ITIL – Structure and Flexibility for ITSM Teams

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The modern world of work is more complex than ever, and without functional, powerful, flexible IT, the wheels quickly come to a standstill in any company. Modern IT teams are aware of their great importance for the overall organisation. And that is why they strive to effectively support the company's business processes by offering their services and tasks in the form of standardised, largely automated end-to-end services. The keyword is: IT Service Management, or ITSM for short.

In the transformation towards ITSM, teams can fall back on some supporting approaches and concepts. In this context, the ITIL framework has established itself as a de facto standard that helps to establish ITSM according to a systematic approach.

The acronym ITIL stands for the globally recognised industry standard Information Technology Infrastructure Library - and this is how the framework wants to be understood: as a library from which teams can take knowledge, tools and practices that offer them the best possible support in their individual contexts.

Seven principles as the basis of successful IT Service Management

ITIL thus provides a comprehensive set of tools and practical approaches to support effective and efficient IT Service Management. However, modern ITSM is not simply an alternative approach to the process and task management of an IT team. Rather, the transformation requires a fundamental change in ways of thinking and working.

This is why ITIL initially focuses on seven general principles because ITSM is more than the mere adaptation of certain processes. While processes and methods are constantly changing and being adapted, the principles form the foundation of the concept:

  • Value orientation
  • Start where you are
  • Iterative development with feedback
  • Promoting cooperation and transparency
  • Holistic thinking and working
  • Simplicity and practicability
  • Optimisation and automation

Best practices instead of comprehensively defined processes

In the current version, 4, the ITIL framework focuses on the entire value chain.Since the publication of this latest iteration, the framework explicitly no longer sees itself as a compilation of accurately and extensively defined process templates, but as a relatively open collection of different practices.

ITIL now names a total of 34 best practices, which can be roughly divided into general management practices, service management practices and technical management practices. In contrast to earlier ITIL versions, these are not rigid procedures, but rather approaches and capabilities of a company to successfully manage services, technologies and more comprehensive topics.

ITIL is therefore more open and flexible than ever before and recognises that the adaptation of practices is always also a question of the specific context in which a team operates.

What is a service in the ITIL sense?

So far, so good. But what is actually a service in the sense of ITIL? After all, that is what IT Service Management is about: the development, provision and continuous optimisation of standardised, preferably automated services by the IT teams.

ITIL is clear on this issue: it is about creating customer value. A service is a way to deliver value to customers. The service supports and promotes the achievement of the intended customer goals and relieves the customer of certain risks and costs in the process. And for this, ITIL provides ITSM teams with the tools that fit their specific value chains.

ITIL provides structure - and needs powerful software

ITIL provides a structure for ITSM teams to better align IT goals with the organisation's business goals and to map and optimise the complete lifecycle of their services. In doing so, ITIL moves with the times and has adapted to the changing ways of working of modern IT teams. The advantage of ITIL’s flexibility and openness now makes it accessible to teams that previously shied away from its strong process orientation.

But in order to use the potential of ITIL for IT service management, teams naturally need a powerful and feature-rich software solution, namely a platform that digitally maps as many ITIL practices as possible - from the ticket-based helpdesk with individual workflows to service level agreements and systematic service request management to a comprehensive automation library.

Atlassian's Jira Service Management has official certification as a PinkVERIFY Certified ITIL 4 Toolset and thus fulfills all functional requirements for professional ITSM in accordance with the ITIL framework.

Further Reading

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