The Feb. 28 release of the ITIL Foundation ITIL 4 Edition book is proof positive that other service management frameworks have impressed the folks who brought the latest iteration of ITIL to fruition.
ITIL V4 proves to be significantly different than previous generations of ITIL and embraces many of the core values found in frameworks including Lean, Agile and DevOps. Ideologies such as embracing value, fostering collaboration and adopting what ITIL V4 specifies as a four-dimension model bring a holistic approach to service management. The four dimensions are classified as people, products, partners and processes.
Perhaps the biggest challenge in creating ITIL V4 was moving from traditional process-led delivery advocated in ITIL V3, to a best practices approach of focusing on co-creating value collaboratively between the organization and stakeholders. A change that potentially impacts ITSM, development, operations, business relationships and governance.
“We worked with 12 lead architects, 61 authors and reviewers and hundreds of practitioners from the wider IT industry,” said Mark Basham, CEO at AXELOS, the organization responsible for ITIL. “In addition, our ITIL Development Group has more than 2,000 members from all over the world. This huge collaboration has now produced a framework that will support practitioners and organizations, to meet the challenges that come with the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”
At first blush, ITIL V4 seems to reiterate what many other frameworks already espouse. However, ITIL V4 does bring some other ideologies into play.
“One big change with ITIL V4 is the focus on value, where value is more than just a desired outcome but also something that is co-created by all involved. That ideology fuels collaboration and breaks down silos. The shift to focus more on the customer experience demonstrates achieving value, establishing the value chain as a foundation,” said Nancy Van Elsacker Louisnord, President of TOPdesk USA, an Orlando, Florida-based developer of service management software. “ITIL V4 actively embraces some great concepts out of Agile and DevOps, exemplified by the guiding principle of progress iteratively with feedback. The ITIL4 service value chain looks very similar to what we see in DevOps and actively encourages an iterative approach.”
However, with ITIL V4 seeming to borrow from other ideologies, one may wonder how much value remains in the ITIL framework.
“Partners and suppliers have been added as a fourth dimension, next to organizations and people, processes and value streams, and information and technology. It is an addition that accounts for the reality of increased outsourcing, and the challenges that come with that,” said Van Elsacker Louisnord. “The dimensions play an important role in the 34 ITIL practices that have replaced ITIL V3’s 26 processes. While in essence they haven’t changed much, ITIL V4 takes those four dimensions into account in every practice, making practices much more practical than the processes of the past,”
While many questions still remain around ITIL V4, the writing is on the wall that Agile ideologies are becoming the norm, and DevOps-orientated development brings forth certain advantages. ITIL V4 must co-exist with other frameworks to bring value into best practices and adaptable frameworks. More importantly, ITIL V4 is being set up as a framework that can enhance other ideologies, while helping to preserve the investment that hundreds of thousands of IT professionals have made in ITIL.
