itSMFI 2016 Forum Focus - September Forum Focus ITSMFI Sept 2016 | Page 8
evaluation, and knowledge management.”
Service Operation – “A stage in the lifecycle of
a service. Service operation coordinates and
ITIL was originally just a set of books. But it didn’t take
long for an ITIL ecosystem that involved consultancy,
software, training, examinations, and membership-based
ITSM organizations to appear. With such a vibrant
ecosystem, ITIL was quickly adopted (and not just in the
public sector) in Europe in the 1990s and spread
worldwide in the 2000s.
It’s also worth noting that multiple versions of ITIL have
developed over time:
carries out the activities and processes required to
deliver and manage services at agreed levels to
business users and customers. Service operation
also manages the technology that is used to
deliver and support services. Service operation
includes the following processes: event manage-
ment, incident management, request fulfillment,
problem management, and access management.”
Continual Service Improvement – defined by
ITIL as “A stage in the lifecycle of a service.
Continual service improvement ensures that
services are aligned with changing business needs by
identifying and implementing improvements to IT
services that support business processes.”
All of these definitions are from the ITIL 2011 Glossary of
Terms – a useful ITSM and ITIL resource, which is
available in a number of different languages.
These five ITIL books map the entire IT service
lifecycle, from the identification of customer needs and
the drivers for IT requirements, through to the design
and implementation of the necessary IT service or
services, to the monitoring and improvement of the IT
services.
In many ways, ITIL can ultimately be considered
“documented common sense” for ITSM, and the effective
management of IT, IT services, and IT service
delivery.
The Origins of ITIL
ITIL was introduced on the back of the UK government’s
disillusionment with the way that governmental IT was
delivered in the latter half of the 1980s. The Central
Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA), now
called the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), was
tasked with developing a framework for the efficient, and
financially-responsible, use of IT resources.
8 itSMFI Forum Focus—September 2016
2001 saw ITIL v2 emerge and the popularity of ITIL
exams surge
2007 delivered the much larger ITIL v3
2011 brought ITIL 2011, a “refresh” of ITIL v3
Amazingly, over 2 million people worldwide now have ITIL
qualifications.
Differentiating Between ITSM and ITIL
It’s not unusual for people new to ITSM and ITIL to
confuse the two words, especially when those who are not
new (to ITSM and ITIL) might use the two acronyms
interchangeably.
An easy way to differentiate between the two is to think
about horses versus animals per se, i.e. a horse is an animal,
but not all animals are horses.
So ITIL is a view on how to do ITSM, but not all ITSM is
ITIL.
For example, an organization might be happily using ITSM
to its advantage, but without the use of ITIL, for instance
where:
No formal framework or methodology is used
BiSL – the Business Information Services Library, a
framework used f or information management – is
used
COBIT – ISACA’s (an independent, nonprofit, global
association engaged in the development, adoption
and use of globally accepted, industry-leading
knowledge and practices for information systems)
framework for the governance and management of
enterprise IT – is used
ISO/IEC 20000 – a service management system
standard from the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) – is used
MOF – the Microsoft Operations Framework – is
used
Six Sigma – a quality methodology, with tools and
techniques for process improvement – is used
TOGAF – an enterprise architecture methodology
and framework – is used
USMBOK – a series of publications and references
for professionals working in service provider
organizations – is used