Practical adaptations of ITIL 4

Almost 3 years have passed since the announcement of ITIL® 4. It is time to take a first look at how the new ITIL 4 concepts are being adopted and adapted in practice in organisations.

In doing so, I reflect my experiences as a consultant and trainer in discussions with clients and course participants. I would like to look at the development from three perspectives:

 What can ITIL® 4 do better than ITIL v3?

How does ITIL® 4 help to make IT fit for DevOps and SAFe?

Where are there still gaps?

What can ITIL 4 do better than ITIL v3?

I see many IT organisations in which ITIIL® v3 has been introduced in the last 10 years, but has not been lived properly or too rigidly. ITIL® v3 therefore has the reputation of being too theoretical and/or too bureaucratic.

Against this background, ITIL® 4 with its looser practices is seen as more flexible compared to the strict processes of ITIL® v3 and makes it easier to really live the mantra of "adopt and adapt".

The implementation of ITIL as an "misconception" disappears from the minds of managers and employees. Instead, ITIL® 4, with its wealth of ideas and points of connection to other developments, best practices and frameworks, really allows to be used in the way it was always intended: first identify the problems, challenges and improvement options and then address them with the broad solution toolbox of ITIL® 4.

How can ITIL® 4 help make IT fit for DevOps and SAFe?

Many companies that have been developing agile software for a long time are now looking to extend the benefits of agility into other areas with the help of DevOps and SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework). But sometimes they go a little too far. Thanks to cloud, AI and automation, they want to go straight to "NoOps".

Unfortunately, the result is often unstable operating environments, loss of a common language between Dev and Ops and thus the emergence of new "culture wars" in IT.

ITIL® 4 can help here. For die-hard DevOps engineers and supporters of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), ITIL® may still have the reputation of a bureaucracy monster, but those who take a closer look realise that the open approach of ITIL® 4 allows necessary elements to be introduced that DevOps often neglects.

The following graphic illustrates the connections:

In essence, DevOps (grey area) is geared towards delivering new functionalities to customers quickly and in high quality. Classic ITIL topics such as configuration, change, release and problem management are covered.

However, important operational aspects such as IT asset and licence management, governance, supplier management (SIAM), service desk and service level management as well as financial management of IT (purple area) are often forgotten.

Many organisations are now starting to address these shortcomings with ITIL® 4 concepts such as Value Chains and Customer Journeys. Because it is only when you understand that different methodologies need to be intertwined in the DevOps pipeline that you can meaningfully merge Agile, Lean and ITIL® 4.

Where are the gaps?

While many concepts in ITIL 4 are easy to understand and apply - think of the 7 basic principles and the 4 dimensions, there is one concept that is still hardly used and where I expect clarification from Axelos/Peoplecert: The Service Value Chain with its 6 activities. I have not seen any use cases in this area and recommend using the simpler concept of value stream mapping from Lean.

Conclusion: ITIL 4 is successfully on its way and is rapidly finding more users. The publication of the last ITIL 4 book 'Digital and IT Strategy' 10 months ago is now helping to improve the embedding of Agile, DevOps and Service Management into the business strategy. Here, too, the first use cases are already emerging.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)