David Farris, IT manager at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, has been working for five years to change some of the processes within his 300-employee organization. He hopes the changes will lead to significant savings in the IT department, which now spends about US$100 million annually.

But for several years, a lack of active support from upper management made it difficult for Farris to push ahead with the new processes, which are based on the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) guidelines. A new CIO finally supported the project, but Farris said that getting his employees to accept the changes has also been a challenge.

The IT workers "are comfortable with what they're doing," he said. "They have their own processes, their own incident management tools. It's their baby."

Farris isn't alone in his struggles, according to attendees at the Fusion 07 conference being held here this week by the U.S. chapter of the IT Service Management Forum. Resistance to ITIL, an IT operations blueprint that is overseen by the U.K. Office of Government Commerce, is strong inside many IT departments, mostly because of deep-rooted aversion to change among tech workers.

But more and more IT staffs likely will have to adapt to ITIL's specifications, because the guidelines are spreading in a Borg-like fashion as a growing number of companies seek uniform and standardized IT management processes.

One indicator of the increasing interest in ITIL is a sharp spike in the membership of the ITSMF USA, which advocates that companies adopt the guidelines. Two years ago, the Pasadena, Calif.-based group had less than 3,000 members. Now it's up to about 8,000 members, and ITSMF USA officials believe the membership count could reach 20,000 by 2010.

Another sign of interest in ITIL is the increasing number of employers -- both user companies and vendors -- that are seeking workers with certifications and academic training in IT service management.

For instance, when the College of Business at the University of Dallas began offering an MBA program with a concentration in IT service management two years ago, it was the first school to do so, said Sue Conger, an associate professor and director of the IT program. But since then, Conger has seen similar programs being added at other colleges and universities.