IT Service Management Based on ITIL® 2011 Edition

Pierre Bernard

• Publisher: Van Haren Publishing
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9789401805575
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Architecture General

For trainers free additional material of this book is available. This can be found under the "Training Material" tab. Log in with your trainer account to access the material. In the world of international IT Service Management the previous editions of this book have acquired an excellent reputation as guidance on the topic of ITIL. Over the years this authoritative guide has earned its place on the bookshelves and in the briefcases of industry experts as they implement best practices within their organizations. This revised edition is based on ITIL 2011 Edition. It is written in the same concise way as the previous editions and covering all the facts. Readers will find that this title succinctly covers the key aspects of ITIL 2011 Edition. It is endorsed by AXELOS, the official ITIL Accreditor. The ITIL Lifecycle is fully covered. In addition there is much attention to the 26 IT Service Management processes and 4 Functions. These are described in detail. This means that it is easy for all readers to access and grasp the concepts of processes and functions that are so pivotal to many service management day-to-day operations. This title covers the following: • Introduction to the Service Lifecycle • Lifecycle phase: Service Strategy • Lifecycle phase: Service Design • Lifecycle phase: Service Transition • Lifecycle phase: Service Operation • Lifecycle phase: Continual Service Improvement New, compared with the previous edition on ITIL V3, are the processes for Strategy Management and Business Relationship Management. Also the other new and revised concepts of ITIL are covered in this book. 'Well written and presented, this publication provides a useful addition to the core ITIL publications for anyone wanting to understand IT service management.' Kevin Holland, Service Management Specialist, NHS 'Pierre has produced an extremely useful summary of the current version of ITIL. This will be an invaluable day to day reference for all practitioners.' Claire Agutter, ITIL Training Zone

■ 1.1 BACKGROUND

Since the year 2000, technological developments such as smartphones, tablets, cloud services, near-field-content, Wi-Fi, and especially social media have had a tremendous effect on the world we live in. With the emergence of extremely powerful hardware, highly versatile software and super-fast networks – and their wide-spread acceptance and use – organizations worldwide have been able to develop their information-dependent products and services to a greater extent, and to bring them to the market much faster. These, as well as many other socio-economic and political developments have marked the superimposition of the information age upon the industrial age. In this “information age”, where everything is connected, the dissemination of data and information has become faster and more dynamic as well as a worldwide phenomenon.

Quoting from one of Bob Dylan’s¹ songs titled “The Times They Are A-Changin” is quite appropriate here as indeed the traditional view and role of the Information Technology organization (IT) are dramatically altered based on the above. To be successful, organizations will need to be as nimble as possible in order to react to rapidly changing market demands and technologies. First, there is a movement concerning renaming IT to Information Services (IS). Second, cloud computing is becoming a more viable option and a more common solution. This is a result of organizations realizing that technology is not always one of their core competences and that outsourcing provides them with a more accurate and predictable cost structure.

Organizations should also start considering the significant impact of the arrival in the workplace of extremely technology-savvy employees. These new employees have been using technology almost since birth; they are not only the early adopters of mobile technologies but of social media as well. Information is now at their fingertips and they will expect the same in the workplace. In addition to this new generation of employees, organizations need to consider how they will handle the same demands from their existing and potential customers.

There are numerous books, whitepapers, and articles² about the need to break down vertical business silos and shift the business model to more horizontal processes, thus “flattening” the organization. The authors of these documents are advocating that decision-making powers should be increasingly bestowed on the employees. Again, according to these various sources, an important advantage of process-oriented organizations is that processes can be designed to support a customer-oriented approach. This has made the alignment between the IT organization (responsible for supplying information) and the customer (responsible for using these information systems in their business) increasingly significant. This is usually known as Business-IT Alignment (BITA).

It is against this background that the world of IT Service Management (ITSM) has arisen and gained in popularity.

The above authors are not wrong, nor are they lacking vision; on the contrary. As organizations gained more experience with the process-oriented approach of ITSM, it became clear that these processes must be managed coherently. Moreover, it became obvious that the introduction of a process-oriented work method meant a major change for organizations that were primarily line and project-oriented. Culture and change management are crucial elements for a successful organizational design. Change management here refers to business change, as well as changes in attitudes, aptitudes, behaviors, the adoption of frameworks and methodologies adapted to suit the organizational needs.

The truth about processes and BITA is that organizations have always used processes and IT has always been part of the organization. However, we must acknowledge that processes are often conducted in isolation by a few individuals or groups. Processes are often neither shared nor documented. One of the causes for the above is that many people believe that “knowledge is power”³, as illustrated in the following two quotes:

Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.

- Kofi Annan

Knowledge is power. Information is power. The secreting or hoarding of knowledge or information may be an act of tyranny camouflaged as humility.

- Robin Morgan

In the author’s opinion, “knowledge sharing is power”.

Another important lesson learned was that the IT organization must not lose itself in a process culture. Just like the one-sided project-oriented organization, a one-sided process-oriented organization was not the optimum type of business. Balance was, as always, the magic word. In addition, it became clear that the customer-oriented approach required that an end-to-end and user-centric approach must be followed: it was of no help to the user to know that “the server was still in operation” if the information system was not available at the user’s workplace. IT services must be viewed in a larger context. The need for the recognition of the Service Lifecycle, and the management of IT services in light of that lifecycle, became a concern.

Due to the fast growing dependency of business upon information, the quality of information services in companies is being increasingly subjected to stricter internal and external requirements. The role of standards is becoming more and more important, and frameworks of “best practices” help with the development of a management system to meet these requirements. Organizations that are not in control of their processes will not be able to realize great results on the level of the Service Lifecycle and the end-to-end-management of those services. Organizations that do not have their internal organization in order will also not achieve great results. For these reasons, all these aspects are handled alongside each other in the course of this book.

■ 1.2 WHY THIS BOOK

This book has been developed for all those responsible for setting up and delivering the information services. Additionally, it contains a lot of useful information for those who are responsible for strategic information issues. This is supported by both the description of the Service Lifecycle, as documented in ITIL and by the description of the processes that are associated with it. The ITIL core books are very extensive: almost 2000 pages. These ITIL core books can be used for a thorough study of contemporary best practices of ITSM. This book provides the reader with an easy-to-read comprehensive introduction to the broad library of ITIL core books. And finally, the contents of this book cover the specifications for the ITIL Foundation exam from AXELOS; this book has proven useful in preparing for this exam.

In 2007 Version 3 of the ITIL framework was published. This version offered a new concept or ITSM. Additional to the processes approach the concept of the lifecycle approach was introduced with ITIL V3. In 2011 a second edition of ITIL V3 was published. This new ITIL 2011 Edition is comprised mostly of cosmetic, grammatical, and syntactic modifications.

ITIL offers a systematic approach to the delivery of quality of IT services. It provides a detailed description of most of the important processes for an IT organization, and includes information about procedures, tasks, roles, and responsibilities. These can be used as a basis for tailoring the framework to the needs of individual organizations.

Over the years, ITIL has become much more than a series of useful books about ITSM. The framework for the “best practice” in ITSM is promoted and further developed and influenced by advisors, educators, trainers, and suppliers. These suppliers include a w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Colophon
• Contents
• Foreword
• 1 Introduction
• Part 1 The ITIL Service Lifecycle
• Part 2 Processes in the Lifecycle Phases
• Annex A References
• Annex B Differences between ITIL V3 and ITIL 2011 Edition
• ITIL Glossary
• Index