1.0ITIL® - INTRODUCTION TO SERVICE MANAGEMENT

ITIL is an acronym for ‘Information Technology Infrastructure Library’. It consists of a library of reference books outlining best practice guidelines for IT Service Management.

IT Infrastructure is defined as all of the hardware, software, networks, facilities, and so on, that are required to develop, test, deliver, monitor, control or support IT services.

IT Infrastructure does not include the associated people, processes and documentation.

ITIL OBJECTIVES• Focuses on descriptive guidance on IT Service Management that is easily adapted.• Emphasizes on Quality Management Approach and Standards.• ITIL guidance recognizes this dependency and suggests that IT should be delivered to the

organization in the form of ‘Services’.

ITIL GOALS• Consistence, comprehensive and hygienic set of Best Practices guidance.• Platform independent processes.• Common language and standardized vocabulary. • Flexible framework that is adaptable to different IT environments.

WHAT IS SERVICE MANAGEMENT? The IT infrastructure sits at the heart of most organizations, consequently, and more importantly, the organization relies on IT to support almost all of its day-to-day business operations. ITIL guidance recognizes this dependency and suggests that IT should be delivered to the organization in the form of ‘services’.

WHAT ARE SERVICES? ITIL defines Service Management as ‘a set of specialized, organizational capabilities, providing value to customers in the form of services’.

There are four key words in services, namely:1. Organization,2. Capability,3. Value, and4. Customers.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF ITIL The need for reliable IT Services in UK Government Departments triggered the CCTA (Central Computers & Telecommunications Agency), now known as the OGC (Office of Government Commerce) to sponsor

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the ITIL development project. The outcome was the IT Infrastructure Library. The first library included 34 books which were published between 1992 and 1998.

The books contained comprehensive guidance on how ITIL concepts, processes and products could help organizations to manage their IT Services and the supporting IT infrastructure.

By the late 1990’s many large organizations and government agencies throughout the world used ITIL best practice guidelines for IT Service Management.

ITIL v2 was published in 2000 and became the world’s leading Service Management reference source. There is now a global community of users sharing the principles and concepts embedded in the framework.

ITIL TODAY So the ITIL v3 project began in 2004, and involved extensive world-wide consultations with hundreds of IT Service Management practitioners from the public and private sectors, including vendors, qualification bodies, exam institutes and education providers. May 2007 saw the launch of ITIL v3, confirming ITIL’s place as the world’s most credible framework for IT Service Management. Importantly ITIL is now supported by the international ISO/IEC20000 standard.

Since its inception, ITIL has expanded from a library of books into a whole industry, with many organizations offering related products including training, consultancy and management tools.

In September 2009 OGC announced its intention to update ITIL once more. The quality criteria required the updates to be written in plain English and be free from inconsistencies across all five titles, and therefore beneficial to the end user and the training community.

The ITIL updates were released in July 2011. At the same time the APM Group announced to the world that the Intellectual Property rights for the ITIL framework would move to the UK Government’s Cabinet Office.

ITIL COURSE OVERVIEW• This course has been designed to provide you with an overview of ITIL based IT Service

Management. • This course is based on ITIL ‘Best Practices’ as described in the ITIL Service Management

publications. The course highlights how plans, processes, functions, roles, responsibilities and knowledge management all work together to help organizations to plan, design, transition, operate and improve the IT services that will deliver agreed benefits.

• In addition, the course provides the ideal background knowledge for anyone intending to operate in an ITIL based Service Management environment.

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ITIL QUALIFICATION SCHEME

INTERMEDIATE LIFECYCLE MODULES• Service Strategy• Service Design• Service Transition• Service Operation• Continual Service Improvement

INTERMEDIATE CAPABILITY MODULES• Operational Support & Analysis• Planning, Production & Optimization• Release, Control & Validation• Service Offerings & Agreements

COMPETENCE AND SKILLS FRAMEWORK• Standardizing job titles, functions, roles and responsibilities can simplify service management

and human resource management. • Many service providers use a common framework of reference for competence and skills to

support activities such as audits, planning future skill requirements, organizational development programs and resource allocation.

• The Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) is an example of a common reference model for the identification of the skills needed to develop effective IT services, information systems and technology.

• SFIA defines seven generic levels at which tasks can be performed, with the associated professional skills required for each level.

