An Overview of ITIL: Framework & Best Practices

Overview

ITIL is the acronym for Information Technology Infrastructure Library, which is a framework that encompasses a set of best practices for delivering IT services. ITIL  framework provides a standardized approach to building and managing stable IT Infrastructure that offers lesser risks, higher efficiency, and scalability for growth.

As one of the most popular and widely accepted frameworks for IT service management today, organizations use the best practices laid down by ITIL to increase operational efficiency and IT service improvement. The nucleus of ITIL is structured around a Service Lifecycle that consists of the five phases mentioned below:

Categories in ITIL Framework

In a practical scenario, organizations use a systematic approach to select, plan, support, and deliver IT services. However, it is easier said than done since it is a herculean task for an organization to align itself with business. In the real world, it is not simple to offer quality service to customers amongst constraints such as unplanned change management, less proactive helpdesks, and less comprehensive SLAs that lack clarity.

The ITIL framework is divided into five broad stages or categories:

1. Guiding principles
2. Governance
3. Service value chain
4. Continual improvement
5. Practices

Guiding Principles

Guiding principles form the strategy laid down for the management of IT infrastructure for secure collaboration and increased business value.

• Focus on value: Question the current strategy and evaluate the business value. All plans within the strategy should add value to achieve the business objective.
• Start where you are: Assess the existing process, identify areas of improvement, and seek to enhance it.
• Progress iteratively with feedback: Focus on small improvement steps and evaluate progress. Select manageable and measurable changes. Once these are embedded into the ITIL framework, move forward to the next iteration.
• Collaborate and promote visibility: Understand end-users and work with them to plan improvements, then review failures and successes together.
• Think and work holistically: The organization does not limit thoughts to hardware or software but focuses on the latest technology to reduce dependencies.
• Keep it simple and practical: Focus only on required processes as many things change.
• Optimize and automate: Emphasize on optimizing processes first and then automating to improve inefficiencies.

Governance

Governance is a critical part and more like a Framework to align our organization with the activities. It also allows control and ensures that all activities comply with the guiding principles of ITIL framework to achieve the final goal.

Service Value Chain (SVS)

The SVS is a set of interconnected activities required to realize the value and deliver results to the end-users. There are six main activities within the service value chain:

1. Plan: Involves creating a layout along with the policies to define the approach needed to achieve the organization objective.

2. Improve: Devise strategies that target to improve the practices, services, and products continually.

3. Engage: This activity will facilitate the engagement with collaborators to obtain their precise requirements and pain points.

4. Design and transition: Create new services and enhance existing services.

5. Obtain/build: Obtain customer specifications and create service modules to meet their requirements.

6. Deliver and support: Push out the services that the relevant stakeholders are using to meet their specifications.

Continual Improvement

Implement a continuous improvement process across the entire service lifecycle. ITIL 4 offers a Continual Improvement model, applied to all facets of products and services alike. However, organizations use alternative improvement approaches like Lean and Six Sigma as well.

• Organizations and people: Define and assess the systems and culture, roles, and skills to deliver the services.
• Information and technology: To deliver services, organizations select the available hi-tech and data at their disposal.
• Partners and suppliers: Forge strong relationships with stakeholders including third parties for service delivery.
• Value streams and processes: Define all the processes, workflows, and activities that add value to the service. Thirty four practices are divided into three management areas (the practices may be referred to in ITIL documentation).
  • General Management: 14 practices
  • Service Management: 17 practices
  • Technical management: 3 practices

To extract maximum benefit from ITIL, an organization need not employ all the practices. The trick to success is to use the ones that add value and align to strategic objectives.

For example, many organizations have tried to use virtualization and network transformation that needs ITIL framework, but lack of expertise has resulted in overkill at an extensive cost.