The original ITIL was created in the late 1980s as a best practice framework for delivering business value through information technology (IT) services. Over the past three decades, the ITIL framework has gone through several iterations, with ITIL 4, the highly anticipated update to the framework, released in 2019.
ITIL 4 addresses common criticisms from previous versions, adds new terms and models, and focuses on the concepts of value, cost, and risk. Find out what’s new in this framework, as well as what you and your organization need to know to start using it.
Why an update was necessary
What led to this latest update? To understand, let’s first examine the history of this frame.
The first version of ITIL was published in 30 separate volumes and was released over a 12-year period beginning in 1989. Version 2 of ITIL came out in 2000 and included a reorganization and refinement of the ITIL framework in eight publications.
The ITIL framework took a leap forward in 2007, with the recently released ITIL V3 (also called ITIL 2007 edition) organized around the five stages of the IT service lifecycle. This framework had a strong emphasis on IT roles and responsibilities, as well as clearly defined processes and sub-processes for managing IT services from their initial strategic inception to continuous improvement and service completion.
In 2013, AXELOS, a joint venture created by the UK Government and Capita, was established to manage the administration of ITIL and other best practice properties of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC).
Aside from some minor updates in the ITIL 2011 version, the ITIL V3 standard remained the industry leading framework for IT Service Management (ITSM) until the release of ITIL 4 in February 2019.
ITIL 4 represents a much-needed update to the ITIL framework. While ITIL V3 advanced the delivery of process-oriented IT services and strengthened the relationship between IT services and business value, there were still many criticisms of ITIL V3:
- Too prescriptive and inflexible. Due to its strong focus on processes and threads, some IT professionals felt that ITIL V3 forced them to adopt elements of the framework that might not have been suitable for their unique circumstances.
- Lack of guiding principles. Organizing processes around a service lifecycle tells IT organizations what to do without necessarily explaining why or offering high-level guidance or basic principles to follow. As a result, organizations using ITIL V3 lacked a set of trusted principles that could guide IT decision making beyond prescribed ITIL processes.
- Lack of emphasis on delivering value. ITIL V3’s focus on service management processes meant that it overlooked some of the external factors that affect value creation, such as effective governance and working methods.
Prior to the release of ITIL 4, Stuart Rance , long-time ITIL author and IT service management industry authority, outlined five key reasons why the ITIL V3 2011 edition required updating :
- Excessive focus on the process
- Deployment in silos
- Insufficient focus on value, results, costs and risks.
- The need for support for digital transformation.
- The need for compatibility with Agile, Lean, DevOps, and other management approaches
The update strives to strengthen ties to business strategy while maintaining valuable ITIL core elements from previous versions. To that end, ITIL 4 has been redesigned and restructured to address these criticisms and ensure that ITIL remains the most relevant international framework for IT service management.
How ITIL 4 is different from ITIL V3
ITIL 4 represents a fundamental reorganization of the ITIL framework with a greater focus on the concepts of value, cost and risk. The new framework includes many of the same components as ITIL V3 and incorporates up-to-date knowledge and concepts that reflect a more value-oriented approach to IT service delivery.
The most obvious changes in ITIL 4 are the loss of ITIL V3 service lifecycle imagery and terminology, and the changes to its component elements: service strategy (there is now a strategy management practice; more on “management practices” in a minute), service transition (now there is “Design and transition” in the service value chain shown below) and service operation (there is now “Delivery and support” in the chain value of the service). The most significant structural update of ITIL is the organization of the framework around two core components: the ITIL Service Value System (SVS) and the Four-Dimensional Model .
The new ITIL Service Value System describes the chain of activities required to convert a business opportunity or demand for a service into business value. The IT service lifecycle has been refined into a new operating model known as the ITIL Service Value Chain that acts as the core component of the SVS. These changes reflect the new ITIL 4 focus on “co-creating value”.
Service value system
Source: AXELOS, “ITIL Foundation, ITIL 4 Edition” (2019)
Source: AXELOS, “ITIL Foundation, ITIL 4 Edition” (2019)
The Four Dimensional Model is a new version of the 4P Model that was represented in ITIL V3, which included people, products, partners and processes. The four-dimensional model addresses:
- Organizations and people
- Information and technology products.
- Partners and suppliers
- Value streams and processes
IT organizations are encouraged to assess the impact, value, costs, and risks associated with each of the 4Ps on each component of the service value system.
Regarding the previous point of “management practices”: first, the 26 ITIL V3 processes have been replaced by ITIL 4 management practices. Some of the V3 processes have kept their ITIL V3 name, while others have changed their name and new processes have been added. There are now 34 management practices in total, divided into categories of general management, service management, and technical management.
In ” ITIL® Foundation, ITIL 4 Edition ,” a guide developed by AXELOS, these management practices are defined as: “A set of organizational resources designed to perform a job or achieve a goal.” So, more than the processes of yesteryear.
