What are the different ITIL processes? The complete guide

Are ITIL processes the best basis for structuring and framing the activities of your IT departments?

If this set of standards has been adopted and deployed in many countries over the years, it's because of its proven effectiveness and adaptability. What's more, the model is constantly evolving, in line with market realities and new practices such as Agile.

So how can ITIL help you optimize your ITSM? To find out, discover what the Information Technology Infrastructure Library is, what its objectives are, and what key principles are included in each of its versions (ITIL V2, ITIL V3 and ITIL V4).

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What is an ITIL process?

ITIL processes: definition

ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) processes are a collection of best practices designed to improve IT service management (ITSM).

Initially written by experts from the British Office of Government Commerce in the late 1980s, its influence spread throughout Europe in the 1990s, before reaching the United States.

☝️ ITIL is constantly evolving, and new versions have been published over the years (ITIL V2, ITIL V3 and then ITILV4) to ensure that the procedures laid down are adapted to changes in IT service management and the corporate environment in which they operate.

Why use ITIL?

The objectives of the ITIL framework are numerous. Among other things, it contributes to :

• organize information systems efficiently;
• optimize IT service management by structuring processes;
• save teams time, thanks to a tried-and-tested framework;
• put customers and users at the heart of the action;
• improve communication with customers and suppliers;
• manage and anticipate IT risks;
• enable traceability and better monitoring of IT department actions;
• make their activities part of a continuous improvement process.

Ultimately, ITIL processes contribute to increasing the overall quality of IT services, and therefore customer and user satisfaction, by means of internationally established and adopted standards.

ITIL V2 processes

☝️ Please note that we won't be dwelling on the first version of ITIL (in force from 1986 to 1999), as it was V2 that really established the standard.

ITIL V2, in force until 2007, comprises several guides, but 2 in particular have contributed to its notoriety and deployment:

Service Support

Customers and users are the source of change requests, malfunction reports and upgrade requirements. This guide explains how to ensure they have access to the right IT services.

It includes the following elements:

• The Service Desk,
• Incident Management,
• Problem Management,
• Change Management,
• Release Management,
• Configuration Management.

Service Delivery

This book details the services that need to be delivered to companies in order to effectively meet their needs.

It includes the following elements:

• IT Financial Management,
• Capacity Management,
• Availability Management,
• IT Continuity Management,
• Service Level Agreement/ Service Level Management.

Other ITIL V2 guides

ITIL V2 also contains 6 other guides which, as mentioned above, have contributed less to its reputation. Nevertheless, it is worth revisiting them to understand how ITIL processes have evolved over time:

• ICT Infrastructure Management: best practices for the design and management of an IT infrastructure, as well as the hardware and software involved.
  
  
• Security Management: the management and control of corporate security at all levels (confidentiality, data integrity, etc.).
  
  
• Application Management: the interaction between application management and service management.
  
  
• Software Asset Management: management of software assets throughout their entire lifecycle: legal security, budget, planning, support, etc.
  
  
• Service Management Implementation Planning: aligning business needs with the integration of IT supplies.
  
  
• Small-scale implementation: deploying the ITIL framework within smaller IT departments.

ITIL V3 processes

Published in 2007, ITIL V3 now consists of 6 books. The repository now focuses on the service lifecycle, integrating two major evolutions:

• processes involve the satisfaction of business services,
• ITIL V3 takes this cross-functional view of IT service management into account.

In other words, where ITIL V2 focused more on processes, ITIL V3 takes greater account of the alignment of IT services with global objectives and corporate strategy.

Differences between ITIL V2 and ITIL V3 :

Source: Freshservice

Let's take a closer look at the books that make up ITIL V3.

☝️ Note that the first of the 6 guides, which we won't go into here, is an official introduction to ITIL and the service lifecycle.

Service Strategy

The aim of Service Strategy is to increase the value produced by IT services, by working to align them with overall corporate strategy and business needs.

