ITIL 4 Foundation

Chapter 1: Introduction
The key components of ITIL 4 framework:
1. Service Value System (SVS)
2. The 4-Dimensions model

 Service Value System (SVS):

 The ITIL SVS represents how the various components and activities of the
organization work together to facilitate value creation through IT-enabled
services.

 Core Component of ITIL SVS:

1) Service Value Chain (SVC)
2) Practices
3) Guiding Principles
4) Continual Improvement
5) Governance

The SVS converts opportunity and demand into actual value for our customers
by applying our own service management magic.

 Service Value Chain (SVC):

 The ITIL service value chain provides an operating model for the creation,
delivery, and continual improvement of services.

 Guiding Principles:
 The ITIL guiding principles can be used to guide an organization’s decisions and
actions and ensure a shared understanding and common approach to service
management across the organization.

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The ITIL guiding principles create the foundation for an organization’s culture
and behaviour from strategic decision-making to day-to-day operations.

 The 4-Dimensions Model:

 To ensure a holistic approach to service management, ITIL 4 outlines four
dimensions of service management from which each component of the SVS
should be considered.

 The 4 dimensions: [VOIP]

1) Value Streams and Processes
2) Information and Technology
3) Organizations and People
4) Partners and Suppliers

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Chapter 2: Key Concepts of Service Managements

 Service Management:
 A set of specialized organizational capabilities for enabling value for customers in
the form of services.

 Value:
 The perceived benefit, usefulness, and importance of something.

The purpose of an organization is to create value for stakeholders.

 High-level roles in service management:

1) Customer
2) User
3) Sponsor
4) Supplier
5) Organization

 Customer:
 The role that defines the requirements for a service and takes responsibility for the
outcomes of service consumption.

 User:
 The role that uses services on the daily basis.

 Sponsor:
 The role that authorizes budget for service consumptions.

 Supplier:
 An External partner who provides services to the organization.

 Organization:
 A person or a group of people that has its own functions with responsibilities,
authorities, and relationships to achieve its objectives.

When provisioning services, an organization takes on the role of the service

provider, the provider can be external to the consumer’s organization, or they
can both be part of the same organization.

When receiving services, an organization takes on the role of the service

consumer.

 Services:
 A means of enabling value co-creation by facilitating outcomes that customers
want to achieve, without the customer having to manage specific costs and risks.

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 Product:
 A configuration of an organization’s resources designed to offer value for a
customer. (Software/Hardware)

The services that an organization provides are based on one or more of its
products. Organizations own or have access to a variety of resources, including
people, information and technology, value streams and processes, and partners
and suppliers. Products are configurations of these resources, created by the
organization, that will potentially be valuable for its customers.

 Service Offering:
 A formal description of one or more services, designed to address the needs of a
target consumer group

 A Service Offering may include:

1) Goods:
Ownership is transferred to the customer. The consumer takes the
responsibility for the future use. For example, a mobile phone and a
physical server.

2) Access to resources:
Customer/consumer is allowed to use under agreed terms and
conditions. The resource remains under the provider’s control and can be
accessed by the consumer only during the agreed service consumption period.
For example, access to the mobile network, or to a network storage.

3) Service Actions:
Things that service provider does for the customer according to the
agreement. For example, handling tickets, warranty issues, and technical
issues.

Service providers present their services to consumers in the form of service

offerings, which describe one or more services based on one or more products.

 Service Relationships:
 A cooperation between service provider and a service consumer.

Service relationships are established between one or more organizations to co-

create value, in a service relationship, organizations will take in the roles of
service providers or service consumers. The two roles are not mutually exclusive,
and organizations typically both provide and consume a number of services at
any given time.

 Service relationships include:

1) Service provision
2) Service consumption

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3) Service relationship management

 Service Provision:
 Activities performed by an organization to provide services.
 Service provision includes:
o Management of the provider’s resources, configured to deliver the service.
o Ensuring access to these resources for users.
o Fulfilment of agreed service actions.
o Service level management and continual improvement.
o Supplying of goods.

