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CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS FOR ITIL BEST PRACTICES USAGE
Hana Nenikov
Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic, hana.nenickova@gmail.com
Abstract
The objective of this paper is to find, analyze and summarize the most critical success factors (CSFs)
for implementation of ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) best practices into the managing
and delivering ICT services in large companies. The fulfilment of these factors is crucial not only for
successful implementation of ITIL into practice, but also for its effective and efficient maintenance in case of
ICT services delivery. There are several perspectives which serve to divide CSFs into several groups.
Preparation of this group is a secondary objective of this paper. The criteria for group creation are prepared in
this paper from the scientific perspectives and they are supported by secondary research in the researching
journals and case studies. Also key internal business processes related to the CSFs are mentioned (based on
the secondary research). The paper specifies also the way of definition of main metrics and Key Performance
indicators (KPIs) related to the founded CSFs.
The research methodology used for this paper consists of two chosen approaches. The first approach
is to provide a secondary research when academic and business journals and magazines have been used. The
information related to CSFs setting up has been searched and after that the method of induction has been used
to define CSFs and to split them into the separate groups. The case studies from scientific journals have been
also used to support the general conclusion creation as an induction.
Keywords: ICEM 2011, ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library), CSF (Critical Success
Factors), IT Governance, ICT service, KPI (Key Performance Indicators).
JEL Classification: M21, M15.
Introduction
Business is supported by information and communication technology (ICT) departments as an
indispensable part of value creation in large companies across the world. ICT department approach is to
deliver ICT services to business and help to achieve business goals. That means ICT departments work as
business units which have their own costs and revenues. Today the management of ICT department is facing
the pressure to increase quality (and possible the quantity) of ICT services together with decreasing costs for
ICT services delivery. There are several useful methodologies and frameworks for ICT management to
achieve the close ICT to business alignment in ICT services delivery together with cost reduction. One of
them ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is based on the best practices in the ICT
services delivering. There are some principles and methods described how to implement and manage ITIL.
But there also should be the preconditions and boundaries set up to achieve the real success of ITIL
implementation and management. This paper is focused on the critical success factors (CSFs) and their
dependencies setting up together with their sorting into several logical groups.
Critical success factors can be defined as the limited number of areas in which results, if they are
satisfactory, will ensure successful competitive performance for the organization(Thiry, 2010). Also they
could be defined as something that must happen if a process, project, plan, or ICT service is to
succeed.(Continual Service Improvement, 2007). CSFs fulfillment is necessary for maximizing value
addition to delivered ICT services. Also it is necessary for effective and efficient management of ICT
department. Regarding to that fact in this paper I will consider mainly two aspects of CSF related to their
visibility for customers:
CSFs which are in close relationship with the customers side (those who are receiving ICT
services); they can be called as external. They influence the ITIL implementation and
maintenance from the perspective of relationships between ICT department and other non ICT
business units. These CSFs are related directly to value addition to ICT services.
CSFs which are framed within ICT departments; they serves as a precondition of an effective ICT
management. They neednt be visible for non ICT business units, however they are necessary for
ICT management according to ITIL principles. These CSFs are related to a valuable management
of ICT department.
The purpose of this paper is to find an appropriate set of CSFs which is crucial for ITIL implementing
and maintenance. This set is divided into some groups to allow establishment of CSFs owners to support the
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responsibilities of keeping them. Also there is a research of the way how to define KPIs which allow
measurement of CSFs achievement.
Objective of Critical Success factors for ITIL best practices usage analysis
A key goal of ITIL driven ICT department (no matter if the ICT is internal department or outsourced)
is a value-adding (Aitken, 2003). The objective of CSFs investigation is supported by the issues ICT most
critically need to do most effectively in functions in order to optimize ICT services delivery. That means the
main CSFs should be defined as a result of the investigation of optimizing value-added business. The
following objective is to find main metrics transformed into KPIs as the essentials measurement criteria
needed for CSFs achievement auditing.
There should be organization assumptions taken into account. In this paper the CSFs are not managed
whether it is internal IT organization or the external IT organization. According to Kumbaara, 2008 each
organization should adopt the guidelines, principles and concept of ITIL and adapt them to suit their
organization context. Also CSFs should be adopted as implementing activities arising from the CSFs
definition. Also according to Ko & Fink, 2010 no matter if the IT is centralized, decentralized or federal, the
CSFs summarized should be adopted for all organizational types of ICT departments.
The perspectives which are taken in into account in this paper (Ko, & Fink, 2010) are built from two
following perspectives:
Process perspective which means the ITIL processes aspect. This perspective is based on the
optimized functions and workflows in IT processes (both internal and external).
People perspective focused on management and operational team working in ICT department
together with customers and users behavior (that means it is going on both external and internal
perspective).
The objectives of this paper are to be achieved by two main research methods. The scientific papers
accessible through international databases of journals and books are researched. Outputs from these papers
serve also as supporting materials for general CSFs induction. The summarized CSFs should be extended to
their main key performance indicators (KPIs) which serve as a tool for measuring and analyzing the CSFs
fulfillment. Also the KPIs serve as preconditions for ITIL successful implementation and maintenance in
ICT services delivering area. KPIs are not identified in this paper because of their variances in common
organizations. There are several steps and hints analyzed how to define them.
ITIL background for CSF definitions
Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) framework was coming from the United
Kingdom Office of the Government Commerce (OGC) which released the first version in the 80s
(Kumbaara, N., 2008) . Today it is the most widely accepted ICT service management standard in the world.
ITIL framework consists of the best practices verified in practical use. Today, we are facing the version 3 of
ITIL, which has been released in 2007. Five core ITIL books, dedicated into 5 sections of ICT service life
cycle, provide key processes required for providing integrated ICT services to customers. ITIL has been
widely adopted by organizations in Europe and other parts of the world. Enterprises implement ITIL best
practices for many reasons, for example they are following (Kumbaara, 2008):
Increase ICT predictability and efficiency
Reduce support costs.
Improve customer service quality
Comply regulatory requirements
There are many drivers for the popularity of ITIL for managing ICT services. Those include
(Kumbaara, 2008):
The pressure to reduce cost or do more for less cost
The push for end-to-end service management
Introduction of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for measuring user experience
Requirement of ICT to comply with legislations
All these reasons and drivers serves as a basis for CSF s summarizing in this paper.

