ISO/IEC 20000 and ITIL Timeline/History

“History is a set of lies agreed upon.” - Napoleon Bonaparte
“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” - Winston Churchill
"We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.” - George Bernard Shaw

After ITIL history and ISO/IEC 20000 history posts, this blog has received quite a few requests to create a parallel timeline for the two. We have finally made some time for it and the result is this fancy poster. It is nice to notice the interest of younger IT people for the historical evolution of ITIL and ISO 20k.


ISO 20000 and ITIL History

We did our best to collect and consolidate the timeline details from various relevant sources. I will be glad to correct it if someone from the audience notices any inconsistencies or new important events.

Since this one looks OK, I made it available as a PDF poster.

ISO/IEC 20000 - A Brief History

From DISC PD 005 over BSI 15000 to ISO/IEC 20000. Specifications, requirements, Code of practice.

History is a myth that men agree to believe.
Napoleon

ISO/IEC 20000 Timeline

I have been looking around for some brief document with ISO/IEC 20000 history, and I could not find anything useful.

Here are a few major points I have collected from various sources in ISO/IEC 20000 history.

1995: British Standard Institution (BSI) published the first version of DISC PD 0005:1995 - Code of Practice for IT Service Management. It described only four basic ITSM processes.

1998: BSI publishes a revised version of DISC PD 0005:1998 and it already described all five process areas and 13 processes as we know it today.

2000: Published BS 15000:2000 - Specification for IT Service Management which was used together with the code of practice DISC PD 0005.
Also in 2000, the third supplementary document entitled DISC PD 0015:2000 IT Service Management Self-Assessment Workbook was published.  It was a questionnaire that enabled anyone to make an assessment of its compliance degree with BS 15000.
Some serious revisions and rewriting followed, resulting in standard documents very similar to today's norm:

2002: BS 15000-1:2002 IT service management - Specification for Service Management;
PD 0015:2002 - Self-Assessment Workbook

2003: BS 15000-2:2003 IT service management - Code of Practice for Service Management
The same year a new PD 0005:2003 Guide to Management of IT Service Management was published with explanations of the purpose of BS 15000, and also the framework guidance on how to use the standard processes and implement them.
BSI 15000 was adopted by many service companies in UK, and countries worldwide accepted it.

2005: BS-15000 was placed on the “fast track” by the ISO. By the end of the year, with some moderate changes, it was published as ISO/IEC 20000 standard:

• ISO/IEC 20000-1:2005 Specification  is very formal, it defines processes and provides assessment/ audit criteria.
• ISO/IEC 20000-2:2005 Code of Practice that gives HOW-TOs and describes best practices for implementation of Part 1.

Standard was unchanged for four years. Adoption was a bit slower due to somewhat lower ISO maturity level of the standard. The norm requirements were very demanding, and supplemental documentation was scarce and sometimes ambiguous. There was a need for some additional documentation:

2009: ISO/IEC TR 20000-3:2009 Guidance on scope definition and applicability  was published. It provided guidance on scope , applicability and of conformance for service providers

2010:

• ISO/IEC TR 20000-4:2010 Process reference model - describes  the service management system processes implied by ISO/IEC 20000-1 at an abstract level.
• ISO/IEC TR 20000-5:2010 Exemplar implementation plan for ISO/IEC 20000 -1 - provided guidance  to implementation of ISO/IEC 20000 by example and advice.

2011. April:  ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011 - new version of specification is out.

2012. February: ISO/IEC 20000-2:2012 - new Guidance on the application of service management systems published.

If someone has an update or a correction to this, I will be very glad to update the post. Thank you.

Related posts:

ISO/IEC 20000 Essentials
A few more words on ISO/IEC 20000

ISO/IEC 20000 Rediscovered
Describing differencies and similarities of ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000

ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000 Compared
ITIL V2 - ITIL V3 - ISO20000 comparisson table

Hope this helps. Have a nice day!

A Brief History of ITIL

I have looked arround the web a little and was bored with the general ITIL history articles found on the web. There are a few inconsistencies and interesting myths circling around, like the one on the Falklands war and possible general war threat with Argentina, which are denied by the authors of V1.
The fact that Mrs. Thatcher came to power in 1979. and that ICT budget of UK government exceeded 8 bil. UK pounds was probably one of initiators of GITMM (or GITIMM, not sure).

So, here is a short list of important milestones:

1972: IBM starts research on quality service delivery called Information Systems Management Architecture (ISMA).

1980: IBM publishes Volume I of the IBM Management series titled "A management System for the Information Business", first public edition of ISMA.

1986: CCTA authorizes a program to develop a common set of operational guidance with the objective of increasing efficiencies in Government IT.

1988: "Government Infrastructure Management Method (GITMM)", is formalized and issued as 'guidelines' for Government IT operations in the UK focused on Service Level Management. Same year, the development team was expanded and work continued on Cost, Capacity, and Availability.

