Is ITIL 'Best Practice'?

I wrote this in response to 'IT Skeptic' at http://www.itsmwatch.com/itil/article.php/11700_3635131_1 - an article suggesting that ITIL is not 'Best Practice':

I enjoyed your article on ITIL as a 'Best Practice'. I too have wondered about this in the past and felt it important to have a clear picture of how it is defined. Unfortunately your web-site doesn't have a section below for replies - I think it would be a useful addition.

In reply to your useful analysis, I'd make a few points. ITIL has always had continuous service improvement as the basis of 'best practice' - organisations that do this do better than those that don't - so, properly, ITIL itself is a continuously evolving 'best practice'. You're confusing 'best practice' now with 'best practice' over time, two quite different matters. There was a 'best practice' of making glass several centuries ago - it was a carefully guarded secret in Venice. The best way of making glass today is quite different!

You say that Asia is 'experimenting' with ITIL and service management, and that ITIL is euro-centric. My book 'Metrics for IT Service Management' was reviewed (as part of the process of establishing it as 'Best Practice') by people from all over the globe, including Asia. In fact the book was a result of work that I did with Samsung in Seoul in South Korea - so, in this case, Asia was part of the cutting edge in the definition of 'Best Practice' world wide! Samsung's board of directors had selected ITIL because they, after an exhaustive search, had decided that it was the best practice available for Service Management. I know that is only anecdote, but, since this started over three years ago, I think it a little unfair to describe Asia as 'experimenting' with ITIL - Samsung is quite a big company!

I agree that more rigour needs to be added to ITIL. It has been a practical and pragmetic matter to date. I'm working with the itSMF to create a Journal of IT Service Management that can host peer-reviewed academic research into Service Management and ITIL. I believe that this will provide the foundation required to establish that it is the 'best practice' in particular fields. At the moment we have to rely on the fact that there are no known better methods!

Just for the record, I'm the South African representative on the itSMF committee for publications, the IPESC, though this reply is all my own opinion.