ITIL Practices
What form will the ITIL 4 foundation course take? Each authorized training center will customize the course and its content. PeopleCert – the Accreditation Body will provide guidelines to ensure the accuracy of teaching.
As a guide, students can expect the course will remain the standard 2-day course. Trainers may choose to divide the class syllabus into four sections each day. Students may consider learning outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4, on day 01 and 5, 6, 7, and a mock examination on day 2.
What else will ITIL 4 bring?
Acceleration in the IT industry is pushing ITIL to adopt new and expanding technologies. One example of this is cloud computing. You may remember that ITIL v3 made a single reference to cloud computing found in its appendix. However, cloud computing technology is a dominating technology with millions using it each day. ITIL 4 reflects this and many other changes that are affecting the service management profession.
The last ten years have seen many new players and methods in the Business IT world. Agile, Change management, DevOps to name a few. Have any of these proven to be a replacement for ITIL? No.
Although some may see similarities in the method used to produce them: IT services created in an Agile way and supported by DevOps with collaboration with ITIL, however, there is a clear distinction in their roles. ITIL 4 was created using the Agile methodology. DevOps is used to speed up the velocity of deployment.
Rather than viewing these methods and processes as a replacement, industry professionals see the huge advantage and flexibility provided by collaboration.
Will ITIL 4 be flexible to the needs of each organization?
Should ITIL be able to implement every process and workflow that each organization uses? Should the organization be flexible and adapt their ways to ITIL? This debate has long continued. Some small businesses have distinct processes that are unique and can be detailed in no more than a page. On the other hand, international standards such as ISO/IEC 20000 already require that businesses adapt to an established standard. ITIL 4 looks to address both these concerns by their introduction of Practices.
A framework has been defined as the combined sum of its processes. Practices are broader in scale than processes. ITIL 4’s goal is to use Practices to meet the expectation of each organization.
With all the talk of Agile, has the concept of Lean been completely abandoned? No. Modern production methods have been applied. Producers have been keen to avoid encouraging unnecessary content. They also discourage the inclusion of multiple redundancies in infrastructure. The design of ITIL 4 is modular.
Users of the updated ITIL should expect frequent updates as it matures. These updates will be incremental and not impact the entire framework.
The foundation for ITIL 4 lays on 4 key components. These are the best practice framework.
- The four dimensions model
- The ITIL service value system (SVS)
- The service value chain (SVC)
- ITIL 4 practices
If this is familiar, it may be because some existed in the form of Processes in previous ITIL versions. Now they can be present at any stage of the lifecycle.
ITIL is a set of IT Service Management practices. Organizations globally look to it as they plan to meet their enterprise scale IT goals. It takes a holistic view of IT within an organization rather than a micro view. This broader view will increase the velocity of the organization driving it towards future goals.
It comprises a four-dimensional approach:
- Organizations & People.
- Information & Technology
- Partners & Suppliers
- Value Streams and Processes
The ITIL guiding principles are part of the ITIL Service Value System (SVS). These principles are provided as a guide for the professionals who will design the strategic use of ITIL and its service to the organization.
These principles are immediately evident from even the Change Management Process. By including the “Value” field in the “Request for Change” form, latitude is provided for a greater variety of outcomes.
These principles are the foundation on which the strategy is built. By applying these principles from an early stage, each organization can create further policies. In time the principles become part of the organizations work culture. The principles move from theory to strategy to a primary part of continual improvement.
Focus on Value: What value will this change make? What will it gain in cost, effort, infrastructure? How does this compare to the existing framework or standard? Changes should be complementary to the earlier agreed strategy.
Start where you are: IT decision makers need to be able to understand before acting. What is the real reason for the request? How will the next version be different from the current?
Progress Iteratively: Apply lessons learned from Agile. Progress the improvements but provide iterations and learn from the response to each.
Collaborate and be transparent: This is the style of communication that will ultimately lead to a win/win result for all sides. Decision makers and stakeholders alike should have the means to communicate freely.
Work holistically: Each person, from user to decision-maker needs to be aware of the bigger picture. Everything in this environment is connected, one small change will have an impact on one or many others.
Keep it simple: Learn lessons from Lean. Avoid inflating workflows. Allow each team member to learn to understand and collaborate as easily as possible.
Optimize and automate: Progress should not stop. Within the principles of ITIL, the organization should continue to drive forward. IT should not stop looking for new opportunities to optimize workflows and automate as the opportunity arises.
Introduction to ITIL 4 practices:
The evolution of processes to practices is in progress. These can simply be plugged in as activities when needed. This is just one of several changes. In the table below, you can see a number of new practices (formerly known as processes) that were not available before.
| General management practices | Service management practices | Technical management practices |
| Architecture management | Availability management | Deployment management |
| Continual Improvement | Business Analysis | Infrastructure & platform management |
| Information security management | Capacity & Performance management | Software development and management |
| Knowledge management | Change control | |
| Measurement and reporting | Incident management | |
| Organizational change management | IT asset management | |
| Portfolio management | Monitoring & event management | |
| Project management | Problem management | |
| Relationship management | Release management | |
| Risk management | Service catalogue management | |
| Service Financial Management | Service configuration management | |
| Strategy management | Service continuity management | |
| Supplier management | Service Design | |
| Workforce & talent management |
Service Desk
| |
Service Level management
| ||
Service request management
| ||
Service validation & testing
|
ITIL 4 is the result of more than 10 years of experience and research that results in an impressive update. It has benefitted from other methodologies such as Agile, DevOps, and Lean. This means that it provides a cutting edge framework for organizations. It takes a new approach to even complex practices such as software development and Change Management.
Will you transition to ITIL 4? 3 recommendations:
1. Are you a student of ITIL v3? Are you concerned that you are now learning an older version of ITIL? No need to worry. Continue learning v3 and gain a good understanding of it. ITIL 4 will be rolled out during 2019. Following this, each organization will apply its strategy. You will then be able to build on your understanding of v3 by transitioning to ITIL 4 during 2020 or 2021. Do not stop your education as you will need to sit ITIL 4 Foundation level examinations again.
2. Many have already taken intermediate training. If so, continue your education since there will be transition learning and exams.
3. A key component of ITIL 4 is capacity management. This is the practice of right-sizing IT resources to meet current and future needs. This means that ITIL has been designed to change and adapt according to the organization. Keep a close eye on its application in your organization.
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