The purpose of ITIL 4 is to provide organizations with comprehensive guidance for the management of information technology in the modern service economy. The ITIL 4 framework is built on established ITSM practices and expands itself to the wider context of customer experience, value streams and digital transformation, as well as embracing new ways of working, such as Lean, Agile, and DevOps. It provides an end-to-end IT/digital operating model for the creation, delivery and continual improvement of tech- enabled products and services and how technology and IT teams play a crucial role in wider business strategy.
The ITIL 4 framework provides a practical and flexible basis to support organizations on their journey to the new world of digital transformation and to help them addressing new service management challenges. It is designed to ensure a flexible, coordinated and integrated system for the effective governance and management of IT-enabled services.
What is new
Holistic approach
ITIL 4 emphasizes a holistic approach by defining dimensions of service management that are collectively critical to the effective and efficient facilitation of value for customers and other stakeholders in the form of products and services. They consider elements such as organizations and people, partners and suppliers, information & technology and value streams & processes, all of which are relevant not only to IT services, but to IT service management as well.
Value (co)creation
The updated framework will focus on facilitating the value co-creation through IT-enabled services and interactions between service providers and service consumers. In ITIL 4, customers are an essential element in the process of creating value.
ITIL practices
What is currently known and described in ITIL v3 as ITIL processes will be a fundamental part of ITIL 4 framework and will expand their architecture to also consider other elements such as roles, skills, people and resources. These will be referred as ITIL practices in ITIL 4.
The ITIL practices described in ITIL 4 will maintain the value and importance provided by the current ITIL processes, whilst at the same time expand to be integrated to different areas of service management and IT, from demand to value. The ITIL 4 framework will reinforce a flexible and non-siloed approach for the application of ITIL practices.
ITIL 4 will provide further practical guidance on how to implement those practices which will from a comprehensive and versatile toolset for practitioners.
Integration with other practices and new ways of working
ITIL 4 will reflect other frameworks and integrate with new ways of working including Agile, DevOps, Lean, IT governance and leadership. It will provide the flexibility needed to adopt and adapt what is relevant to each businesses and organizations while reinforcing the fundamentals for delivering IT service quality.
All of this sets ITIL and service management in a strategic context, bringing together ITSM, Development, Operations, business relationships and governance in a holistic approach. This is a truly integrated model for digital service management.
Guiding Principles
The ITIL guiding principles, firstly introduced in ITIL Practitioner, will be at the core of ITIL 4. They will evolve to keep providing guidance to organizations in their work as they adopt a service management approach across the organization and adapt ITIL guidance to their own specific needs and circumstances, including continual improvement at all levels.
And much more!
The ITIL 4 framework also includes governance activities that enable organizations to continually align their operations with the strategic direction set by the governing body.
ITIL 4 provides organizations with a simple and practical improvement model to maintain their resilience and agility in a constantly-changing environment.