1989: GITMM title is inadequate. It is not a method, (last M), and it should lose its G letter in order to be marketable out of government. Renamed to ITIL.

1989: First 'ITIL' book published, Service Level Management, then Help Desk (incorporating the concepts of Incident Management), Contingency Planning, and Change Management. Books had 50-70 pages.

1990: Problem Management, Configuration Management and Cost Management for IT Services published.

1991: Published - Software Control & Distribution, on 89 pages.

1992: Availability Management, 69 pages.

1996: (July) First ITIL Service Manager class delivered in US by US company, ITSMI, 16 attended, 10 candidates, nine passes, one distinction, first US company authorized as an ITIL accredited course provider - ITSMI.

1997: Customer focused update to the Service Level Management book, 106 pages.

1997: ITIMF legally becomes what we know today as the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF UK).

2000: Service Support V2 published, 306 pages.

2001: Service Delivery V2 published, 376 pages.

2001: CCTA became a part of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC)

2002: Application Management, 158 pages, Planning to Implement IT Service Management, 208 pages and ICT Infrastructure Management, 283 pages, published.

2003: Software Asset Management, 146 pages, published .

2004: Business Perspective: The IS View on Delivering Services to the Business, published, 180 pages.

2006: (June) ITIL Glossary V2 published

2006: (June) APM Group Limited announced as preferred bidder of ITIL accreditation & certification program, over the itSMF International (expectant winner)

2007: (May) ITIL V3 five core books published.

2011: (July) ITIL 2011 update published.

Let's analyse this timeline a bit:

ITIL V1 was rather similar to IBM's ISMA, especially in support/delivery domain. Core ITIL V2 books did not differ much from ITIL V1. Only a few processes were altered slightly, but the focus and perspective was pretty much unchanged. And this process lasted for some 20 years.

ITIL V3 approximately doubled the scope, almost tripled the number of processes and functions and introduced a few new dimensions and perspectives. We have the first set of core books now, but a lot of time will be needed to develop all the complementary books, to groom and mature the training materials and to polish best implementation practices.

ITIL 2011 books grew 57% in weight and 46% in number of pages due to rewrite and redesign (larger font).

What is ITIL®?

Here we will shortly discuss a framework that became a de facto standard in ITSM.
Everyone in the industry is getting certificates in ITIL, from people to SW. Why is that? Probably because ITIL is founded on best practices in IT since early 1980s

ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is a best practices framework to manage IT services in an effective and efficient way.

ITIL was initiated in the second half of 1980’s by the British government in order to design a set of operational IT guidance. The main goal was to increase efficiency in Government IT and the task was given to Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA).

Authors consolidated best practices and guidelines from existing industry standards in a so called Government Infrastructure Management Method (GITMM). In 1989 it was renamed to Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL®).

During the 90’s it gained worldwide popularity as the most complete set of best practices in IT Governance.

The updated version 2 in the year 2000 gained even more followers in the IT industry, as it focused more on bringing IT and business to understand each other. It defined a standard for a common language in IT, especially around IT Service Management (ITSM ), which was covered by two central books: Service Support and Service Delivery.

ITIL® ITSM with its ten basic processes and Service Desk function covered basic needs of various IT service departments for best practice guidance in daily operations.

ITIL V2 Service Management model

1. Service Support - Blue Book is focused on the user of the IT services. Function and processes:

• Service Desk
• Incident Management
• Problem Management
• Change Management
• Release Management
• Configuration Management

2. Service Delivery - Red Book is focused on the Business IT needs:

• Service Level Management
• Financial Management for IT Services
• Capacity Management
• IT Service Continuity Management
• Availability Management

ITIL® V1 and V2 were obviously process oriented, since relatively young IT organizations in the 90’s and 2000’s mostly needed basic organizational knowledge and skills.
In the 2000’s two very important ITIL® offspring were created:

• MOF: Microsoft® Operations Framework is a complete and mature framework based on ITIL® V2, completely free of charge and public
• ISO/IEC 20000: ISO standard evolved from British standard BS15000 and provides ITIL® V2 related auditable set of requirements for IT service management business organizations willing to ensure full alignment with basic processes.

ISO/IEC 20000 Model

In 2001 CCTA became a part of the British Office of Government Commerce (OGC).
In May 2007 the third version of ITIL® was published. It introduced roughly 16 new processes and three functions. The main update was that processes were spread over five new lifecycle stages:

1. Service Strategy
2. Service Design
3. Service Transition
4. Service Operation
5. Continual Service Improvement

ITIL V3 Lifecycle stages

This lifecycle approach was justified as IT organizations gained maturity towards 2010s, when IT ceased to be a mere support for business functions, but it became an integral part of the business - a crucial and strategic asset. Hence it is important to follow the service through its lifecycle in order to support the business in an optimized way.



ITIL V3 Processes