All About ITIL 4 Practices – Updates, Practices and Benefits

Sophia Ellis 02 September 2022

This blog has all you need to know about ITIL 4 Practices, including its components, updates, areas of management and certification levels. Read more!

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All About ITIL 4 Practices – Updates, Practices and Benefits

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All about ITIL4

The ITIL or the Information Systems Infrastructure Library is a framework that helps in managing IT services. The framework provides best practices to enhance the IT deliverables. ITIL can help businesses manage risks, set up cost-cutting practices, build customer relationships, and stabilise their IT environment.

In 1980s, the UK government acknowledged the need for standard IT practices due to the increasing popularity of IT. That led to the development of a process model that would help organisations better control and manage operations. There have been multiple revisions of the ITIL framework over time. The latest update was released in 2009 with the launch of ITIL version 4.

ITIL addresses all the standard procedures, checklists, processes, and tasks that can be utilised by companies to build strategies, competency, and deliver value in the market. With ITIL, companies are able to build a strong foundation to start planning, implementing, and measuring value. The framework increases collaboration and establishes standards for measurement.

ITIL is owned by AXELOS.

Table of Contents

1) What is ITIL 4?

2) What are the Components of ITIL 4?

3) Let’s Talk About the ITIL 4 Areas of Management

a) General Management Practices

b) Service Management Practices

c) Technical Management Practices

4) What are the ITIL 4 Certification Levels?

5) Conclusion

What is ITIL 4?

ITIL 4 was released as an update to ITIL 3 that was launched in 2007. It helps companies adapt to the recent development in IT and software development.

ITIL 4’s main focus is to establish an end-to-end management practice, turning demand into value. It serves as an adept response to frameworks like FitSM, SIAM^®, and VeriSM™. Service Management Practices like ITSM vs ITIL have been developed in IT service management industries. They are applicable to services being deployed, developed, supported, and delivered in an organisation.

It also includes best practices to work with Agile, Lean, and DevOps.

What are the Components of ITIL 4?

There are two important components of ITIL 4:

1) Four-dimensional Model

2) Service Value System or SVS

Let’s talk about each of them in more detail.

Four-Dimensional Model

The four-dimensional model defines four dimensions that are important to implement a comprehensive service management practice:

1) People and organisations

2) Information and technology

3) Suppliers and partners

4) Processes and value streams

Service Value System (SVS)

The ITIL 4 service value system offers few elements:

1) Governance

2) Guiding principles

3) Continual improvement

4) Service value chain

5) Practices

Register for our ITIL Certification today to get started on your journey towards becoming an ITIL Specialist!

Let’s Talk About the ITIL 4 Areas of Management

The previous ITIL versions focused on processes. ITIL 4 focuses on practices. These practices are spread over three areas of management:

1) General Management Practices

These practices have been adopted from domains of general business management and are applicable for organisations for success in business and services

2) Service Management Practices

These practices have been developed in IT service management industries and are applicable for services being deployed, developed, supported, and delivered in an organisation

3) Technical Management Practices

These practices have been adopted from technology management domains and are applicable for service management

Let’s discuss these further.

General Management Practices

S.No.	Practice	Objective
1	Architecture management	Helps understand how different elements come together to make an organisation and how they are affiliated to each other, helping the organisation achieve all its objectives. It also provides the standards, tools, and principles needed by an organisation to deal with changes in an agile and structured way.
2	Continual improvement	Helps identify and improve services, practices, service components, or any other elements used to efficiently and effectively manage products and services. It makes sure the organisation’s services and practices are aligned with changing needs of the business.
3	Information security management	Helps protect the information required by the organisation to do business. It would include managing and understanding risk towards integrity, availability, and confidentiality of data and all other aspects of information security.
4	Knowledge management	Helps improve and maintain the efficient, convenient, and effective use of knowledge and information in the organisation.
5	Measuring & reporting	Helps in making good decisions by lowering the uncertainty levels. This is done by collecting important data on several objects and assessing this data in the right context.
6	Organisational change management	Helps ensure the smooth implementation of change in an organisation. It also helps manage the human aspects to make sure the benefits last.
7	Portfolio management	Helps make sure the organisation contains the right blend of products, services, projects, and programs so it is able to implement strategies while staying within the resource and budget constraints.
8	Project management	Helps make sure the projects are delivered successfully. It makes sure all aspects of a project are planned, delegated, monitored, and controlled.
9	Relationship management	Helps nurture and establish the relationship between the company and stakeholders at all levels. This is done by identifying, analysing, monitoring, and continuously improving relationships with the stakeholders.
10	Risk management	Helps the organisation understand and effectively handle risks. It is crucial to keep the organisation sustainable and valuable for the customers.
11	Service financial management	Helps the organisation implement plans and strategies for service management. This is achieved by making sure that all of the organisation’s financial investments and resources are used effectively.
12	Strategy management	Helps map out the organisation goals and take the appropriate course of action (including the allocation of resources) required to achieve the goals. This practice helps formulate a direction for the organisation, defines priorities, centres effort, and provides guidance according to the environment.
13	Supplier management	Helps manage the suppliers of the organisation appropriately so there is a consistent flow of quality services and products. It also develops highly collaborative relationships with important suppliers to discern new found value while reducing risks of failure.
14	Workforce & talent management	Helps support the organisation’s business objectives by making sure the right people are hired. This is done by properly recruiting, planning, onboarding, learning, measuring, and succession planning.

