The ITIL v3 Service Lifecycle poster story

Unlocking the door to let ITIL in…Our distinctive contribution to the promotion of ITIL v3 is our ITIL Service Lifecycle Poster. The first version of the poster was issued in 2011 , and within a few years of its existence, the poster has found its place on the walls of many organizations word wide. Poster was accompanied by several articles in international publications ( e.g. In Article itSMF International Magazine “At your Service”). Newest version of the poster can be purchased in our shop, while the version of the poster from 2014, we give for a free download:

ITIL poster, version 2014 FREE DOWNLOAD

When we started with ITIL v3 seminars in Croatia few years ago we found ourselves preaching quite a new and a different perspective on IT for the majority of Croatian IT departments.

People were challenged to recognize the necessity of creating a layer of ITSM processes in their IT departments on top of doing things the traditional way and managing technology. They were asked to look at their jobs through concept of roles in ITSM processes as well and to start perceiving IT departments as service providers.

What a change… PROVIDING SERVICE!? Instead of playing with that cool, high tech and specialised stuff while talking in a technical language that only “IT crowd” understands?

We were actually asking people to lose a part of their tradition and identity and think like one of the ”suits ”.  Didn’t really seem like a fare trade, did it?

Well, on top of that… not only did we want them to transform their IT departments to service providers, but to actually buy and love that idea as well!

ITIL helped them to do so but when ITIL v3 replaced ITIL v2, which most of the people perceived as “blue and red book with 10 processes and 1 function”, people didn’t take it so well.

ITIL v3 came with this large number of processes and it scared the majority of people into giving up before they begun, saying it was too huge and that they failed to see the big picture. We realized that we had to find a way to explain the main ITIL v3 concepts by presenting them as simply and friendly as possible. We wanted to create something that would catch peoples’ eyes and bring them to “take a look at ITIL v3” at least. Than we could hope for something more.

In 2008 we decided to make an ITIL v3 poster that would initially break the fear of the unknown and serve as a map at the beginning of one’s ITIL v3 journey (this proved most useful for our Foundation classes).

The less simple part of making a poster was squeezing five books, or over 1000 pages, into one single page.
We were quite aware that posters, charts, billboards (or whatever they might be called) covering the subject of ITIL v3 and Service
Management existed already. But since each person visualises things in a different way, why not make one more? We took it as a game and a challenge. Our vision was a simple poster, friendly and serious enough at the same time, and we were confident it would find some like-minded fans.

The poster shows the ITIL v3 service lifecycle. It is divided into five areas each representing one ITIL v3 book. Each area shows processes with their major inputs, outputs, activities and some interconnections. And it did find fans… not only in Croatia but
internationally as well. Actually, it found more than fans. It found clients. By presenting the poster at various conferenc es and offering it as a free download from our company web page ( www.itsm.hr ), it managed to raise awareness of ITIL v3 and Service Management in more companies than we dared to dream possible.

Eventually we complemented the poster with a three hour workshop called ITIL v3 Poster Guided Tour. The Workshop was held by poster authors (Maja Jagušt and Ivana Nissen) with a simple purpose of giving people a quick start to ITIL v3. These workshops were regularly attended by representatives from most prominent companies in Croatia and it proved a great way to make the first contact.

We’ve had every reason to consider our simple awareness campaign a success. In a short time it directly resulted in students attending seminars and companies contacting for consulting services.

At the moment we are one of the leading Croatian companies in the number of ITIL v3 Foundation certifications and one of very few
providing the possibility for students to continue their ITIL v3 education on higher levels.

Looking at areas of interest in ITIL v3 education and certification, most students are initially interested in knowing more about service operation. Specifically, they are looking for help in setting up user support in their companies and want to learn as much as possible about the Service desk, Incident management and Request Fulfilment. In most cases this is followed by Change and Configuration Management. The same order of processes is present in most implementation projects as well.

If not Service Operation, students decide to continue ITIL v3 education by drilling deeper into the area of Service Level Management and
Catalogue Management, especially in writing down SLAs, OLAs and creating a Service Catalogue.

Whether we are talking about ITIL v3 education or consulting, this simple Poster was used in many ways; raising awareness, helping in
seminars as well as speeding up the definition of scope in consulting projects.

Our poster is decorating the offices of many Croatian companies … even of some competitors. We find many people believing it to be a part of official OGC ITIL v3 publications. Our conclusion and experience from all this is that the simplest approach is more than often the most efficient one! Using a little key can open a big door.

In our story, the poster was the key to opening the doors to ITIL v3 …what we brought in through those doors is a whole new story.

Poster Authors: Maja Jagušt and Ivana Nissen