 Service Consumption:
 Activities performed by an organization to consume services.
 Service consumption include:
o Management of the consumer’s resources needed to use the service.
o Service action performed by users, including utilizing the provider’s
resources, and requesting service actions to be fulfilled.
o Receiving of goods.

 Service relationship management:

 Joint activities performed by a service provider and a service consumer to
ensure continual value co-creation based on agreed and available service
offering.

 Output:
 A tangible or intangible deliverable of an activity.

Achieving desired outcomes requires resources (and therefore costs) and is often
associated with risks. Service providers help their consumers to achieve
outcomes, and in doing so, take on some of the associated risks and costs. On the
other hand, service relationships can introduce new risks and costs, and in some
cases, can negatively affect some of the intended outcomes, while supporting
others.

 Outcome:
 A result for stakeholder enabled by one or more outputs.

It is important to be clear about the difference between outputs and outcomes.

For example, one output of a wedding photography service may be an album in
which selected photos are artfully arranged. The outcome of the service,
however, is the preservation of memories and the ability of the couple and their
family and friends to easily recall those memories by looking at the album.

 Cost:
 The amount of money spent on a specific activity or resource. Cost can be
removed from a customer (as a part of value proposition) and as well can be
imposed on a customer (price for service consumption).

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 Risk:
 A possible event that could cause harm or loss, or makes it more difficult to
achieve objectives. Can also be defined as uncertainty of outcome, and can be
used in context of measuring of possibility of positive outcomes as well as
negative outcomes
 Can be good (opportunity) and can be bad (hazard).

To evaluate whether a service or service offering will facilitate the outcomes

desired by the consumers and therefore create value for them, the overall
utility and warranty of the service should be assessed.
 Utility:
 The functionality offered by a product or service to meet a particular need.
Utility can be summarized as ‘what the service does’ and can be used to
determine whether a service is ‘fit for purpose’. To have utility, a service must
either support the performance of the consumer or remove constraints from the
consumer. Many services do both.

 Warranty:
 Assurance that a product or service will meet agreed requirements. Warranty
can be summarized as ‘how the service performs’ and can be used to
determine whether a service is ‘fit for use’. Warranty often relates to service
levels aligned with the needs of service consumers. This may be based on a
formal agreement, or it may be a marketing message or brand image. Warranty
typically addresses such areas as the availability of the service, its capacity,
levels of security and continuity. A service may be said to provide acceptable
assurance, or ‘warranty’, if all defined and agreed conditions are met.

Both utility and warranty are essential for a service to facilitate its desired
outcomes and therefore help create value. For example, a recreational theme
park may offer many exciting rides designed to deliver thrilling experiences for
park visitors (utility), but if a significant number of the rides are frequently
unavailable due to mechanical difficulties, the park is not fulfilling the warranty
(it is not fit for use) and the consumers will not receive their expected value.
Likewise, if the rides are always up and running during advertised hours, but
they do not have features that provide the levels of excitement expected by
visitors, the utility is not fulfilled, even though the warranty is sufficient. Again,
consumers would not receive the expected value.

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Chapter 3: The 4-Dimentions of service management

 4-Dimensions: [VOIP]
1. Value streams and processes
2. Organizations and people
3. Information and technology
4. Partners and suppliers

These four dimensions represent a perspective which are relevant to the whole
SVS, including the entirety of the service value chain and all ITIL practices. The
four dimensions are constrained or influenced by several external factors that
are often beyond the control of the SVS.

 External Factors which influence the 4-dimensions: [PESTLE]

1. Political
2. Economical
3. Social
4. Technological
5. Legal
6. Environmental

 Organization and people:

 Covers roles and responsibilities, formal organizational structures, culture, and
required staffing and competencies, all of which are related to the creation,
delivery and improvement of a service.
o Organizational structures
o Decision making habits
o Staffing and skill requirements
o Culture and leadership styles

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The complexity of organizations is growing, and it is important to ensure that the

way an organization is structured and managed, as well as its roles,
responsibilities, and systems of authority and communication, is well defined and
supports its overall strategy and operating model.

