You know, it's strange: when I worked for an insurance IT dept. we were informed that strict adherence to an ITIL-certified release process was essential to kee

You know, it's strange: when I worked for an insurance IT dept. we were informed that strict adherence to an ITIL-certified release process was essential to keep us "within compliance with FSA regulations - we need to do this in order to continue trading". From experience, said process cost waaaay more than 0.5% of the budget. Time and cost overruns, massive overhead in personnel and a drain on mental resources which should have been spent on actual release quality rather than an audit trail meant to convey "Certified" quality. All in all, I'd say 50% of the costs of IT delivery were spent in plodding through the checkpoints with much of the other half being consumed by the interest on 20 years of technical debt accrued as a result of those very same resources being misdirected in such regulatory endeavours. I recognise than I'm far too cynical to see regulation as anything other than a shield against liability. It's simply too obstructive to contribute to actual quality improvement. On the plus side, it does keep about 50% of IT personnel in a job. So I guess you can count me in with the lovers :-)