ITIL comes up in most IT job postings, calls for tender and support tool presentations. But what is ITIL, exactly? The term refers to a set of best practices for IT service management (ITSM), used by IT departments to organize their support, their processes and their relationship with users and service customers. This guide covers the essentials: its definition, its versions, its fundamentals, the most widely used ITIL processes and how to apply them day to day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ITIL stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library. It is a framework that describes how to design, deliver, operate and improve IT services for users, business units and every customer of the organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ITIL is neither a standard nor a piece of software. Unlike standards, it cannot be used to certify an organization, and it does not tell you which tool to use. Instead, it offers a common vocabulary, principles and practices that each organization adapts to its size and its challenges. That explains how widely it has spread: a technician, a support manager and a supplier speak the same language when they talk about an incident, a problem or a change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two terms are often confused. ITSM (IT Service Management) is the discipline: managing IT services in the broad sense, in other words the way an organization designs and delivers IT services to its users. ITIL is a framework that describes how to put it into practice. In short, ITSM is the \u201cwhat\u201d, and ITIL is one way of handling the \u201chow\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is why people often talk about an ITIL-based ITSM approach: IT service management organized according to the framework's practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ITIL is not the only framework. COBIT, published by ISACA, focuses on IT governance, and the ISO\/IEC 20000 standard is used to certify a service management system. These frameworks often complement each other: an organization can rely on ITIL for its practices and aim for ISO\/IEC 20000 certification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ITIL was created in the late 1980s in the United Kingdom by the CCTA, a government agency tasked with improving the quality of IT services across public administration. It has since evolved through several versions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ITIL 4 remains widely used during the transition. Most of the concepts below come from ITIL 4, on which ITIL (Version 5) is built. The shift from a service lifecycle approach to a value-based approach is one of the major changes between ITIL v3 and ITIL 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three concepts form the fundamentals of ITIL 4: the service value system, the four dimensions and the seven guiding principles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since ITIL 4, the framework starts from a simple idea: an IT service is only worthwhile if it creates value for the people who use it. ITIL talks about value co-creation between the service provider and its customers, whether internal (a business unit, employees) or external. The service value system (SVS) describes how the components of an organization (guiding principles, governance, service value chain, practices, continual improvement) work together to turn demand into value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the heart of this system, the service value chain brings together six activities: plan, improve, engage (involve stakeholders), design and transition, obtain\/build, and deliver and support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ITIL encourages you to look at every service from four angles:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Neglecting one dimension weakens the service: a good tool won't make up for poorly defined roles, and a skilled team will still be held back by a poorly managed supplier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ITIL 4 sets out seven principles that guide decision-making in a wide range of contexts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ITIL 4 describes 34 practices, split between general management, service management and technical management. In everyday language, people still often talk about ITIL processes. Not all of these practices are needed from day one. For an IT department, a handful of them form the foundation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The distinction between an incident and a problem is one of the most important in ITIL. The incident is the effect, which you want to fix quickly. The problem is the cause, which you want to resolve for good. Ten \u201cprinter jammed\u201d tickets are ten incidents, but they may point to a single problem: a faulty driver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ITIL also has its limits. Applied to the letter, it can weigh down a small team and create a risk of bureaucracy. ITIL itself recommends adapting it: start with the practices that address your current pain points, often incident and request management, then expand gradually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Implementing ITIL is an organizational project before it is a tool project. Here are the most common steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ITIL practices aren't limited to the IT department. HR, facilities and accounting teams also receive requests, have deadlines to meet and incidents to deal with: onboarding a new employee, creating a badge, repairing an office. Applying the same principles to these teams (service catalog, request management, service levels, knowledge base) is known as enterprise service management (ESM). ITIL 4 moves in this direction by presenting its practices as service management practices in the broad sense, not just IT practices. For users, the benefit is a single portal for all their requests. For the organization, it's a way to share the same methods and indicators across departments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once your organization is defined, a tool that structures day-to-day work helps you apply these practices over time. GLPI is built on ITIL practices and brings service management and IT asset inventory together in a single solution, for the IT department as well as the rest of the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GLPI is free and open source software: using it requires no paid license. A GLPI Network subscription, in the Cloud or on your own servers, is offered through an integrator partner and also provides a contractual guarantee from the publisher. The partner's support on your project is not included in the subscription.<\/p>\n\n\n\n