Service Management Practices

S.No.	Practice	Objective
1	Availability management	Helps make sure that all the services offered by the organisation are able to deliver the level of availability required by the users and customers.
2	Business analysis	Helps analyse a business to define the needs associated with it and the solutions needed to address the needs. It also includes solving business problems and creating value for stakeholders.
3	Capacity & performance management	Helps achieve the expected performance for services that effectively satisfies the demands.
4	Change enablement	Helps maximise successful IT changes. This is achieved by assessing risks, managing change schedule, and authorising the changes.
5	Incident management	Helps lower the negative impact incidents can have by reinstating service operations as soon as possible.
6	IT asset management	Helps manage and plan the lifecycle of IT assets. This helps maximise value, manage risks, control costs, support decision-making, meet contractual needs, and reuse and retire assets.
7	Monitoring & event management	Helps observe service components and services in a systematic way, and report and record events. This is achieved by prioritising and identifying services, infrastructure, information security events, and business processes. The practice also helps in starting appropriate responses for the events.
8	Problem management	Helps lower the impact and chances of incidents. This is achieved by identifying causes of incidents and managing solutions.
9	Release management	Helps release changed and new features and services.
10	Service catalogue management	Helps create a specific source of constant information on all service offerings and makes sure that the information is available to the appropriate audience.
11	Service configuration management	Helps make reliable and accurate information available. This could be about the configuration services, the items that support them, how the items are configured, and the relationship between the items.
12	Service continuity management	Helps maintain the performance and availability of a service at sufficient levels in case of a disaster. It also provides a structure to build resilience in the organisation, along with building the capability to produce efficient responses that can secure the interests of stakeholders. This would also include upholding the organisation’s brand value, reputation, and activities.
13	Service design	Helps design services and products that can be easily delivered by the company and its ecosystem, and to make sure they are fit to use and fit for purpose.
14	Service desk	Helps apprehend the demand for service requests and incident resolutions. It also serves as the single point of contact with users for service providers.
15	Service level management	Helps appropriately assess, monitor, and manage delivery of services against set targets. This is done by clearly defining business targets for performance.
16	Service request management	Helps effectively manage user-initiated requests so that the required service quality can be maintained.
17	Service validation & testing	Helps products and service meet requirements. This is done by defining the service values according to customer feedback, business goals, and requirements stated in the regulations. The feedback establishes performance indicators and measurable quality.

Technical Management Practices

S.No.	Practice	Objective
1	Deployment management	Helps move components like software, hardware, processes, documentation, etc. To live environments. It also helps deploy components in other environments for staging or testing.
2	Infrastructure & platform management	Helps supervise the platforms and infrastructure used by the organisation. This helps monitor technology solutions.
3	Software development & management	Helps make sure the applications are meeting the needs of both the external and internal stakeholders. This would include all aspects like reliability, functionality, auditability, maintainability, and compliance.

What are the ITIL 4 Certification Levels?

ITIL 4 introduced a well-organised certification scheme. The ITIL 4 Foundation is the beginner level ITIL 4 certification just like in ITIL V3. Once you’ve passed the Foundation level, you get the option to choose from three different streams – ITIL 4 Managing Professional, ITIL 4 Strategic Leader, and ITIL 4 Extension Modules.

ITIL 4 Managing Professional

The ITIL 4 Managing Professional certifications will help you validate your skills in running successful IT products and services. There are four modules under this stream:

A ) ITIL 4 Specialist: Create, Deliver and Support – Learn how to create an IT strategy using ITIL methods

B) ITIL 4 Specialist: Drive Stakeholder Value – Learn how to engage your users, suppliers, partners, and customers

C) ITIL 4 Specialist: High-velocity IT – Learn how to take your organisation through high-velocity environments

D) ITIL 4 Strategist: Direct, Plan and Improve – Learn how to define IT strategies using ITIL methods

ITIL 4 Strategic Leader

The ITIL 4 Strategic Leader certifications will help you validate your knowledge of the digital era and digital transformation. There are two modules under this stream:

A) ITIL 4 Strategist: Direct, Plan and Improve – Learn how to define an IT strategy using ITIL methods

B) ITIL 4 Leader: Digital and IT Strategy – Learn how to create digital strategies according to your business objectives

ITIL 4 Extension Modules

The ITIL 4 Extension Modules certifications will help you extend your knowledge and skills required for the future. There are two modules under this stream:

A) ITIL 4 Specialist: Sustainability in Digital & IT – Learn how to manage the impact of digital services on the environment using ITIL methods

B) ITIL 4 Specialist: Acquiring & Managing Cloud Services – Learn how to support business functions and strategy using cloud technology

Conclusion

In conclusion, ITIL 4 Practice is a dynamic field that demands ongoing commitment to education and professional development. For ITIL certified professionals, the journey doesn't end with obtaining certifications; instead, it continues through processes like ITIL Certification Renewal.

Start with ITIL v4 and learn all the basics of it with ITIL® 4 Foundation Certification Training Course.