The ITIL Framework and It’s Processes
You’ve got ITIL® questions. We’ve got ITIL answers.
Recently, a group of learners, due to complete their engineering degrees in computer science caught up with John Dell, one of our expert ITSM trainers and authors, seeking advice on careers in ITSM. This blog is an account of the conversation which will serve ITIL aspirants well.
The learners opined that they were not very keen on programming and would like to explore what other options exist in the IT sector. They were about to graduate and were not sure there is much opportunity outside programming in IT.
John clarified that firstly, the IT sector does not revolve only around software development. The IT industry is vast and presents plenty of opportunity. He suggested they start by carrying out a quick SWOT analysis for themselves.
Majority of the learners cited that communication, good analytical and testing skills and leadership skills were their strengths;incidentally, coding and design were not particularly strengths for this group. The group recognized that IT support and the IT service industry would open up several opportunities, while programming and core software development were not areas that appealed to them.
Based on this basic SWOT analysis, John suggested that the students considerjobs related to Service management. Jumping into whatITIL is all about and how it couldpropeltheir career.
IT Management mainly involves Software Development & Management, IT Infrastructure Management, and IT Service Management. The ITILFramework refers to set of best practices, guidelines, methodologies designed by industry experts to align their IT Services with customer and business strategic goals. So, this framework provides uniform and consistent guidelines to all IT industries to define their IT Service Management processes.
When asked whether each IT companycan come up with their own framework and design for IT service management, John answered that they actually can. He further elaborated with an illustration –
Company A provides support to Company X and Company B provides support to Company Y. Here, A and B are Service providers and X and Y are service consumers. They have not adhered to any service management framework. Both service providers, A and B, have unknowingly made many mistakes and faced lots of challenges in providing support to their consumers, X and Y. After a couple of years, once the project is completed, A and B have not exchanged notes, nor learnt from each other’s mistakes. Six months down the line, B commits the samemistakes that A earlier had and vice versa. In such a scenario, would service consumers X and Y ever come back to A and B again? Not likely. When mistakes repeat,service consumersor customers will not be happy and may not return to with the project again.
To avoid such a scenario, what such companies could do is to connect with each other and sharelessons. Such an initiative would avoid many bottlenecks and arrest many recurring challenges.
John explained that companies, understanding the importance of consistent process, have embraced lessons from the industry and continually improvise their processes for better customer experience.
While it may not be feasible to connect with every other company and collect their lessons and best practices in real time, not with standing that companies may or may not share that information, there is a need for a common forum or entityto collect best practices and lessons across the IT industry and formulate aframework. Such a framework formulated for the IT Service industry is called the ITIL framework.
ITIL stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library. When asked why it was referred to as a ‘Library’, John explained that it is a set of practices for Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) that focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of the business.
As it is a set of practices best practices and lessons from the service industry, it is referred to as a “library”.
Johnwent on to explain that there were plenty of reasons for the ITIL framework:
John addressed the question with a use case: Company A is the Service Provider and Company X is the Service consumer. Company A and Company X are in legal contractual agreement. Company A agrees to provide N services to Company X for the next 2 years. One of the agreed services is to resolve all High priority incidents within 4 hours. After a year of experience, Company A (Service Provider) becomes very good knowledge in resolving incidents within 2 hours and this has been verified as well.
Now, Company A (Service Provider) submits a proposal to Company X (Service Consumer) to improvise the High priority incident resolution time by 2 hours instead 4 hours. The contractual document is amended. Company X (Service consumer) agrees to pay an additional amount for the improvisation of service to Company A (Service Provider). This is a good example of continual improvement. Continual improvement results in improvising service will always increase the customer satisfaction index, says John.
In the year 1989, the UK Government’s Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) developed the first version of ITIL to unite IT systems in an efficient and cost-effective way. Collecting best practices from all government agencies and private sector companies across Europe, the CCTA came up with an initial standard framework.
History of ITIL
ITIL soon grew to a 30-volume catalogue, providing a collection of all IT best practices that focused on and catered for client and business needs.
In the year 2000, CCTA change into OGC (Office of Government Commerce, UK). The same year, Microsoft also adopted ITIL as the foundation for developing their Microsoft operations and framework (MOF). This version was focused on making ITIL more accessible and arranged the 30-volume framework into nine related categories.
In the year 2007, ITIL was expanded and reorganized as an IT service management lifecycle, known as ITIL Version 3 (ITIL V3). Thisversion covers the initial conception, development, transition, operations, and improvement of a service. ITIL V3 views the activity of managing service as a lifecycle, which is a shift in focus from the individualized process/function view of the previous version.The service lifecycle concept has further evolved since.
In the year 2011, AXELOS released a revision of ITIL that resolved errors and inconsistencies with V3. This is the updated version of the 2007, referred to as ITILv3 updated. In this version,the ITIL service lifecycle contains 5 stages:
This forms the basis for all ITIL best practices across the globe. Since 2013, ITIL has been owned by AXELOS Ltd – a joint venture between Capita Plc and the British Government’s Cabinet Office.
In the year 2019, due to the Industry 4.0 revolution, the current version of ITIL was launched. V4 has more practical guidance on how to use ITIL in an organization which embraces digital journey. This makes it easier for organizations to align ITIL with DevOps, Agile, and Lean work methods. With V4, ITIL adopted more of a holistic philosophy towards service management, making it broader and more inclusive for the modern IT environment.
Having developed a good understanding of the evolution of ITIL, the students learnt about how the best practices which originated from a few European companieswere continuously improvised and revised tonow become a global acceptable Service management framework across the globe.
The students now wanted to go deeper and asked how ITIL could help the organization to achieve its strategic goals. John explained that following ITIL practices helps organization achieve their strategic goals by:
By now, the students were very keen and eager to know about the different lifecycle stages defined in ITIL V3 and its purpose.
John went on to explain that ITIL has five stages. The following table helps explain each stage and its purpose:
John went on to explain that the outcomes of the Continual Service Improvement become the inputs for Service Strategy. Identified improvements will help to revise the strategic goals and targets.
Explaining what was meant by Key Performance Indicator, John defined it as a quantifiable measurement for measuring any strategic goal. This is generally agreed between Service consumer and Service Customer in the legal contract, he added.
Digging deeper into the difference between ITILv3 and ITIL4, John explained that ITIL4 was the latest version. The two may need to be prioritized depending on the case, he pointed out.
Explaining the available certifications in ITIL, John elaborated using the following table to help the students to understand the different certifications under ITIL. (Source: Axelos).
Concluding, John summarized that to get started all one needs to do is to talk to professionals to understand how the work they do contributes to creating value for customers. If everybody thinks about what they do in these terms, then the next step will be much easier. The IT world we live in is becoming more and more service based by the day and there is great opportunity. Industry leaders have seen ITIL in action and have bought into it. Most major global corporations run their services on ITIL®, and such IT professionals are in great demand.
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