Take a look at a quick summary of management practices:
| General management practices | Service management practices | Technical management practices |
| Architecture management | Availability management | Deployment management |
| Continuous improvement | Business analysis | Infrastructure and platform management |
| Information security management | Capacity and performance management | Software development and management. |
| Administrative knowledge | Change of control | |
| Measurement and reporting | Incident management | |
| Organizational change management. | IT asset management | |
| Portfolio management | Monitoring and event management. | |
| Projects management | Problem management | |
| Relationship management | Release management | |
| Risk management | Catalog management service | |
| Financial management service | Configuration management service | |
| Strategy management | Continuity management service | |
| Supply Management | The design of the service | |
| Workforce and talent management | Table service | |
| Level management service | ||
| Service request management | ||
| Validation and testing service |
Source: AXELOS, “ITIL Foundation, ITIL 4 Edition” (2019)
ITIL 4 Guiding Principles
A common criticism of the ITIL V3 framework was that it lacked a set of general principles to inform the design and execution of ITSM processes. ITIL V3 was sometimes considered too prescriptive a standard because it told IT organizations which processes to implement and when , but often failed to explain why or how a process should be managed in a specific way.
To address this issue, the ITIL 4 framework includes a set of seven guiding principles that ITIL professionals can follow as they seek to drive value creation for their IT organizations. These guiding principles can play an important role in guiding IT decision-making and helping IT managers develop their own strategies and conclusions in cases where the ITIL framework does not provide explicit guidance. We describe each of the seven new guiding principles of ITIL 4 below.
- Focus on Value– ITIL’s first guiding principle reminds professionals that their focus should always be on delivering value to the business, either directly or indirectly, through effective management of IT services.
- Start where you are– ITIL’s second guiding principle reminds organizations not to discard their existing systems when adopting the ITIL 4 framework. Instead, organizations are encouraged to preserve capabilities that meet their needs, enhance them where necessary, and develop new ones when necessary.
- Progress iteratively with feedback– Big changes, even big improvements, can often lead to big problems that are difficult to measure or solve. ITIL 4 professionals are encouraged to iteratively improve their processes, collecting feedback and measuring success along the way to avoid setbacks. Change takes time. Slow and steady gains and changes must be measured for success before the organization develops them further.
- Collaborate and Promote Visibility– ITIL 4 professionals are encouraged to promote transparency and visibility of IT operations among team members, stakeholders and partners. The increased visibility promotes communication and collaboration between departments, enables project and process owners to gather valuable feedback and insights from across the organization, and helps eliminate redundancies and information or knowledge silos.
- Think and work holistically– ITIL 4’s fifth guiding principle encourages professionals to take responsibility for how their work fits into the overall service value system. There is no task in a vacuum and every action, thread, or process must be carried out in order to minimize risk and cost while offering the most value for the business.
- Keep it simple and practical– Simplicity and practicality are antithetical to the view some practitioners have of ITIL as a prescriptive and inflexible framework. ITIL 4 addresses this criticism by directing its professionals to simplify and adjust the use of processes, tools and resources to meet the needs of the organization. As a side note, ITIL V3 “processes” are called “practices” in ITIL 4, a change that reflects its recently emphasized flexibility for the needs of IT organizations.
- Optimize and automate– ITIL’s final guiding principle encourages professionals to automate and optimize processes whenever possible. Manual processes are easily forgotten or overlooked, prone to errors by nature, and tedious and time consuming. IT organizations must automate everything they can, reserving human intervention for processes where it is really needed.
The importance of the service value system
The ITIL 4 service value system represents a fundamental shift in emphasis away from managing IT services and towards creating business value by the IT organization and its partners. The service value system describes the five key components of value creation and the relationships that exist between them, while providing a new context for the IT service lifecycle, now called the service value chain.
The service value chain is the core element of the service value system and consists of six basic activities that span the life cycle of IT services:
- To plan
- To get better
- They involve
- Design and transition.
- Get / build
- Deliver and support
These activities are somewhat analogous to the IT service life cycle that was the main organizational feature of ITIL V3. The old “Service Strategy” stage is reflected in three separate components of the new model: plan, improve and participate. The old “Service Design” and “Service Transition” stages have been combined, with elements of both incorporated into the new get / build lifecycle step. The concept of “Continuous Service Improvement” has been dropped from the ITIL 4 service value chain and has been repositioned as a component of the overall SVS.
These changes reflect an increasingly value-based service strategy that places more emphasis on service planning, collecting feedback, and understanding user needs, and less emphasis on the actual design and implementation of services.
The SVS consists of four additional components beyond the reimagined service value chain. We’ve already covered the seven guiding principles, but let’s briefly look at the other three: governance , practices, continuous improvement :
- Governanceis the means by which an organization is directed and controlled. Corporate governance plays a role in the service value system by directing, controlling and monitoring the provision of services. Effective corporate governance drives the IT organization to maximize value creation, minimizing costs, and mitigating risks whenever possible.
- Practices, within the framework of ITIL 4, have superseded the “processes” described in ITIL V3. While a process could be described as a series of activities performed sequentially to achieve the desired result, practices are simply organizational resources that can help achieve a goal. ITIL 4 practices play a role in supporting the service value chain, but should only be implemented where it is practical to do so from a value-oriented perspective.
- Continuous improvement is a recurring theme throughout ITIL 4. It exists as a distinct component of the service value system, as one of 34 practices, and in the context of the “continuous improvement model”, which provides organizations with a structured approach and a methodology for planning, implementing and evaluating improvements.
Together, the five components of the SVS offer a blueprint for delivering value to the business through IT services. IT organizations, with the oversight of corporate governance and the vision of the seven guiding principles , execute on the six components of the service value chain while leveraging 34 practices and seeking continuous improvement of all delivery and service management activities. of value.
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