor Macfarlane notes that “The expansion into the private sector took us rather by surprise at the beginning and caused a quick refocus of the approach.  Those who remember the original ITIL books will realize that the very oldest (e.g., SLM and Help Desk) are more public sector focused than the following ones (except Finance where Brian got hijacked by Her Majesty's Treasury).”

ITIL and itSMF’s expansion to countries outside the UK seems to have been primarily due to corporate rather than governmental interest.  Pink Elephant, for example, approached CCTA in the 1980s (according to Ivor Macfarlane’s recollections) and began the expansion into the Netherlands.  Their website provides clear evidence of how ITIL is thriving in Holland.

In fact the Dutch have led the way with Exin, Pink, Quint, Prolin (now part of HP) and other endeavors, as well as exporting “colonizing” ITIL to Hong Kong, Brussels, Canada and the US.

Other early international development of ITIL can be traced to Ultracomp in South Africa and Prolin into Asia.

Still another major factor in the spread of ITIL was the development of rigorous courses, along with the process of ITIL certification.  Both Ivor Macfarlane and Alan Nance played a part in this, along with Bryan Dennis of the UK Civil Service College and Martin van Kesteren from Pink.

Okay – But what about the Famous Falkland Islands Story?

Alan Nance gets some of the credit (or blame) for that one.  He recalls:

This anecdote is derived from one of my earlier presentations.  It doesn’t relate to the development of ITIL.  I actually used it to promote the use of ITIL to create what I then called a Kaleidoscope Infrastructure, something now better named as adaptive infrastructure.  The example I used was indeed the Ministry of Defense findings that the Falklands War had challenged long-held design criteria for their logistics systems. . . .  After the Falklands this changed and today the concept of rapid deployment forces is commonplace.

Note:  In some ITIL history legends OGC is referred to as the “Office of Government Computing.”  While this may seem to make more sense, a search of the OGC website reveals the truth.  For example one document states:  “This report on the three OGC Agencies forms part of the OGC Alignment Review, which incorporates Quinquennial Reviews of two of the Agencies, PACE and CCTA. . . .  For most of the period under review, the three Agencies were Agencies of the Cabinet Office.  Since 1 April 2000, they have been Agencies of OGC. . . .”

-- And that's the tale, as far as we can figure it out.
 

The above history of ITIL and ITSMF was derived in part from first-person accounts published on an ITSM forum.  We contacted the individuals who posted firsthand accounts and requested permission to quote them.  None of them voiced any objections.  Based on our own research, we believe this to be the most accurate and reliable statement of the development of ITIL currently available.  Please contact us if you have any comments or corrections regarding this account.