There are some excellent new refinements and additions in the process area. There is some really important thinking about the nature of service and the relationship between IT service providers and the business. But some of the challenges are going to be significant because, as they state themselves, you really can’t take a completely linear approach to putting IT organizations and processes together. V2 was much more "linear-thinking," which is very comfortable for most IT people. We want a kit that tells us this is how it works. V3 shoots that completely out of the water.

In one book, a particular process is discussed in its entirety, but most of the processes are relevant to more than one section of a lifecycle for a service, so they’re also discussed in those books. That could be confusing to people who don’t read the whole library.

There is some advanced thought, that’s not really in the easy comfort zone for a lot of people. There’s enormously valuable information, and great ideas, but people will need to take time to absorb this and see what’s really there and be very careful about identifying an appropriate strategy for themselves to get value out of it.

When someone learns a new skill, like golf, you have to learn the basics before someone teaches you the nuances, like reading a green or noticing the difference between different makers of the same club. Until you know what you’re doing, some of the nuances will escape you. You have no context in which to place those ideas yet. So, there will be that sort of thing with ITIL V3 — some organizations as well as individuals will simply not be ready for the nuance, the more complex thinking. They are going to have to get guidance on the underlying basics. Some V2 basics are improved and wonderful, but different people will need to be prepared for V3 in different ways.

It also means that the learning curve for training and consulting vendors is going to be quite steep so that we can provide that guidance. We will have to spend some serious quality time on this and coming up with the best strategies for different clients at different stages of maturity.