ITIL V3 Introductory Overview: 'Littler ITIL' Free to Download

itSMF UK in association with Best Management Practice published a high-level overview of ITIL V3 - "An Introductory Overview of ITIL V3.

This is a small pocket book providing an executive level overview of the new ITIL V3 and its five lifecycle phases. Book has some 50 pages and reminds me of a similar IT Service Management book from 2001. This older one was about Support/Delivery in V2 and was very, very useful, since it was possible back then to put a complete detailed quick reference the core ITSM in cca 70 pages.

Now, in V3, scope being so seriously broadened, it would be difficult to compress it in a similar manner to less then 200-300 pages, so this is probably the best we can get (at this moment).

Basic lifecycle points are covered briefly and simply, main processes and their cross-references are touched, and it says a few in the end about the qualifications/certification, at least as it is in this moment (I hope to see some changes there).

Anyway, in this beginning era of ITIL V3, there was a need for this kind of publication, and here it is. Good for executive overview and introductory purposes. Maybe in next versions we will see some more meat in it, namely more basic process info and cornerstone diagrams.

For now, you can order it at your local itSMF chapter or download the .pdf from itSMF UK or Best Management Practice site.

ITIL Foundations Exam - Go/No Go?

Some of my friends and colleagues sat the ITIL V3 Foundations exam this week. Since I am in the business for some time, I helped them prepare. Of course, I was anxious what do the training, materials and the exam look like. I have seen some critiques and exam reviews in blogosphere, and first impression was that things are not very pink (ha, get it?).

I have read all five books this summer (some of them a few times) and my impression was that in 3 days of Foundations training you can't cover much more then some kind of extended glossary for these 32 ITIL V3 disciplines. People had two days to cover 11 disciplines (Processes/function(s)) in V2. Extending a training for one day to accommodate (a lot) more then 50% of increase in scope looks very brave and optimistic. What do the students say?

From what can be seen in student materials and exam questions, authors had a very high opinion on future attendees. Preparation questions were easy for me, I think I could guess my way thru at least 30 questions. But the EXIN set of exam questios was completely different thing. Without preparation, I would have flunked flat on this one.
I have no particular objection to the questions, they are understandable, do not suffer from English/English phrases and questions were rather equally divided between lifecycle stages. They were just too difficult for an introductory course.

Some of the new prep and real questions can be found on the web.

I have read somewhere that the syllabus is going to change a lot in Q1 2008. All the problems occurring in this phase were expected (at least by me), since this is all a matter of rough feedback-based tuning. So the first exam candidates will pay the price. If someone asked me, I would not sit an ITIL exam for at least six next months, like I wouldn't buy any (not even Japanese) car if a model is less then a year old. People invest three work days, some money and a piece of professional reputation here, only to end up ITIL exam guinea pigs. They should at least get some benefits for that (better price, longer training, free attempts...).

For now, the only thing stimulating people to show up on an exam is their ignorance. And some hype too. Everybody's doing IT(IL). But OGC and APMG people should have in mind that the Market is a bitch.

ITIL V3 Service Portfolio, Pipeline and Catalogue

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In ITIL V3, the customer is more into focus then technology. In V2, customer and his satisfaction were important on a declarative level, but minimum effort was made to point out methods, the whats and hows to improve the customer satisfaction.

In the age of V2, more palpable problems were of technological nature. Also, primary concern, especially in non-IBM IT communities was IT organisation, processes and procedures. So the main hub of all stories was the infamous CMDB, an organisational gadget with a techie name.

Now, the IT mindset is of a grown up, and we turn to what and how we are doing it. Following this thread backwards, we conclude that the main question is Why. We design services according to a market demand, for some of our present and future customers. So why should a customer by a service, why would he buy it from us, what are our competitive advantages, how are we going to charge for the services, what resources do we have... These are some of the strategic questions that need to be answered.

We define, analyse, approve and charter services in this phase. We are at the beginning of the Service Portfolio, in the Service Pipeline.

Thru transition processes, these services are introduced to operation, therefore they are in the Service Catalogue. Have in mind that this is the only profitable phase in this lifecycle perspective. Services that are no more needed are retired through Transition process

The objective is to manage the information contained within the Service Catalog and to ensure that it is accurate and reflects the current details, status, interfaces and dependencies of all services that are being run, or are in preparation to run in the live environment.

It has to be available and comprehensive to all parties involved, therefore it is divided into:

• Business Service Catalog – A customer view: IT services delivered to the customer, including relations to business units and business processes it supports.
• Technical Service Catalog – IT Services related to customer – related with infrastructure: supporting and shared services and CIs that support the provision of service. This view should not be presented to a customer.

KPIs , critical success factors and main risks of Service Catalogue Management process remind me a little of a former version Configuration Management and it's CMDB. Service Catalogue is pretty difficult to create and maintain, and yet, everyone already talks about it, and there are some people that say they have it.

Things become even more complex when we know that Service Portfolio encompasses Service Pipeline, Service Catalogue and retirement processes. For all this we have to have operative connections to a lot of acronyms: SKMS, CMS... Better part of it is served via the Service Level Management, the process that gave birth to portfolio and catalogue since the last version.

All this looks a bit confusing at a first glance, but when you seriously get into it you really get scared ;-)

Simplified, ITIL V3 is very customer oriented. There is a Service in every of the five books title (OK, I wanted this to be funny). Most of the stuff is hard to achieve, but in the end of the day, with V3, Service providers know better where to go and what to do. The mark is up there, everyone can decide for himself how close he wants to approach it.

ITIL V3 Mind Map Download

There is a lot of stuff in the new V3 core books. I have read most of it, and I was overwhelmed with new slang, archetypes, processes, acronyms.

