Smoke & Mirrors
Servinomy is hunting the facts behind the claims within service management. No judgment, just sharp investigation and recording of the current culture in the business. For each subject, we publish directional guidance rather than a solution.
We've Known the Answer Since 1964.
So Why Are We Still Failing?
By Servinomy | June 2026 - DEMO version
In 1964, Harold Leavitt told us that changing technology without changing people and process would make the system fight back. The service management community turned this into the People–Process–Technology (PPT) framework. We built ITIL around it. We certified thousands of practitioners on it.
In 2025, Gartner surveyed 3,100 CIOs across 88 countries and found that only 48% of digital transformation initiatives meet their targets. VML's global report found 64% of projects launch without a clear roadmap. Bain & Company put the broader failure rate for transformation at 88%.
Key Takeaways
- The PPT model is not a relic — it is a diagnosis the industry keeps refusing to act on.
- Organisations consistently over-invest in Technology, underfund Process, and treat People as a training line item.
- Every generation of technology (ERP, Cloud, AI) repackages the same failure with new vocabulary.
- The organisations that succeed treat people and business leaders as equally accountable — not just IT.
The model is not broken. The will to apply it is.
Is ITIL Dead?
The Answer Is More Complicated Than You Think.
By Servinomy | June 2026 - DEMO version
Forrester Research's "ITIL Dilemma" report landed like a grenade in the ITSM community in 2025. It questioned whether ITIL — the backbone of IT service management for three decades — is still fit for purpose. The response from practitioners was immediate, divided, and revealing.
The short answer: ITIL is not dead. But it is no longer sufficient on its own — and the profession needs to stop pretending otherwise.
Key Takeaways
- Forrester identified three core pressures: rising costs, declining relevance in agile environments, and the emergence of better alternatives.
- ITIL 4 has already evolved toward agile, but many organisations still apply it as a rigid rulebook rather than a flexible vocabulary.
- For regulated industries (banking, healthcare, government), ITIL's stability-first approach remains genuinely valuable.
- The "anti-ITIL" examples (Spotify, Netflix) were never ITIL shops — using them as proof of obsolescence is a category error.
- The real question is not whether to use ITIL, but how much, where, and alongside what.
"ITIL isn't dead. But it can no longer afford to be the only voice in the room."