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CSF research efficiently managed IT
When we are trying to summarize the most crucial CSFs for ITIL implementation and maintenance,
there is a need to take into account some preconditions like these (Thiry, 2010):
The CSF should be free of political decisions in the company (any political interest of involved
business unit should be taken away from the definition of CSF)
The CSF should come out from the related strategies (corporate strategy as well as ICT strategy),
also programs expectation of ICT related programs and projects
The CSFs must be achievable and measured of their success
The most common problem is how to choose the CSFs among the expected benefits. They shouldnt be
chosen randomly and only intuitively, they should be connected to a real strategy and goals, they should be well
discussed and approved, the measured parameters and targeted values should be set up in advance and they
should be measured regularly. The number of CSFs should be limited from five to eight (Thiry, 2010). Thiry,
2010 says that twelve being an absolute maximum, but there could be problems with supplication of some KPIs
related to CSFs because each CSFs should have from two to five KPIs. If twelve CSFs would be in place, there
would be maximum of 60 KPIs and that number is unacceptable in most companies. If there is too small
number of CSFs (about two), they could have a problem they are too generic and strategic. In that case the
measuring of CSFs could be not clear enough and the real benefits from the targets achieving is not visible. The
only possibility with the generic approach to CSFs is that they could be set up as a strategic benefit and after
that they should be dividing into more specific ITIL CSFs. In this paper there are more than twelve CSFs
because of the demonstration of different focuses and perspectives. They are related to ITIL and in the real
company the most important of them should be chosen to fulfill the rule of their count.
The CSFs should be high enough in the corporate hierarchy to be significant (not only for
management, but for all involved business units in case they are external or for the whole ICT department in
case they are internal). The process of setting up the CSFs can consist of several iterations (at least two). The
first step is to select all CSFs n the strategic level. After that they should be analyzed (one after one) and they
should be seen if they are specific enough. If they are specific, they should be kept, if not they should be sent
into the second iteration. In that iteration the CSFs should be analyzed according to specific internal and
external conditions in ITIL implementation and maintenance and after that the definition should be fixed.
The selection has to be focused on the processes and people involved as defined above in this paper. Prior to
definition the CSFs should be well discussed among all stakeholders (in ICT department as well as in the
other business units connected to ICT departments in ICT services delivery).
Also the prioritization of CSFs is important. The prioritization should be based on the communication
with stakeholders. There is a challenge to choose right stakeholders delegates to set up appropriate
prioritization. They should come from business units and also ICT departments; they should be managers as
well as specialists. The key stakeholders need to identify their order of importance of ICT services delivery
to assign delegates and effort proportionately to their importance. The importance is related more to ICT
services delivery than to ITIL processes because of the ICT services as an value-added output from the ITIL
processes which stays in a background. (Thiry, 2010)
CSF induction
The CSFs are to be defined using induction method from the several areas related to IT governance
approach which can be defined as the responsibility of the board of directors and executive management. It
is an integral part of enterprise governance and consists of the leadership, organizational structures and
processes that ensure that the organizations IT sustains and extends the organizations strategies and
objectives(Office of Government Commerce, 2007). According to relating of CSF to processes and people I
have set up following external CSFs (visible for business units):
Process related:
Right tools and techniques for process implementation and maintenance shall be chosen
ITIL is described as the externally developed best practice. It could be moderate to good practices
according to actual conditions in a company. There is always a gap existing requiring more
intensive use of supporting tools to adopt the frameworks. The best practices shall be integrated
through the internal tools and techniques.
Alignment of IT and business this CSF ensures the linkage between IT governance and
corporate governance to achieve strategic business outcomes by delivering valuable ICT services.
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The alignment could always cause a small gap among ICT and business units which should be
carefully managed (for example by Service Level Managers responsible for Service Level
Agreements among ICT department and business units as customers).The sub factor is
Relationship development containing development of trust among business units and ICT
department and communication management as a focal point of relationships improvement.
Performance tracking and measurement it is useful for balancing business and technical
outcomes. The measures could include both technical (for example response time) and non
technical (for example customer satisfaction rating) parameters. Performance tracking must be
effective by sharing the outcomes among all stakeholders.