 Information and technology:

 When applied to the SVS, the information and technology dimension includes
the information and knowledge necessary for the management of services, as
well as the technologies required. It also incorporates the relationships
between different components of the SVS, such as the inputs and outputs of
activities and practices.
o Information and tools that are needed to deliver co-created value to the
customer
o Technology and innovation
o Relationship between components
o Culture of knowledge management

 Partners and Suppliers:

 The partners and suppliers dimension encompasses an organization’s
relationships with other organizations that are involved in the design,
development, deployment, delivery, support, and/or continual improvement of
services. It also incorporates contracts and other agreements between the
organization and its partners or suppliers.
o Relationship with external venders
o Factor that influences supplier strategies
1) Strategic focus
2) Corporate culture
3) Resource scarcity
4) Cost concerns
5) Subject matter expertise
6) External constrains
7) Demand pattens
o Service integration management
o Vendor selection procedures

 Value Streams and Processes:

 The activities, workflows, controls and procedures needed to achieve agreed
objectives and as well to ensure value to stakeholders.

Applied to the organization and its SVS, the value streams and processes
dimension is concerned with how the various parts of the organization work in
an integrated and coordinated way to enable value creation through products
and services. The dimension focuses on what activities the organization
undertakes and how they are organized, as well as how the organization ensures
that it is enabling value creation for all stakeholders efficiently and effectively.

 Value Stream:
 A series of steps an organization undertakes to create and deliver products and
services to consumers.

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 Processes:
 A set of interrelated or interacting activities that transform inputs into outputs.
A process takes one or more defined inputs and turns them into defined
outputs. Processes define the sequence of actions and their dependencies.

A process is a set of activities that transform inputs to outputs. Processes

describe what is done to accomplish an objective, and well-defined processes can
improve productivity within and across organizations. They are usually detailed
in procedures, which outline who is involved in the process, and work
instructions, which explain how they are carried out.

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Chapter 4: The ITIL Service Value System

 Main Components/structure of ITIL SVS:
1. Guiding Principles:
 Recommendations that can guide an organization in all circumstances,
regardless of changes in its goal, strategies, type of work, or
management structure.
2. Governance:
 The means by which the organization is directed and controlled.
3. Service Value Chain (SVC):
 A set of interconnected activities that an organization performs to
deliver a valuable product or service to its consumers and to facilitate
value realization.
4. Practices:
 Sets of organizational resources designed for performing work or
accomplishing an objective.
5. Continual Improvement:
 A recurring organizational activity performed at all levels to ensure
that organization’s performance continually meets stakeholder’s
expectation.

The ITIL SVS describes how all the components and activities of the
organization work together as a system to enable value creation. Each
organization’s SVS has interfaces with other organizations, forming an
ecosystem that can in turn facilitate value for those organizations, their
customers, and other stakeholders.

The key input to the SVS are opportunity and demand. It converts them
into actual value for those organization, their customers and stakeholders.

Opportunities represent options are possibilities to add value for

stakeholders or otherwise improve the organisation. Demand is the need or
desire for product and services among internal and external consumers.

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 The purpose of the SVS is to ensure that the organization continually co-creates value
with all stakeholders through the use and management of products and services. The
structure of the SVS is shown in Figure 4.1. The left side of the figure shows
opportunity and demand feeding into the SVS from both internal and external sources.
The right side shows value created for the organization, its customers, and other
stakeholders.

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.

 Overview of guiding principles:

1. Focus on values
2. Start where you are
3. Progress iteratively with feedback
4. Collaborate and promote visibility
5. Think and work holistically
6. Keep it simple and practical
7. Optimize and automate

 Focus on Value:
 Everything that the organization does needs to map, directly or indirectly, to
value for the stakeholders.
 The focus on value principle encompasses many perspectives, including the
experience of customers and users.

