ITIL 2011 - Very Low Key But Not Insignificant

ITIL V3 was launched in the year 2007 in a storm of publicity. It then brought about some deep deliberations (as well as divisions) throughout the IT Service Management community globally. It took more than a year to then develop over to a completely new ITIL training and qualification structure.

ITIL started off life as the IT Infrastructure Library over two decades earlier. This has been the most generally used structure regarding further advancement and deployment of IT Services. At this time there is a broad ITIL coaching and official recognition structure. The essential publications have already been revised many times. Edition 3 in 2007 was pretty elementary - and did not meet with universal standards.

Arranging a brush up together with modify began just about as soon as V3 was published. Understandably wary about the confusion in the year 2007, the newest launch has actually been low key. ITIL 2011 was launched on 29 July. Few people noticed.

The official line is that it is a trivial update. Better uniformity of words, clearer diagrams and more templates. That is all undeniable then again there are some significant alterations.

ITIL V3 is a huge adjustment. It also delivered the Service Management Lifecycle - identifying the full context of IT Service Management and emphasising the delivery of service plan added benefits as a primary factor for the success of modern day businesses. Until now ITIL was greatly arranged around a series of IT centric “Processes”.

The official coaching was in fact written and published as a compilation of publications dealing with 5 levels of the Service Lifecycle. Design, Transition and Operation have been all rather familiar to current ITIL Supervisors. However “Service Strategy” ended up being added in as the central driver with regard to IT solutions. And also “Continuous Service Improvement” was added to stress the importance of review, realignment and upgrading.

ITIL 2011 does not necessarily introduce adjustments to the Lifecycle approach - nonetheless the Service Strategy release has been considerably revised. It had been prior to this quite generally worded and consequently failed to fuse tightly with the various other manuals. This “Strategy Generation” method has been for the most part subsumed within a completely new “Strategy Management” course of action. “Business Relationship Management” will now be mentioned as a course of action in addition to a function. The “Principles” page consists of brand new pages that include “Governance of IT”. There is illustration of the differences and connections relating to “Business” and “IT” plan. Cloud Computing now will get some designated description.

The most apparent element of the other newer publications is that they have grown. Fundamental elements have very little changed however are undoubtedly easier to follow. All of the functions is actually introduced and planned in a far more dependable approach. There exists a frequent Chapter 2 checking out Service Management as a procedure. A table in Chapter 3 of each book provides the inputs/outputs to/from the appropriate section of the lifecycle. There will be regular treatment of procedures using headings which includes Targets, Scope, Results plus Connections. Ambiguities in relation to configuration record, CI, CMS and SKMS have been withdrawn.

An example of the superior graphics concerns the Change Authorisation style in Service Transition. This distinctly clarifies the 5 levels of change authority - Local Authorisation, Change Manager, CAB, IT Management Board or Steering Group, and Business Executive Board.
An illustration of more effective alignment with other best training assistance concerns Information Security Management System - which now lines up nicely with ISO/IEC 27001.

Uniformity with vocabulary is a frequent gripe for individuals who fight every single day to draw in the very best from complementary best practice direction and techniques. There are 55 innovative words and phrases added to the ITIL guide - but 30 taken out. There is certainly much more unison both internally within the ITIL Lifecycle training books - along with terminology used in other best training recommendations.

Risk Management is definitely an area which is quietly re-enforced. ITSM Portal editor, Jan van Bon records the fact that the amount of referrals to “Risk Management” has grown from 97 to 245! Maybe it will qualify as a “Process” in its own right next time round.

ITIL 2011 does not signal any kind of significant alteration of the training and documentation composition. These training and exams will be re-organised to line up with the latest instructions yet the essential system remains. ITIL Foundation will be your mandatory place of accessibility. To attain ITIL Expert it is crucial to accumulate 22 ITIL credits. A long promised practical knowledge established certification, “ITIL Master”, still is in production - expect an announcement in early 2012.

The main ITIL courses that will be concerned are the Service Strategy “Lifecycle” study course as well as the Service Offerings & Agreements “Capability” study course.

Just what exactly is ITIL 2011? It’s not really ground-breaking but it is crucial. Best Practice direction mirrors reality. By simply its essence it has to be upgraded every two years to take account of the changing business surroundings and the experience of major IT Service Management specialists.

ITIL is “guidance”. Keep in mind this is not prescriptive and for that reason clients need to understand what is suitable and important to themselves. To that extent it is not necessarily essential that individuals of ITIL V3 hurry out and obtain a replacement ITIL Lifecycle Collection of text books.

Sensibly, it has been declared how the software development edition release vocabulary (eg V3) shall be avoided from now on. There will simply be mention of the normal routine distribution update versions by way of year of launch.

The Business Analysis Course team at Focus recognise that there is always scope for learning and improvement. Also with their vast experience in Prince2 Courses goes back decades and they have many contacts within the prince2 industry. For additional information contact Rex Gibson on 0845 450 6120 or email enquiries@focus-on-training.co.uk.