People related:
Leadership the necessity of moving from reactive cost leadership of ICT management to
proactive, strategic leadership. There should be also a dialogue between CIO (ICT director) and
senior management established.
Roles and responsibilities establishment by defining roles and responsibilities to ensure
effective execution of ITIL processes in case of ICT service delivery. The sub factor shall be
named as:
Conflict management system which is based on the responsibilities for potential conflict
areas and complaints resolving. The roles of the compliance management on both business
and ICT sides must be established.
Commitment and participation strong management together with stakeholders commitment
is expected. The executive staff must be active in involvement to make decisions as well as to
support executive activities. The commitment could consist of two perspective:
Management leadership mainly in implementation phase of ITIL and in case of strategic
decisions performing and appraising
Long term commitment very needed in ITIL implementation (because the implementation
can take from months to several years).
Awareness and understanding to ITIL framework and ICT service delivering principle both
on the customers side and the ICT side. There must be an acceptance of ICT service principles
(according to value creation of ICT services) on business and ICT side. The sub factor of this CSF
is defined as:
Organizational learning focused on the continual development of organizational awareness
and understanding which must be broad together with organizational awareness and
understanding.
There shall be several internal CSFs defined like following (Aitken, 2003). These CSF are focused
mainly to value-added ICT services which can typically best be achieved by focusing ITIL practice
effectiveness improvement on flowing areas:

Process related:
Optimizing competitive advantage of ICT department - optimizing the identification of ICT
opportunities in ICT services delivery areas that will yield the business competitive advantage.
Optimizing ICT services portfolio alignment - optimizing the alignment between the produced
ICT services and their demand and the priority needs of the business units that they support
Optimizing ICT costs alignment to benefits and risk identified in ICT area to produce ICT
services for justifiable and predicable costs together with its optimized planned portfolio.
Optimizing ICT services delivery - sustaining the value-adding imperative throughout the ITIL
processes supporting the ICT services delivery.
Optimizing benefits realization in project and process area by optimizing their realization
(implementation) by maximizing expected benefits.

People related:
Optimizing IT functions focusing on optimizing the strategic alignment of the IT function with
the part of ICT services it delivers (so they share common strategy goals related to ITIL and ICT
service management).