 Start where you are:

 Do not start from scratch and build something new without considering what
is already available to be leveraged. There is likely to be a great deal in the
current services, processes, programmes, projects, and people that can be used
to create the desired outcome. The current state should be investigated and
observed directly to make sure it is fully understood.

 Progress iteratively with feedback:

 Do not attempt to do everything at once. Even huge initiatives must be
accomplished iteratively. By organizing work into smaller, manageable
sections that can be executed and completed in a timely manner, it is easier to
maintain a sharper focus on each effort. Using feedback before, throughout,
and after each iteration will ensure that actions are focused and appropriate,
even if circumstances change.

 Collaborate and promote visibility:

 Working together across boundaries produces results that have greater buy in,
more relevance to objectives, and increased likelihood of long-term success.
(Involve the right people in the correct roles)
 Achieving objectives requires information, understanding, and trust. Work and
consequences should be made visible, hidden agendas avoided, and
information shared to the greatest degree possible.

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ITIL 4 Foundation

 Think and work holistically:

 No service, or element used to provide a service, stands alone. The outcomes
achieved by the service provider and service consumer will suffer unless the
organization works on the service as a whole, not just on its parts. Results are
delivered to internal and external customers through the effective and efficient
management and dynamic integration of information, technology,
organization, people, practices, partners, and agreements, which should all be
coordinated to provide a defined value.
 Nothing is ever alone, think about the effects of your initiative or work on
other components.

 Keep it simple and practical:

 If a process, service, action or metric fails to provide value or produce a useful
outcome, eliminate it. In a process or procedure, use the minimum number of
steps necessary to accomplish the objective(s). Always use outcome-based
thinking to produce practical solutions that deliver results.

 Optimize and automate:

 Resources of all types, particularly HR, should be used to their best effect.
Eliminate anything that is truly wasteful and use technology to achieve
whatever it is capable of. Human intervention should only happen where it
really contributes value.

The ITIL guiding principles are universally applicable to any work or initiative.

Represents a well-proven, good practices from different industries around the

globe from different companies.

These guiding principles are neither prescriptive nor a must.

Can be applied stand-alone but are better in conjunction.

It has a strong relation to lean-agile thinking.

 Governance:
 Organizational governance is a system by which an organization is directed
and controlled.

Every organization is directed by a governing body, i.e., a person or group of

people who are accountable at the highest level for the performance and
compliance of the organization. All sizes and types of organization perform
governance activities; the governing body may be a board of directors or
executive managers who take on a separate governance role when they are
performing governance activities. The governing body is accountable for the
organization’s compliance with policies and any external regulations.

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 Governance is realized through the following activities:

1. Evaluate
2. Direct
3. Monitor

 Service value chain (SVC):

 It is an operating model which outlines the key activities required to respond
to demand and facilitate value realization through creation and management of
products and services. SVC utilizes the value stream.

 Value streams:
 A series of steps an organization takes to co-create value with customers or
within any stakeholder (because it could be internal value).
 These steps can be mapped to the SVC in any combination. i.e., handling
incidents or developing new application.

 Six SVC activities: [PIEDOD]

1. Plan
2. Improvement
3. Engage
4. Design and transition
5. Obtain and build
6. Deliver and support

These activities represent the steps an organization takes in the creation of value.
Each activity transforms inputs into outputs. These inputs can be demand from
outside the value chain or outputs of other activities. All the activities are
interconnected, with each activity receiving and providing triggers for further
action.

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The SVC transforms demand into actual value.

 Plan:
 The purpose of the plan value chain activity is to ensure a shared
understanding of the vision, current status, and improvement direction for all
four dimensions and all products and services across the organization.

