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.