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Key Performance Indicators setting up
Once the CSFs are identified, there shall be KPIs for each CSF identified. These will enable the
measurement of the delivery of the CSFs achievement. The KPIs are essentially a measure of the CSFs; they
are also helpful for demonstrating the CSFs were achieved. One easy way to define measures for the KPIs is
to identify a criterion of measure, the level that needs to be achieved and the acceptable range. There are a
few basic rules for selecting KPIs (Thiry, 2010). KPIs should be:
Measurable in quantitative terms
Feasible in terms of finances, equipment, skills and time
Relevant and accurate to reflect what is to be measured in an accurate way
Sensitive to enable identification of changes over time
Timely to inform in time for effective decision-making
The choice of the right KPIs is as essential as that of the CSFs. But the KPIs should be adapted to
actual conditions in organization. The 7s step to improvement technique based on ITIL framework (Office of
Government Commerce, 2007) should be applied. The most useful steps for KPIs creation are the 1
st
and the
2
nd
but for completeness below are all 7 steps mentioned.
.

Step 1 Define what you should measure the metrics related to CSFs identified shall be
established. The importance for ICT services delivering is focused. It should be driven by
business requirements (also in case of internal CSFs defined inside ICT department).
Step 2 Define what you can measure because every organization may find that they have
limitations on what can be actually measured. This is a technical point because it is based on the
software tools already in place or to be implemented to measure the metrics. Some information for
KPIs establishment is found within processes, procedure and work instructions. The tools are
merely a way to collect and provide the data.
Step 3 Gather the data consisting of the common procedures to follow in monitoring. There is
a space for defining data collection requirements, frequency of monitoring and developing data
collection procedures.
Step 4 Process the data - This step converts the data into the required format and for the required
audience.
Step 5 Analyze the data - Data analysis transforms the information into knowledge of the events
that are affecting the organization.
Step 6 Present and use the information - The final stage is to take out knowledge and present it,
turn it into wisdom by utilizing, reports, monitors, action plans, reviews, evaluations and
opportunities.
Step 7 Implement corrective actions - requires resources to build or modify the services and/or
service management processes, potential new technology or modifications to existing technology.

The KPIs should be divided into quantitative and qualitative. According to CSFs defined there should
be inducted a rule, that the process related CSFs needs to set up quantitative KPIs. They shall be focused on
the process performance, level of optimization according targeted values and statistics of monitored data
flows in processes supporting ICT services delivery. To the contrary the people related CSFs needs to set up
qualitative KPIs. They shall be focused on the relationship quality, the qualitative level of business to ICT
alignment and the feedback from management roles assignment. KPIs must be set internally in the
organization according to step 1 and 2 possibilities from the 7 steps to improvement method. Also metrics
shall be defined in KPIs and their targeted values.
Conclusion
Critical Success Factors related to ITIL implementation and management should be set up from
several perspectives to cover all areas needed for the successfully ITIL driven ICT organization. Their main
objective is to support value creation of ICT services. There are several generic CSFs which are defined in
this paper. They are usable for all types of ICT organizations but they should be adopted according to current
needs in the department and related business units Those critical success factors which are needed for
successful ITIL implementation, maintenance and continuous development,should be sorted by several ways
according to secondary research and induction used in this paper. The first perspective should be filled
according to type of ICT services delivery environment which is participated on (CSFs visibility for
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customers) internal and external CSFs. The second group of CSFs should be defined according to
organization perspective resources (people) involved and process involved (containing technology,
methodology, knowledge etc.). There is no need to found or to identify CSFs from the perspective of time
they are needed for such as on the implementation project and during the maintenance (development).
All identified CSFs are summarized in following table:
Table 1. Critical success factors summarization
Type of CSF
Relation of CSF
External Internal
Right tools and techniques

Optimizing competitive
advantage of ICT
department
Alignment of IT and business

Optimizing ICT services
portfolio alignment
Optimizing ICT costs
alignment
Process related
Performance tracking and
measurement
Optimizing benefits
realization
Leadership
Roles and responsibilities
establishment
Commitment and participation
People related
Awareness and understanding
Optimizing IT functions

As it is seen in the Table 1, the external CSFs are mostly people related and the internal CSFs are
mostly process related. I found the relation based on the needs inside ICT focused on assuming ITIL process
improvement and on the needs in business to ICT alignment assuming relationship and communication
among stakeholders.
Identification of KPIs related to each CSF I found as not applicable in general. There are several
factors need to be taken into account when defining KPIs and metrics. After their assessment KPIs can be set
up and after that measured. On the general level only the steps how to define KPIs and metrics can be
identified.
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