 Improve:
 The purpose of the improve value chain activity is to ensure continual
improvement of products, services, and practices across all value chain
activities and the four dimensions of service management.

 Engage:
 The purpose of the engage value chain activity is to provide a good
understanding of stakeholder needs, transparency, and continual engagement
and good relationships with all stakeholders.

 Design and transition:

 The purpose of the design and transition value chain activity is to ensure that
products and services continually meet stakeholder expectations for quality,
costs, and time to market.

 Obtain and build:

 The purpose of the obtain/build value chain activity is to ensure that service
components are available when and where they are needed, and meet agreed
specifications.

 Deliver and support:

 The purpose of the deliver and support value chain activity is to ensure that
services are delivered and supported according to agreed specifications and
stakeholders’ expectations.

The SVC can be used for mapping value streams.

Practices include specific sequence of SVC activities.
The SVC is universally applicable.

 Practices:
 A practice is a set of organizational resources designed for performing work or
accomplishing an objective.

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ITIL 4 Foundation

Chapter 5: ITIL Management Services

 Practices:
 A practice is a set of organizational resources designed for performing work or
accomplishing an objective.

 ITIL SVS includes:

1. General Management Practices
a. Continual improvement
b. Information security management
c. Supplier management

2. Service Management Practices

a. Change enablement
b. Incident management
c. Problem management
d. Service desk
e. Service level management
f. Service request management
g. IT asset management
h. Monitoring and event management
i. Release management
j. Service configuration management

3. Technical management practices

a. Deployment management
b. Infrastructure and platform management
c. Software development and management

In ITIL, a management practice is a set of organizational resources designed for

performing work or accomplishing an objective. The origins of the practices are as
follows:
o General management practices have been adopted and adapted for service
management from general business management domains.
o Service management practices have been developed in service management
and ITSM industries.
o Technical management practices have been adapted from technology
management domains for service management purposes by expanding or
shifting their focus from technology solutions to IT services.

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 Continual improvement practice:

 Purpose:
o The purpose of the continual improvement practice is to align the
organization’s practices and services with changing business needs
through the ongoing improvement of products, services, and practices,
or any element involved in the management of products and services
 Continual improvement happens everywhere in the organization (SVS, SVC,
practices)
 Ideas need to be reprioritized when new ones are added.
 It is responsibility of everyone.
 Organizations may have a continual improvement team for better
coordination.
 All 4-dimentions need to be considered during any improvement initiatives.

 Change enablement practice:

 Purpose:
o Maximizing the number of successful changes through proper risk
assessment and minimize the negative impact of failed changes.
 Types:
o Standard:
1) Pre-authorized, low risk, low cost, basically initiated as service
requests or operational changes.
o Normal:
1) Authorization depends on what kind of change it is. Goes
through the normal change workflow
o Emergency:
1) Needs rapid action and may have a separate change authority.

 Change:
 The addition, modification, and removal of something that could have a direct
or indirect effect on services.

 Incident Management practice:

 Purpose:
o Minimize negative impact of incidents by restoring normal operation
as soon as possible.
 Every incident must be logged, prioritized and managed through their
lifecycle.

 Problem Management practice:

 Purpose:
o Reduce likelihood of recurring incidents by identifying root cause and
eliminating those.

 Incident:

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 An unplanned interruption to a service or reduction in the quality of a service.

Uses same categorization as problem tickets. Swarming may help with
complex issues.

 Major Incident:
 Need a separate procedure. Swarming can be used for quicker solutions. (Like
huge incidents and needs to be resolved ASAP)

 Problem:
 Unknow cause or potential cause of one or more incidents.

 Known error:
 A problem with a known root of cause but no solution yet.

 Workaround:
 alternate solution, reducing the impact of the problem.

 Phases:
 Problem identification  Problem control  Error control

 Service desk practice:

 Purpose:
o To capture demand for incident resolution and service requests. It
should also be the entry point and single point of contact for the
service provider with all of its users.

