ITIL^® 4 Service Value System

                                                                                                                                          By Rashmi S.

History of ITIL:

In early 1980’s one of the subsidiaries of British Govt. CCTA (Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency) was asked to find better way of service delivery making it more effective, efficient. CCTA surveyed across the industries, academies, consultants and collected so called best practices that point in time. They were filtered and some common practices were identified by CCTA. These set of shortlisted practices was called GITMM. This was in around 1984. IT was found that these set of best practices was really proving to be beneficial. In 1989 with updated GITMM; it was decided to make it public and renamed as ITIL.

1999-2000 V2 was published with set of 7+1 books out of which service support and service delivery were most popular books. ITIL V2 was widely adopted across the globe and proved to be milestone in journey of ITIL Framework.

With continual improvement ITIL V3 was launched in 2007 with lifecycle approach. Five books with names of lifecycle stages were published named Service strategy/Service design/Service Transition/Service Operation/Continual Service Improvement. This was refreshed in 2011 with core structure same and referred as ITIL 2011.

In February 2019 ITIL 4 was released aligning with 4^th industrial revolution. Qualification scheme was changed significantly. Recently ITIL4 Master designation also launched live.

One of most significant changes in ITIL 4 is introduction of Service Value system which we will discuss briefly in this blog.

Service Value system

One of the biggest challenges an organization can face when trying to work effectively and efficiently with a shared vision, or to become more Agile and resilient, is the presence of organizational silos. Organizational silos can form in many ways and for many different reasons. Silos can be resistant to change and can prevent easy access to the information and specialized expertise that exists across the organization, which can in turn reduce efficiency and increase both cost and risk. Silos also make it more difficult for communication or collaboration to occur across different groups.

A siloed organization cannot act quickly to take advantage of opportunities or to optimize the use of resources across the organization. It is often unable to make effective decisions about changes, due to limited visibility and many hidden agendas. Practices can also become silos. Many organizations have implemented practices such as organizational change management or incident management without clear interfaces with other practices. All practices should have multiple interfaces with one another. The exchange of information between practices should be triggered at key points in the workflow, and is essential to the proper functioning of the organization.

The architecture of the ITIL SVS specifically enables flexibility and discourages siloed working. The service value chain activities and the practices in the SVS do not form a fixed, rigid structure. Rather, they can be combined in multiple value streams to address the needs of the organization in a variety of scenarios

The ITIL SVS describes how all the components and activities of the organization work together as a system to enable value creation. These components and activities, together with the organization’s resources, can be configured and reconfigured in multiple combinations in a flexible way as circumstances change, but this requires the integration and coordination of activities, practices, teams, authorities and responsibilities, and all parties to be truly effective.

The ITIL SVS includes the following components:

• Guiding principles Recommendations that can guide an organization in all circumstances, regardless of changes in its goals, strategies, type of work, or management structure.
• Governance The means by which an organization is directed and controlled.
• Service value chain A set of interconnected activities that an organization performs to deliver a valuable product or service to its consumers and to facilitate value realization.
• Practices Sets of organizational resources designed for performing work or accomplishing an objective.
• Continual improvement A recurring organizational activity performed at all levels to ensure that an organization’s performance continually meets stakeholders’ expectations. ITIL 4 supports continual improvement with the ITIL continual improvement model.

Opportunity and demand trigger activities within the ITIL SVS, and these activities lead to the creation of value. Opportunity and demand are always entering into the system, but the organization does not automatically accept all opportunities or satisfy all demand.

Opportunity represents options or possibilities to add value for stakeholders or otherwise improve the organization. There may not be demand for these opportunities yet, but they can still trigger work within the system. Organizations should prioritize new or changed services with opportunities for improvement to ensure their resources are correctly allocated.

Demand represents the need or desire for products and services from internal and external customers. A definition of value, and what constitutes value for different stakeholders

We will discuss about SVC which is operating model in next blog…

About Author: Two Decades of extensive Industry Experience/ ITIL®V2 Managers certified(With Distinction score; one of the few globally)/ ITIL®Expert/ ITIL®4 Master certified (Part of first ITIL®4 Master batch globally)