ITIL 2011 - What Happened?

ITIL Lifecycle Suite 2011 Edition

As you can see in an excellent ITIL History article on this blog, ITIL has come a long way from first publications in late 80's. In July 2011 ITIL V3 was updated to 2011 edition.
Now folks, let's get down to basics. I will slowly go through changes and events and talk a little bit about every ITIL Lifecycle stage and what happened where. I am talking about my following posts here, of course. Those who know me understand the emphasis on SLOWLY here :)

So, we received a package of books which are 57% heavier (2,5kg increase) and have 46% more pages (+600) comparing to "old" 2007 V3 edition. Apparently, this increase was mostly due to thorough Service Strategy book rewrite, and of course a larger font used.

Service Strategy was the most vague and least accepted in larger ITSM community, so it really needed some serious rewriting. Other books were also improved to some point, a few new processes introduced, obvious ambiguities and errors removed (some new created), so the whole package looks more polished and admissible by the critical members of the community.

Complete list of Frequently Asked Questions can be found on APMG's ITIL Official Site on this page http://www.itil-officialsite.com/Publications/ITILPublicationUpdates.aspx  .

Also, a very fine summary of 2011 updates can be found on the same page. Look for ITIL 2011 Summary of Updates .

People at ILX Group were so kind to update their popular ITIL Process Model available free for download here: http://www.ilxgroup.com/downloads/itil-2011-process-model.pdf

Con
Critics among us will keep the mantra that the whole thing is a bit out of date and clinging to it's 80's roots, not referring enough to modern concepts of Clouds, Agile and Virtualization.
Also, they say that the vastness of material is repelling, supporting the complex Qualification scheme http://www.itil-officialsite.com/Qualifications/ITILQualificationScheme.aspx in a self-serving purpose to make more money.

Pro
On the other side, attaching tighter to modern technologies brings the danger of quicker obsolescence. Polishing general concepts made ITIL go this far, so "descriptive not prescriptive" motto lives on.
2000 pages is a lot, but it is fair to give the authors credit of the intention to cover adequately all topics in an integral baseline set of books.
For executives, beginners and innocent passers-by, Compact/Digest editions will probably follow soon, like this fine pocket book: http://itservicemngmt.blogspot.com/2012/02/new-itil-foundation-handbook-released.html

Anyway, most reviewers are happy with the overall 2011 update. Are you?

As I said, I intend to go through all five lifecycles in the following articles. Stay tuned.