Excluded from an ITIL project

You're an expert, the results will affect you, and you're entirely ignored. Now what?

Dear Bob ...

My company is currently looking at ITIL as the end all-be all of process development. Let me explain further that I work for a subsidiary of the parent company, not headquarters.

I'm the poor schmuck who is responsible for our problem management system. I brought this thing in nearly a decade ago and have done all the development and support.

I know the very basics of ITIL. I've been spending more time on learning it since I found out just how brainwashed headquarters management is on it. What I've learned confirms that we're in pretty good basic compliance already. We just don't use the ITIL terminology.

On to the problem. Management has decided that our current product does not meet our needs if we're going to go ITIL. They've put together a team to define the business requirements. Guess who isn't on the team?

So now I'm torn. Do I strong-arm my way onto the team so I know what they're looking for or do I sit back and wait for them to provide a list of functions that may or may not be feasible in any product? From what I've found out about the team they've built there's no one on there that actually understands what needs to happen 'under the hood' to make ITIL work.

Any suggestions?

- Outside the tent

Dear Outsider ...

I think you're asking the wrong question, or perhaps you're asking the right question, but prematurely. A better place to begin might be to define more clearly what your personal goal is -- what you'd like to see come out of this.

Let's start by acknowledging that if the folks responsible for the ITIL initiative had the good sense that God gave rice they'd have included you in the effort. After all, you're the person who made the current system happen (I presume it's handling the basics of incident management competently). Unless your departure is part of the ITIL plan it's hard to imagine anything about the effort that's improved through your exclusion.

While that analysis explains whatever bemusement, indignation or resentment you might feel about the situation, it doesn't define your goal. Here are some possibilities: