Because of international and portuguese examples we know that the adoption of ITIL best practice continues
growing. In the first example we have the Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association - UCISA
[5] which indicates thirteen universities in UK that already started implementing ITIL or The Walt Disney
Company [6] where to begin implementing ITIL, provided to all staff ITIL Foundation training. But also
portuguese cases can be listed as the academic work of Esteves [7] which conducted at the Institute of
Information Technologies in Justice (Instituto das Tecnologias de Informação na Justiça) an interesting case
study; or Figueiredo [8] that analyzed in an anonymous public organization the social costs about ITIL
implementation and where she says “one of the major causes of these failures is the lack of recognition of the
need for an effective communication strategy to deal with the barriers to organizational change.”; or Ferreira [9]
who investigated the implementation of ITIL processes in ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon IT Service.
However a significant proportion of these initiatives fails or takes too long until completion. Wilkinson [10]
cites a Forrester report, revealed that 52% of ITSM improvement programs fail because of resistance. Surely
these failures entail costs and risks for the organization. We believe that our case study fits into one of these
implementations have failed. We can attribute various reasons for this end, but the resistance to change was
certainly one of the most important aspects.