An ITIL bit of knowledge

Ravi Chandar, manager, infrastructure services information & technology services, at the Victorian departments of Premier and Cabinet and Treasury and Finance, says, "ITIL knowledge and experience got me where I am today."

Jeroen Kramer, service improvement manger for Melbourne-based ASX-listed SP AusNet, a member of Singapore Power Group, started out at a company which mandated that all operational support staff take the Foundation Certificate in ITIL.

Both men have achieved each of the three levels of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library accreditation.

ITIL is a methodology for best-practices in IT service delivery and service support. There are three levels of individual certifications in the ITIL qualification scheme - the Foundation Certificate, Practitioner's Certificate and Manager's Certificate.

Chandar implemented the ITIL package at the State Revenue Office of Victoria in 2005 - the first government agency in the world to achieve BS15000/AS8018 certification for its internal IT services based on IT Infrastructure Library.

Chandar said the implementation elevated the levels of delivery to the business and certainly helped to enhance the State Revenue Office of Victoria.

"I put all senior management and middle management through ITIL Foundation certification so they all had a common language. We then conducted an internal awareness training program to induct the rest of our IT staff of more than 35. As a result of the training and the internal awareness of the ITIL processes, we had an operational transformation. We became efficient in delivering services and the process became very transparent," he said.

Following that implementation of ITIL, Chandar moved from the small agency into the much bigger department where he is now running shared services. "The whole of government has a mandate to get to a Maturity Level 3 within two years. The departments of Premier and Cabinet and Treasury and Finance picked me because I have the experience of implementing set processes from my previous role.

"ITIL knowledge and experience and the first-hand implementation has got me to where I am today. I have also encouraged others at the State Revenue Office to do the Manager's certification and they are also seeing the rewards of certification. Here at Treasury and Finance we are also encouraging them to do the program and several staff have Manager's certification.

Jeroen Kramer began his career in the Netherlands with Pink Roccade. Because it had adopted the ITIL standard for its processes, the company trained its IT staff to Foundation Certificate level. Three years later Kramer did the Manager's Certificate to move to a consulting role.

"It was mandatory that all operational IT support staff had Foundation and it was expected that consultants did the ITIL Manager's course. Following the Manager's Certification I was looking for international opportunities and it became possible to move to Australia because people with Manager's certification were rare. I got a business visa and was able to work as an ITIL trainer."

Kramer worked as an ITIL trainer and consultant for four and a half years - training people in the Foundation, Practitioner's and Manager's courses as well as doing consultancy work for IT departments in organizations like AXA Australia, ANZ and Tattersalls, implementing ITIL processes.

"I saw the next step up in my career was to move to a single organization and help mature their IT processes by implementing small programs on site. In this role I moved from being a consultant to a customer of consultants. I was hiring people to do similar things to what I had done in the past. I was able to set up an ITIL training campaign and use training providers. On the customer side, I am driving processes based on implementation of ITIL. It is a great role for me because I have a young family and my work in the past involved a great deal of travel. Without ITIL [employers] would not have looked at my resume."

Kramer also chose to complement his ITIL Foundation and Manager's certification with a Master of Business Technology from Monash University. "The combination of having a formal Australian qualification helped and continues to help me step outside IT-specific processes. At SP AustNet, my division also provides property management, facilities management and other services outside IT that need a similar approach to ITIL processes and procedures. I am also helping to develop a corporate-wide development framework for process improvement."

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

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