ITIL Framework Summary (ITIL 3 vs ITIL 4)

ITIL Framework Summary: ITIL v3 is a public framework for IT Service Management (ITSM) that contains five volumes, each covering different processes and stages in the Service Life Cycle. ITIL Framework includes:

ITIL IT Service Management (ITSM) Framework

Follow the below Framework on the ITIL V3 Service Life cycle and will talk about ITIL V4 in the next section.

ITIL Service Strategy (PLAN)

IT Service Strategy helps businesses develop organizational goals and objectives to prioritize customer needs.

• Strategy management for IT services
• Service portfolio management
• Financial management for IT services
• Demand Management
• Business Relationship Management

ITIL Service Design (DESIGN)

Offers a strategy to build a plan to deliver on established business objectives using the RACI matrix, which stands for responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed.

• Design Coordination
• Service Catalog Management
• Service-Level Management
• Capacity Management
• IT Service Continuity Management
• Security Management
• Supplier Management

ITIL Service Transition (BUILD)

Focuses on the project development and operational use of services, setting it apart from day-to-day IT maintenance.

• Transition planning and support
• Change management
• Service asset and configuration management
• Release and deployment management
• Service validation and testing
• Change evaluation
• Knowledge management

ITIL Service Operation (RUN)

Offers best practices for meeting service expectations with end-users, balancing costs, and finding any problems. This volume is broken into two sections – process and functions, each with its own subcategories.  

Processes

• Event Management
• Access Management
• Request Fulfillment
• Problem Management
• Incident Management

Functions

• Service Desk
• Technical management
• Application management
• IT Operations management

ITIL Continual Service Improvement

Achieves services incremental and large-scale improvements using a seven-step process. The seven steps include:

• Identify the strategy for improvement
• Define what you will measure
• Gather the data
• Process the data
• Analyze the information and data
• Present and use the information
• Implement improvement

This section provides the brief concepts introduced in ITIL 4.

The ITIL Service Value System

The key components of the ITIL 4 framework are ITIL Service Value System and the Four Dimensions Model, let’s talk about first on the Service Value System.

ITIL SVS represents how the different activities and components of the organization work together to facilitate value creation through IT-enabled services. These are the core components of the ITIL SVS-Service Value System.

• The ITIL Service Value Chain
• The ITIL Practices
• The ITIL Guiding Principles
• Governance
• Continuous Improvement

The ITIL Service Value Chain

In ITIL4, there are key five components of the Service Value Chain System. Start from Plan, Improve, Engage, Design and Transition, Obtain/Build, Deliver and Support as described below.

The service Value Chain System is derived from Opportunities and Demands to follow the Value System. To achieve the Service Value Chain System, we have to follow the Guiding Principles, IT Governance Model, and Standard Practices to get real success to deliver Business Outcomes and co-create value for our customers or businesses.

Plan

Foster a shared understanding of the vision, improvement direction, and status of all dimensions of Service Management, products, and services

Improve

Ensure continual improvements of products, services, and practices across all value chain activities and service management dimensions.

Engage

Foster a good understanding of stakeholder needs, transparency, and continual engagement, as well as good relationships with all stakeholders.

Design and Transition

Ensure products and services continually meet stakeholder expectations for quality, costs, and time-to-market.

Obtain/Build

Ensure service components are available when needed and meet agreed specifications.

Deliver and Support

Ensure services are delivered and supported according to agreed specifications and stakeholder expectations.

The ITIL Practices

Practices in ITIL are sets of the resources for the organizations to design and perform work or to achieve the objectives. The ITIL Service Value System included General Management Practices (14), Service Management Practices (17) and Technical Managemetn Practices (3).

The Four Dimensions Model

Following the holistic approach to the Service Management, ITIl come up with four Dimensions that are critical to the efficient and effective facilitation for the Customers Value and other stakeholders with the form of Products and Services. Below are the four Deminsions in ITIL 4:

• Organizatios and People
• Information and Technology
• Partners and Suppliers
• Value Streams and Processes

What’s new with ITIL 4? Six Key Differences compare to ITIL 3

There are six key differences between ITIL v3 and the latest update, ITIL 4.

1. Customer Experience and Digital Transformation

The ITIL 4 framework expands itself to the wider context of customer experience, value streams, and digital transformation. It has been updated to reflect the developments in technology happening around the world, and now encompasses new technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing that have moved into mainstream use since the launch of ITIL V3.

2. Holistic Approach

ITIL 4 emphasizes a holistic approach by defining the dimensions of service management that are collectively essential to the facilitation of the value. It’s no longer just about IT — ITIL 4 has a broader focus on services.

These four dimensions of service management are:

• Organizations and people
• Information and technology
• Partners and suppliers
• Value streams and processes

By taking a more comprehensive approach to service management, ITIL 4 can help you to provide confidence and reassurance to your customers, while consistently delivering better services

3. Value Co-Creation

ITIL 4 has evolved beyond the delivery of services to providing value co-creation with the customers and the development of the new ITIL Service Value Chain.

4. Introduced Practices over Processes

In ITIL 4, there are now practices rather than processes covering roles, skills, people, and resources. All ITIL 4 practices have been refreshed to reflect the evolution of IT service management (ITSM) and current ways of working.

Practice is a set of organizational resources designed for performing work or accomplishing an objective. Each ITIL practice supports multiple service value chain activities, providing a comprehensive and versatile toolset for ITSM practitioners.

These resources are grouped into three categories:

• General management practices
• Service management practices
• Technical management practices

Only 15 of the ITIL practices are studied and examined at the Foundation level, and seven of these (in bold) are examined in more detail:

1. Information security management
2. Relationship management
3. Supplier management
4. IT asset management
5. Monitoring and Event Management
6. Release management
7. Service configuration management
8. Deployment management
9. Continual improvement
10. Change control
11. Incident management
12. Problem Management
13. Service request management
14. Service Desk
15. Service level management

5. Guiding Principles

The Guiding Principles released in ITIL Practitioner are now core to the ITIL 4 Framework. A guiding principle is a recommendation that guides an organization in all circumstances, regardless of changes in its goals, strategies, type of work, or management structure.

The guiding principles and the continual improvement model are both important parts of the ITIL Service Value System (SVS) that are applicable to all the other SVS components, ensuring that the SVS as a whole operates with integrity and agility.

The continual improvement model provides simple and logical steps for an improvement initiative of any scale, and the guiding principles help in this by supporting good decision-making at every step of the process.

The seven guiding principles of ITIL 4 are:

• Focus on value – Whatever we do for the organization, we should map directly or indirectly, to value for the stakeholders.
• Start where you are – every time doesn’t be required to build from scratch, need to leverage the available where we are and what we already have.
• Progress iteratively with feedback – We don’t require building everything at once, should divide it into valuable chunks and/or products.
• Collaborate and promote visibility – Working together with businesses and across the enterprise always produces valuable outcomes. Collaborate with your stakeholders and engage them to be visible.
• Think and work holistically – Any service or an element used to provide a service standalone, think and work holistically with business.
• Keep it simple and practical – If any service, process, action, activity, or matrics is not providing value or outcomes, eliminate it.
• Optimize and automate – All types of resouces should be optimized to their best effect and try to automate as much as possible.

6. Adaptability

ITIL 4 looks at everything related to IT, including development, and so the update will reflect other frameworks, and integrate with new ways of working including Agile, and DevOps.