The discussion on ITIL vs. DevOps is a common one. There are many different views on the subject: some argue that ITIL and DevOps have different mindsets; some that they they are compatible; some that they are different but both have their place in the IT department. In a recent article, Charles Betz, leader of the Agile Workstream at the Open Group IT4IT Forum, which aims to provide a “vendor-neutral Reference Architecture for managing the business of IT”, argues that their basic principles are at odds. ITIL is still trapped in a phased workflow. DevOps embraces lean product management tenets such as managing work in progress, managing queues, or handling small batches.

Betz and Jeff Sussna, both ITIL skeptics, agree that ITIL has done a great service to the IT community by “promoting service-centric, outside-in, customer-focused thinking”. But they contend that, despite ITIL V3’s discussion on “Continual Service Improvement”, which aims to continuously align IT processes with business needs, it still has a phased-step mindset. As Betz puts it:

SOURCE: infoq.com