The biggest barrier to CSI… is ITIL v3

Ian MacDonald considers some common reasons why continual improvement is hard to introduce, and explains why ITIL might be partly to blame.

Over the years, I’ve heard the same familiar excuses surface in IT organisations attempting to embed Continual Service Improvement (CSI):

• We don’t have the time or resources
• It can’t be that important as it’s not in my job description
• It’s not my responsibility
• This isn’t BAU
• We’re not a service team, so CSI doesn’t apply to us
• We’re too busy to justify and get permission for improvements

At first glance, these may look like resistance. In reality, they are learned attitudes and behaviours conditioned over years by the way ITIL v3 positioned Continual Service Improvement.

How ITIL v3 unintentionally got this wrong

ITIL v3 framed CSI as a distinct process-oriented lifecycle stage, complete with its own ITIL v3 publication, defined roles, processes, and governance mechanisms to allocate budget and approve or reject proposed initiatives. It also recommended the establishment of a central team, often led by CSI managers, to identify and coordinate improvement activity.

While well intentioned, this approach created several unintended consequences:

• CSI was seen as the responsibility of a central team, not everyone
• Improvement required justification and permission, slowing momentum
• Small, incremental BAU improvements were ignored in favour of “substantial” initiatives
• CSI was perceived as discretionary

Over time, improvement became something to be managed rather than something to be embraced. In doing so, it subtly signalled to practitioners that CSI was someone else’s job.

In short, CSI came to be seen as optional, with the central team expected to handle it while everyone else focused on “real work.” Viewed as a nice-to-have, CSI was never truly owned by the people doing the work.

Enter new ITIL thinking (and the foundation for later versions)

ITIL 4 arrived and flipped this thinking completely, establishing a model that has continued through Version 5. It also introduced a subtle but significant change by dropping the word “Service” and reframing CSI as simply Continual Improvement. This was more than a cosmetic tweak, it immediately expanded the scope of improvement to cover the whole IT organisation, not just services.

Continual Improvement is no longer a process or a team. It is everyone’s responsibility, embedded across all roles and activities; strategic, tactical, and operational. Improvement is no longer an “opt-in” or “opt-out” choice; it is an expected and integral part of everyone’s role.

The premise is simple: if you do work, it delivers value to someone, somewhere. If it doesn’t, then why does it exist? And if it does deliver value, it can always be improved.

But here’s the catch, and the part many organisations underestimate: you cannot build a modern ITIL Continual Improvement culture with ITIL v3 behaviours.

If improvement still requires permission, justification, or a central authority, the shift will never fully happen. Organisations end up trying to adopt the modern ITIL approach while continuing to operate with an ITIL v3 mindset.

What leaders must do differently

To make Continual Improvement real, leaders need to deliberately break with old assumptions and create the conditions for new behaviours to emerge. That means having a clear strategy that:

• Relentlessly focuses on customer value
• Connects improvement work directly to organisational success
• Explicitly defines Continual Improvement responsibilities in every role and service contract
• Empowers and trusts teams to improve the ‘day job’ and their ways of working
• Creates a culture where improvement is simply “how we do things around here,” not an initiative or side project

And crucially, this cannot be mandated. Continual Improvement only sticks when it becomes a new mindset. Leaders must win hearts and minds, making improvement feel relevant, recognised, and rewarded. Ultimately, every practitioner is quietly asking the same question: “What’s in it for me?”

For most people, this isn’t about incentives or slogans. It’s about whether improvement is treated as part of business as usual, not additional work layered on top of an already full workload. It’s about whether small, practical changes are encouraged and recognised, rather than waiting for large, formally approved initiatives. It’s also about whether the pursuit of improvement creates opportunities for continuous learning and development.

When practitioners’ skills, experience, and insight are actively developed and used to demonstrate their contribution to organisational success through focused improvements that make a real difference, and when this is recognised and valued, engagement follows naturally.

If that question isn’t answered, no framework will succeed.

Final reflection

Any Continual Improvement strategy that ignores the historic attitudes, behaviours, and constraints created under ITIL v3 is likely to fail. Moving forward requires more than adopting the new ITIL practices; it requires unlearning old habits.

An Organisational Change Management (OCM) approach is essential to help people see what’s different, why it matters, and how it benefits them personally. But OCM alone is not enough. Leaders and managers must actively establish and sustain a work environment where improvement is part of the day job.

That’s when ITIL stops being something you implement and starts being something you live, and the impact of Continual Improvement becomes real, visible, and felt across the organisation.