- Introduction
- The Concept of a Service Management Lifecycle
- Service Strategy
- Summary
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The Concept of a Service Management Lifecycle
One of the primary differences between ITIL version 2 and version 3 is that the latest edition focuses on the importance of a service management lifecycle. ITIL defines service management as "a set of specialized organizational capabilities for providing value to customers in the form of services." These capabilities consist of the functions and processes for managing IT services over their lifetime, or what ITIL refers to in version 3 as the service management lifecycle. This service management lifecycle consists of five phases:
- Service strategy
- Service design
- Service transition
- Service operation
- Continual service improvement
Another major difference between the two latest versions of ITIL is the number of infrastructure processes and functions that comprise the framework. The 10 infrastructure processes and the single service desk function of version 2 are overlaid onto the first four of these service lifecycle phases in the new edition. Version 3 also includes 14 additional processes spread across all five of the lifecycle phases, and three new functions included in the service strategy phase. Table 1 quantifies these process and function changes by lifecycle phase.
Table 1 Processes and functions in ITIL version 3.
|
|
Service Strategy |
Service Design |
Service Transition |
Service Operation |
Continual Service Improvement |
Totals |
|
Old processes in v2 |
1 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
0 |
10 |
|
New processes in v3 |
3 |
3 |
4 |
3 |
1 |
14 |
|
Total processes in v3 |
4 |
7 |
7 |
5 |
1 |
24 |
|
Old functions in v2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
|
New functions in v3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
3 |
|
Total functions in v3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
4 |
Table 2 lists the names of these 28 old and new processes and functions, and shows how they’re distributed across the five lifecycle phases. The order of the processes and functions in each column approximate the sequence in which these entities would be executed. Where ITIL version 2 described what was to be done in terms of infrastructure processes and functions, version 3 prescribes how it is to be done.
Table 2 Old and new processes and functions in ITIL version 3.
|
Service Strategy |
Service Design |
Service Transition |
Service Operation |
|
Financial management (old) |
Service level management (old) |
Change management (old) |
Service desk function (old) |
|
Service portfolio management (new) |
Availability management (old) |
Service asset and (old) configuration management |
Incident management (old) |
|
Demand management (new) |
Capacity management (old) |
Release and deployment management (old) |
Problem management (old) |
|
Strategy generation (new) |
IT service continuity management (old) |
Transition planning and support (new) |
Access management (new) |
|
|
Information security management (new) |
Service validation and testing (new) |
Event management (new) |
|
|
Service catalog management (new) |
Evaluation (new) |
Request fulfillment (new) |
|
|
Supplier management (new) |
Knowledge management (new) |
Technical management function (new) |
|
|
|
|
Application management function (new) |
|
|
|
|
IT operations management function (new) |
|
Continual service improvement |
|||
|
Seven-step improvement process (new) |
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