 Channels:
o Email, phone, chat, self-service, text messaging and forums.

 Skills:
1) Incident analysis and prioritization
2) Effective communication
3) Emotional intelligence
4) Excellent customer service skills

 Service Level Management practice:

 Purpose:
o to set clear business-based targets for service levels, and to ensure that
delivery of services is properly assessed, monitored, and managed
against these targets.

 SLA (Service Level Agreement):

 A documented agreement between a service provider and a customer that
identifies both services required and the expected level of service.

 OLA (Operation Level Agreement):

 An agreement between different units of the same organization.

 UC (Unpinning Contract):

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 An agreement between service provider and external supplier.

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 Recommendation:
 All agreements must have:
1) Clear language, no jargon (No abbreviation)
2) Simply written, easy to understand
3) Should relate to defined outcome
4) Listen actively to customer needs

 Service request management practice:

 Purpose:
o to support the agreed quality of a service by handling all pre-defined,
user-initiated service requests in an effective and user-friendly manner.

 Service Request:
 A request from a user or a user’s authorized representative that initiates a
service action which has been agreed as a normal part of service delivery.
(e.g., information, advice, how-to questions)

Steps to fulfil requests should be well known for both simple and complex
request.

When defining new workflows, try to reuse the already existed ones.

User expectation must be managed in regards of what can be delivered.

 Information Security Management practice:

 Purpose:
o To protect the information needed by the organization to conduct its
business.
 Ensure appropriate levels of:
1) Confidentiality
2) Integrity
3) Availability
4) Authentication (ensuring someone is who they claim to be)
5) Non-repudiation (ensuring that someone can’t deny that they
took an action)

 Relationship management practice:

 Purpose:
o To establish and nurture the links between the organization and its
stakeholders at strategic and tactical levels.

 It includes the identification, analysis, monitoring, and continual

improvement of relationships with and between stakeholders.

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 Supplier Management practice:

 Purpose:
o to ensure that the organization’s suppliers and their performances are
managed appropriately to support the seamless provision of quality
products and services.

 Agreements and contracts are made in the form of UCs.

 IT Asset Management practice:

 Purpose:
o to plan and manage the full lifecycle of all IT assets, to help the
organization:
1) Maximize value
2) Control costs
3) Manage risks
4) support decision-making about purchase, re-use, retirement,
and disposal of assets
5) meet regulatory and contractual requirements

 IT Asset:
 Any financially valuable component that can be contributed to the delivery of
an IT product or service.

 Monitoring and Event Management practice:

 Purpose:
o To systematically observe services and service components, and record
and report selected changes of state identified as events.

o Identifies these events, categorizes them and establishes standard of

resources.

 Event:
 Any change of state that has significance for the management of a service or
other configuration item (CI) or service.

 Event Types:
 Informational, warning, exception

 Release Management practice:

 Purpose:
o To make a new and changed services and features available for use.

 Release:
 A version of a service or other configuration item, or a collection of items that
is made available for use.

Release have been disconnected from deployment with canary/dark

release.

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 Service Configuration Management practice:

 Purpose:
o to ensure that accurate and reliable information about the configuration
of services, and the CIs that support them, is available when and where
it is needed. This includes information on how CIs are configured and
the relationships between them.

 Configuration Item (CI):

 Any component that needs to be manged in order to deliver an IT service.

 Configuration Management Database (CMDB):

 A database or collection of databases holding CIs and their connections.

 Configuration Management System (CMS):

 A set of tools, data, and information that is used to support service
configuration management.
 A frontend/user interface for CMDB.

 Deployment Management practice:

 Purpose:
o To move new or changed hardware, software, documentation,
processes, or any other component to live environments. It may also be
involved in deploying components to other environments for testing or
staging.
 E.g., DEV  QA  PROD

With the help of DevOps, we can reach continual delivery, where developers
build the change in DEV, which automatically tested and moved to the next
environment until it arrives in PROD.

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