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ITIL® v3 - The Official ITIL Lifecyle Publication Suite
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ITIL v3
ITIL is the most widely used approach for IT service management in the world. It provides a practical framework for framework for identifying, planning, delivering and supporting IT services to the business. ITIL advocates that IT services must be aligned to the needs of the business and underpin the core business processes. It provides guidance to organisations on how to use IT as a tool to facilitate business change, transformation and growth.
ITIL v3 was published in 2007 and replaced ITIL v2. ITIL v3 provides an overall approach to the full life cycle of services, covering the entire IT organisation and all the supporting components that are required to deliver services to the customer. ITIL was updated in 2011, to improve the clarity, usability and terminology, however all the core concepts remain the same. You can read about the 2011 update here.
The five books of ITIL v3 are contained in the Official Lifecycle Suite, which are available in softcover format or downloadable PDF
Benefits of ITIL
The ITILv3 model contains the processes needed to manage services within the lifecycle structure. The core practices of Service Management life stages are then supported by more detailed complementary content specific to industry, stakeholder and practice topics. This makes the library more practical, easier to use and provides guidance specific to various stakeholder viewpoints.
The OGC states the benefits of ITIL as:
- Establishes the integration of business strategy with IT service strategy
- Enables agile service design and a ROI blueprint
- Provides transition models that are fit for purpose in a variety of innovations
- Demystifies the management of service providers and sourcing models
- Improves the ease of implementing and managing services for dynamic, high risk volatile and rapidly changing business needs
- Improves how measurement demonstrates value
- Identifies the triggers for improvement and change anywhere in the service lifecycle
- The new approach changes the relationship between IT and business whereas before, ITIL worked to align service management with business strategy, V3 integrates it into a single ecosystem
- IT strategies, for outsourcing and co-sourcing
- Process expansion includes event management and request fulfilment
ITIL Lifecycle Suite
The Official Lifecycle Suite contains the five core ITILv3 books, which are designed to be read together:Service Strategy
Service Strategy provides concepts and guidance on how to align business and IT so that each brings out the best in the other. It covers key areas including:
- Demand Management
- Service Management strategy and value planning
- Linking IT service strategy to business needs
- Planning and implementing service strategy
Buy the Service Strategy
Service Design
Service Design provides guidance on the production and maintenance of IT policies, architectures, and documents for the design of appropriate and innovative IT infrastructure service solutions and processes. It covers key areas including:
- Service design objectives and elements
- Compliance management
- IT architecture management
- Service catalogue management
- Service level management
- IT service continuity management
- Risk management
- Implementing service design
- Information security management
Buy the Service Design
Service Transition
Service Transition provides guidance and process activities for the transition of services in the operational business environment. It covers key areas including:
- Managing organisational and cultural change
- Knowledge management
- Service knowledge management system
- Methods, practices and tools
- Measurement and control
- Companion best practices
Buy the Service Transition
Service Operation
Service Operation details delivery and control activities to achieve operational excellence on a day-to-day basis. It covers key areas including:
- Application Management
- Change Management
- Operations Management
- Control processes and function
- Scalable practices
- Measurement and control
Buy the Service Operation
Continual Service Improvement
Continual Service Improvement focuses on the process elements involved in identifying and introducing service management improvements. It covers key areas including:
- Business and technology drivers for improvement
- Business, financial and organisational improvements
- Methods, practices and tools
- Measurement and control
- Companion best practices
Buy the Continual Service Improvement
Each of the individual publications are available in a variety of formats:
- Soft covers
- Downloadable pdf
- Online subscription
- eBook (MobiPocket eBook) version
- A Multiple user online subscription, which is applicable only to the Complete Publication Suite and/or the Official Introduction.
ITIL Certifications
There are 4 levels of ITIL qualification:
You can read more about ITIL qualifications here and the types of ITIL training that IT Governance offers here.
ITIL certification is managed by the ICMB (ITIL Certification Management Board). The ICMB is made up of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), itSMF International, and the two current examination institutes, EXIN and ISEB. The official accreditor for ITIL exams is the APM Group.