• Second dimension core competencies that can be combined with the professional skills. • SFIA is used by many IT service providers to identify career development opportunities.

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COMPLIMENTARY STANDARDS Service Management is also supported by several internationally recognized standards, including:

ISO/IEC20000 - This standard covers any enterprise offering IT services to internal or to external customers. It is often a mandatory requirement in any outsourcing tender.

ISO/IEC27001 - Specifies the requirements for establishing, and maintaining a documented Information Security Management System within the context of the organization's overall business risks.

ISO 9001:2008 – It is one of the standards in the ISO 9000 family. It requires the accredited organizations to define, follow, monitor, record and improve the procedures that cover all their key business processes.

BS25999 - Assists in implementing business continuity management. ISO/IEC19770 – This is the Software Asset Management processes standard.

These approaches to quality are in wide use and support the ITIL® approach to Continual Service Improvement.

This list is not definitive, however by using the standards combined with the skills, knowledge and understanding that you and your organization already have, provides you with the framework for best practice operations and effective Service Management.

ITIL EXAMINATION BODIES ITIL is a recognized global IT industry ‘best practice’. ITIL provides common processes, language and terminology that can be used by IT Service Management professionals anywhere.

In 2006, the UK government’s Office of Government Commerce appointed the APMG as the accrediting body for ITIL. The APMG accredit the ITIL examination bodies, and authorized training organizations.

ITIL qualifications are recognized by organizations worldwide, and have become a prerequisite for appointments in many of the world’s blue chip companies.

The ITIL qualifications and examinations are administered in the UK by ISEB, which form part of the British Computer Society, and the APMG. Other examination institutes include EXIN, Loyalist College, CERT-IT and PEOPLECERT Group.

WHY IS BEST PRACTICE NEEDED? Many organizations operate in a rapidly changing environment. As such they recognize the need to learn, adapt and improve. Whilst it is always possible to improve, there are always trade-offs. For example, to halve the pizza delivery service time from 30 minutes to 15 minutes might require less pizza choice and a much higher charge.

The same principle applies to an IT service. For example, a faster response time to a customer enquiry requires higher performance technologies to support it. Ultimately, someone has to pay for that technology. If the customer demands the performance improvement then the customer must pay for it. Whether you decide to improve or not to improve, may depend on how you compare with other organizations operating in similar conditions.

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To compare one organization against another may involve benchmarking. Benchmarking helps to identify the strengths and weaknesses in one organization’s products, services, processes or other areas and compares them against another similar organization.

The reason why ITIL is so successful is that it is vendor neutral, it is non-prescriptive, and it is scalable. It is also based on the ‘adopt and adapt’ approach which means it can be made to suit your organizational needs.

BENCHMARKING One simple way to benchmark is to compare your approach to delivering and supporting to IT services with the approach used by other similar organizations.

Their approaches (and yours) may be documented in case studies and ‘Best Practice‘ guidance. Best practices are accepted ways of doing things successfully. Because they are successful they are copied, improved and adapted.

ITIL is documented best practice. You can adopt it, you can adapt it or you can say we are perfectly happy as we are.

You can do this because you will know what you do well and what could be done better.

COMPLEMENTARY BEST PRACTICES There are many other frameworks and methods that complement the ITIL library.

COBIT or Control Objectives for IT Whilst ITIL describes, ‘what to do and the processes required to do it‘ the complimentary COBIT concentrates on the governance frameworks that help define ’how to do it‘. Combine ITIL with COBIT and you should have the ideal governance framework.

CMMI or the Capability Maturity ModelCMMI assists in the delivery or acquisition of products and services. Many organizations who wish to outsource their IT services require the supplier to be audited to level 5. This is the ultimate optimizing level, where the focus is very much on process improvement.

Six SigmaIncludes concepts which can be applied within problem management to help identify and remove the causes of defects.

This list is by no means definitive and you may want to research others include EFQM and Deming (Plan, Do, Check and Act). Importantly in September 2009, OGC announced its intention that the next version of ITIL will become more aligned with PPRM guidance - in particular MSP, M_o_R, PRINCE2 and P3O, and good practice would also consider academic research, training and education and proprietary experience of staff. Practices built around how we deal with people or ‘cultural change’ may also exist.

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ITIL BEST PRACTICES PORTFOLIO

ITIL CORE FRAMEWORK

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