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Figure 1. Most significant barriers to ITIL adoption (Evergreen, 2006)
is also another important aspect to be considered
in the investment evaluation process (Repenning
& Sterman, 2001).
Since the value of these variables diverges
greatly from organization to organization, add-
ing up to the fact that ITIL v3 has 26 different
processes, makes it is very difficult to cluster
these values and, consequently, derive patterns
and re-use estimations.
Thus, CIOs need a method that quantifies the
intangible benefits and costs by selecting the met-
rics that are indispensable for computing the value
of ITIL implementations. However, questions like
the following one exemplify this difficulty: how
measurable is customer satisfaction and increased
process effectiveness? (Dos Santos, 1991; Silva
& Gama, 2006). Besides, these benefits and costs
take time to be realized, and if they are measured
by business financial metrics, any connection with
the original ITIL investment may seem tenuous,
which might result in the questioning of the CIO's
position as a leader. Therefore, CIOs tend to be
short/mid-term thinkers as they want immediate
returns, and usually do not like to take risks when
it is not clear what the benefits are (Broadbent &
Kitzis, 2004).
Consequently, ITIL projects that immediately
fix problematic areas (e.g. incident management
systems), commonly known as quick wins, are
usually chosen instead of large scale ITIL imple-
mentations (University of St. Gallen, 2005). This
happens because large-scale projects are more
complex which originates confusion and increases
costs (Denker, 2005). Also, quick wins comprise an
easier way of showing employees that ITIL works
and, therefore, facilitates change that is naturally
implicated in ITIL implementation projects (Silva
& Martins, 2008; University of St. Gallen, 2005).
However, even if organizations observe a
swift performance improvement after the quick
win project is put into production, those improve-
ments will not last forever as organizations are
complex adaptive systems (Santa Fe Institute,
2005). Actually, after some time the problems
that were initially solved may eventually come
back and new ones might emerge, making the
performance decrease yet again.
So, quick wins have early returns associated
to them but, if the organization does not continue
to incrementally implement the rest of the ITIL
processes, then performance may become even
worse than before (University of St. Gallen, 2005).
On the other hand, if quick wins are completed
successfully and the benefits are realized, it is much
easier for the CIO to ask support for subsequent
larger scale ITIL implementation projects.
Alternatively, CIOs who opt for long term ITIL
implementations will experience higher returns
because large scale ITIL implementations involve
more abstract concepts (e.g. organization design)
that systematically change the investments where
the organization spends its time, which ends up
making the ROI proportionally larger as it is a
proactive process instead of reactive.
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