Beyond ITIL – Alternative ITSM Frameworks and Their Differentiation

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In modern IT Service Management, teams rely on frameworks that provide the appropriate processes and tools to define, set up, deliver, and continuously optimize their services. In this context, the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL for short, is the most popular and widespread approach that has virtually established itself as the standard in ITSM.

This is no coincidence. ITIL provides teams with both structure and flexibility and is constantly being adapted by developers to meet the changing needs and conditions in IT-driven organizations - and what organization today is not IT-driven?

However, several other frameworks, some competing, some complementary, also output the goal of equipping ITSM teams with systematic practices and workflows. We want to comprehensively present four of them here and include the main differences to ITIL.

FitSM - lean and focused on core processes

FitSM is a comparatively lightweight, straightforward IT Service Management approach focusing on operations. While the comprehensive ITIL framework focuses on the entire value chain, FitSM focuses on the actual core processes of IT service management.

In particular, the framework defines those processes that are important and relevant when introducing ITSM. More far-reaching and related practices, such as those that incorporate project management approaches or are aimed at establishing an overarching Enterprise Service Management, are only given marginal consideration in FitSM and are broadly summarized.

Accordingly, the number of practices described is smaller than in comparable frameworks such as ITIL. This, in turn, makes it relatively easy to adapt basic service management practices, which is why many ITSM teams fall back on the ideas and suggestions from FitSM, particularly in the initial stages, before the service concept is scaled up further later if necessary with the help of ITIL.

COBIT - Processes for organizations with comprehensive compliance requirements

COBIT is a framework that - similar to ITIL in earlier versions - is strongly process-oriented. The acronym stands for Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology. The approach is developed by ISACA, a global association of IT auditors, and it has a clear auditing background.

The focus is on controlling IT from an organizational perspective: the company defines IT objectives based on organizational goals. The processes, measurement, and control are meticulously formulated in the strongly process-oriented COBIT concept.

In this respect, COBIT is a top-down approach that focuses on ensuring and adhering to compliance guidelines: The organization dictates how IT must support business processes and goals. Conversely, ITIL tends to work out of the ITSM teams themselves and into the organization.

Business Process Framework - other companies and external end customers as additional layers

The Business Process Framework (formerly eTOM) was developed to describe and establish reference processes for telecommunications organizations. The background is that (cross-company) process chains, at the end of which is the delivery of a service to end customers, naturally require the exchange of data, among other things.

This, therefore, involves providing services across several companies with an external customer as the end station. In this context, the Business Process Framework describes processes and data models for all detailed processes. This is intended to help organizations build a tool infrastructure that supports easy cross-company data exchange.

Given these characteristics, the Business Process Framework can be seen as a supplement or extension to ITSM frameworks such as ITIL, adding the layer of cross-organizational (data-driven) collaboration and the layer of the end customer.

CMMI - an architecture of organizational maturity

The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) was developed to support the development, deployment, and management of (IT) systems and products on a process level. CMMI consists of best practices for establishing, testing and improving organizational processes in product and system development. For each practice, specific capability levels are described that teams can achieve.

Finally, five defined and verifiable organizational maturity levels are based on these, intended to motivate the company to adapt and improve its processes permanently. The maturity levels indicate the areas where the need for action and optimization is particularly urgent.

Although CMMI, as mentioned above, is aimed at developing and managing systems and software, the approach is also gaining increasing attention as an ITSM framework - primarily in integrating CMMI and ITIL. Here, ITIL's structural contents are embedded in CMMI's architecture.

So which ITSM framework is the right one?

The framework from which a company or an individual ITSM team can derive the greatest benefit and profit for itself and its customers depends on many unanswered questions and the intention of the ITSM efforts. Does the team want to establish comprehensive IT service management that incorporates DevOps and Agile practices and provides all the capabilities for ESM scaling? In that case, ITIL is undoubtedly the most powerful yet flexible framework available.

Or is a good, effective core implementation the main goal? Does the organization operate in a highly regulated environment and does it need to meet numerous internal and/or external compliance constraints? Are services primarily provided to external customers? What is the role of data sharing with other organizations? Should IT development and service management share a common architectural foundation?

The answers that a specific company provides here will ultimately lead to the most suitable solution approach. But whichever ITSM framework is used, it will only work with software support.

Atlassian Tools for ITSM Teams

Teams need powerful and feature-rich tools that can digitally map as many practices as possible that the common ITSM frameworks provide for - from ticket-based helpdesk with individual workflows to service level agreements and systematic service request management to extensive automation.

Among other things, Jira Service Management from Atlassian has official certification as a PinkVERIFY Certified ITIL 4 toolset and thus fulfills all functional requirements for professional ITSM.

Further Reading

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