ITIL® was always the framework of choice for anyone wanted to deliver better IT services to their customers. Over last ten years, we have seen the advent of many other approaches and methodologies like Agile, Devops and so on. Many organizations today want to still use the robustness and proven methodologies of ITIL® and want to utilize agile principles for the challenges of tomorrow.
When ITIL® was last refreshed these popular methodologies were on the horizon with so many others, that it would have been a preposterous approach to simply take anything and everything new and incorporate in to decades of proven processes and guidelines. As I always say the problem of ITIL® over last few years has never been irrelevancy but inadequacy, that means ITIL® is still best at what it addresses but not necessarily complete or comprehensive in the scope of things it addresses. It is evident now that ITIL® will have to work in sync with the new methodologies if it has to keep itself relevant. ITIL®4 aims to do just that. ITIL®4 will now work in sync with agile and other popular methodologies without really losing on the robust framework and great credibility it has already established over last 30 years.
One good thing ITIL®4 does is not to take up everything at once, it acknowledges that IT world is now more complex than it has ever been, and this complexity will only increase over time. That means ITIL®4 has to bring in certain flexibility in to ways of work it recommends. This is achieved by an ingenuity of keeping the management practices as a pool of guidance that can be drawn upon while focusing the real focus on value delivery. The layers and components of Service Value System address this in interesting and useful way. There are still the proven and robust ITIL® processes but now they are ready to be called upon when needed by a certain value focused activity, they are there but ready to be pressed in to action. Till the time we need not bother about those processes and practices existing as a competency of the organization.
This helps to unclutter and simplify the value discussion and still ensures that all the components required for value delivery are still there.The service value system is the main architectural visualization for ITIL®4 which aims to connect demand or opportunity in the market to fulfill that demand and value that is delivered ultimately by fulfilling that demand.
That’s how ITIL®4 builds on what was already there and takes up the challenge of future.