After the second reading, you start noticing that there even exists a connection between the graphics and the text in these books. One just has to read carefully.

Memorizing and putting things in a perspective can be difficult when grasping such a broad scope. Mind mapping can help to some extent.

I have created a simple mind map for the purpose of my own data organization. I thought that sharing it with a community would be a good idea. So I have put it for download on this temporary space.

I took the measure of deleting the content that could be problematic as copyright goes. Still, a lot of public info and my own graphics are left inside. This is a working copy, and will be upgraded regularly. For now it is in Mindjet Mind Manager format, if you have trouble viewing it, let me know, I can maybe export it to xml.

ITIL Service Definition

"A service is a means of delivering value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific cost and risks. "

"Service Management is a set of specialized organizational capabilities for providing value to customers in the form of services. "

I could be wrong, but this is the definition of a Service! And it is finally here, after almost 20 years of ITIL. So at last we know what are we talking about.

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).

ITIL V2 Mind Maps Free Download

I have took the liberty of posting my ITIL Service Support and Service Delivery mind maps in .mmap form. I have created these while preparing for my ITIL Service Manager exam.
They are simple reference documents with basic bullets per process, but I hope you can use it and upgrade them if you wish while you study.
Documents will be on eSnips for the first time, until I migrate this blog to another domain.
Links to documents can be found in the upper left part of the homepage.
Soon I will post some of my V3 maps and graphs in the same place.

ITIL V3 And The Vacuum

I had a brutally long vacation, as you have maybe noticed from the lack of posts here.

Most of the time I did nothing but enjoyed the sun and the sea, and of course, long reading sessions of new V3 ITIL books. First week I read Strategy, Design and Transition books cover to cover, and couldn't remember much after the first reading. Books are NOT dull and boring like the previous version. Most of the material is well written, but the perspective is new and the flavour is of an acquired taste, especially for an old IT dog accustomed to years of process-based approach to Services. So I read some more and parts of it started clicking in place.

A funny thing happened with this ITIL V3 rollout. Seems like things are getting worse before they will get better. Previous V2 story got a huge and powerful dimension with this new service lifecycle aspect. The result is a vacuum window for all animals in the ITIL food chain. Certification organizations and education companies are waiting for new sylabusses and exams and customers are starving for new trainings. OK, maybe good consulatnts can fish somewhat more in these times of uncertainty.

Best we can do is to try to stay positive and wait for things to happen, hoping for the best.

New Qualification Scheme with nice colourfull explanations and doubtful scoring is published, and now we wait for the sylabusses.

ITIL V3 Foundation exams are out. From what I can see, they last for three days instead of the previous two. Judging by the fact that the scope at least doubled in size, and that Foundation level should have 90% pass rate, I doubt that Foundation material will cover anything more then a well described Glossary. Which is fine by me, at least it will make people read some of the books, and pull their heads from the same old process-based holes in the sand (takes one to know one!).

Nice thing to see is that practitioner layers of qualification scheme are finely granulated to enable a phased approach of candidadtes according to their professional preferences. Score enough points, and move up.

And the whole Scheme has an additional vertical layer. Which is OK, given the size of the newly introduced dimensions.

What bothers me most at a present state: it looks that the change of bottom->top to top->bottom approach has lost it's steam somewhere in the middle, and presently there is a missing link to connect old process-based and the new Service Lifecycle perspective. There is no place with systematically defined new processes and modifications to old ones. It would be the starting point for the new people in the business, trying to build some foundations and systematically start to introduce some order to their hectic IT operations. When you start, you do it from the ground up, you do not build things roof-to-basement. Or am I wrong? What do these people have? A set of five books which are difficult to sell to their management. I'm not worried, it's just that this void, the vacuum window will last for some time, and then things are going to click in place eventually.

All we have to do is wait a while. In the meantime, we could do something, like request the additional complementary material. Or even help to create it. Are the itSMF chapters good candidates for the job? What do you think?

ITIL V3 - What's New?

So here are the five new core books. In V3, ITIL remains a descriptive best-practice framework, but it covers a lot more ground then V2, and the evolved part focuses mostly on IT & business integration.

New processes and functions aim to form a tight connection between business and IT organisation, anticipating business, technology and regulations changes in last 10 years since the last ITIL update.



Five essential core books represent basic ITIL Service Lifecycle elements:

• Service Strategy: Creating the set of services that help achieve business objectives.
• Service Design: Designing services, from technical and business perspective.
• Service Transition: How to change live production infrastructure, implementing the needed services.
• Service Operation: Day-to-day IT business, operating. A place to start if you are new to ITIL.
• Continual Service Improvement: Evaluating and improving services in support of business goals.

Processes are nicely reshuffled and strategically grouped to ensure a better support for business objectives. Some of the existing processes are changed or split in more sub-processes, and several new processes and functions are added.
Example: due to development of web and other ITC technologies, the impact and role of self-help in Service Operation is much more significant lately. As a result, a new process - Request Fulfillment spinned-off from Service Desk function. Also, Problem Management process developed in a more streamlined fashion, removing the problem/error control inconsistencies. A few of the other existing processes are reshaped in a similar way.
First impression is that the material is somewhat better organised, with a more transparent structure and refreshing hints, tips, real life examples, even anecdotes! I discovered that with V3 I need to read 10 pages before I fall asleep, as opposed to V2 where 1-2 pages threw me in a narcoleptic seizure.
Reading the books, one notices a tad of presctiptiveness here and there, and this trend is allegedly going to continue with complementary add-on material which will connect and map ITIL with different methodologies, market sectors and technologies.
V3 is here, and summer vacations are here also, so we will all have some time to digest the new material and see what happens next. I wish you all happy holidays!