ITIL and Internal Revenue Service (IRS)Â -ÂAudit findings
USA: The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) has recently published its audit findings regarding ITIL Event Management, Incident Management, and Problem Management initiatives at Service Operations Command Center Branch (SOCCB).
SOCCB is part of the Enterprise Computing Center, is responsible for providing support for the systems used to receive and process tax returns and payments, all infrastructure servers enterprise-wide, and application servers located in the 10 campuses and non-Enterprise Computing Center sites.
The Enterprise Computing Center is one organization of seven that comprise the Enterprise Operations organization. The Enterprise Operations organization itself supports the Modernization and Information Technology Services (MITS) organization by providing efficient, cost effective, secure, and highly reliable computing (mainframe and server) services for all Internal Revenue Service (IRS) business entities and taxpayers.
The comprehensive TIGTA audit report identified a series of recommendations, which were supported by various analysis, evidence and benefits that could be realized by SOCCB.
Although perhaps a little 'dry' the report does high-light a series of areas that many organizations both in the public and private sector, fail to recognize early in the implementation of ITIL and consequently is worth reading. The report mentions:
- Establishing a baseline early, to capture workload and resource levels. The baseline can then be performed again at a later date and can hopefully display an improvement against the original baseline, supported by various performance metrics to demonstrate efficiencies and the effectiveness of the initiative(s)
- The appropriate and timely training of staff with regards to ITIL and the roles which they will undertake
- Resourcing the ITIL initiatives is also important, although the SOCCB was impacted by budgetary constraints, which has impacted the implementation in areas such as incident trend analysis
The report is well worth reading and provides an objective insight into a public sector organization adopting ITIL best management practices.
Click here to view the reportÂ(780kb PDF opens in a new window).