It comprises the following processes:

• Strategy Generation: establishing a strategy based on the market and the competition.
  
  
• Service Portfolio Management: implement a service portfolio that meets customer and user needs, as well as corporate objectives.
  
  
• Financial Management: manage budgets and optimize service-related costs.
  
  
• Demand Management: anticipate and understand the needs and demands of customers and users, then respond appropriately.
  
  
• Business Relationship Management: maintaining a good relationship with the customer, based on trust.

Service Design

This guide focuses on the design phase of new services (but also on the evolution of existing services) right through to production.

It includes the following processes:

• Coordination and design: coordinate all the processes and elements making up the IT service (technology, architectures, etc.).
  
  
• Service catalog management: produce a service catalog and keep information on the various services up to date.
  
  
• Service level management: match the specifics, requirements and resources associated with a specific service level.
  
  
• Availability management: maintain a sufficient level of service to respond effectively to any request.
  
  
• Capacity management: ensuring that available resources, whether human or technical, can meet the company's objectives within budget and time constraints.
  
  

• Business Continuity Management (BCM ): to support service continuity in the event of an incident, in particular by means of a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP).
  
  
• Information security management: deploy resources to guarantee the security, confidentiality and availability of information.
  
  
• Supplier management: manage supplier contracts and ensure they meet the company's needs.

Service Transition

Service Transition describes best practices for ensuring that changes to IT services are carried out properly.

It includes the following processes:

• Transition Planning and Support: organizing changes to services or the creation of new services.
  
  
• Change Management: examine changes and limit their negative impact.
  
  
• Service Asset and Configuration Management: control assets and ensure the accuracy and availability of related information.
  
  
• Release and Deployment Management: ensure the proper deployment of releases, particularly from a hardware point of view.
  
  
• Service Validation and Testing: testing to ensure that elements released to production meet customer and user expectations.
  
  
• Change Evaluation: assess all the impacts of change.
  
  
• Knowledge Management: collect, store and share knowledge for continuous improvement and adaptation.

Service Operation

This guide covers best practices for delivering services in line with end-users' and customers' needs, while taking problem resolution into account.

It includes the following processes:

• Event management: categorize events (information, warning, exception and alert) and decide on the actions to be taken for each of them.
  
  
• Incident management: mitigate incidents to restore optimal service levels.
  
  
• Request execution: manage the lifecycle of user requests (changes, requests for information, etc.).
  
  
• Problem management: understand the causes of incidents, minimize their impact and prevent them.
  
  
• Access management: organize access rights according to user profiles.
  
  

• Technical infrastructure management: provide high-performance infrastructure and technical support.
  
  
• IT operations management: monitor operations, in particular the proper execution of day-to-day tasks.
  
  
• Application management: manage the application lifecycle as part of a continuous improvement approach.

Continual Service Improvement

This last book aims to help IT departments adopt a continuous improvement approach:

• Has the company correctly adopted the ITIL framework?
• Have departments deployed the right processes and achieved their objectives?
• Is the alignment with business needs and their evolution respected?
• Are costs under control?

To support ITSM in this respect, ITIL V3 offers several application techniques:

• defining the scope of activity to be analyzed,
• gathering the necessary data,
• data processing and analysis,
• deployment of areas for improvement and corrective action, etc.

💡 Analysis methods, such as the PDCA cycle (Plan, Do, Check and Act or Adjust), provide good support for easily identifying the steps to be taken to improve service quality.

☝️ Good to know: if you want to focus on a specific area of improvement to make your services run more smoothly, each of the processes described above can be run independently. However, the various modules are designed to be activated together, particularly when a new service is created.

ITIL V4 processes

Released in 2019, this latest version of ITIL is designed to be more flexible and modern, and therefore better adapted to today's organizations. In particular, it includes the new agile and devops practices.

How do we do this? By relying on :

• a service value system,
• and a 4-dimensional model.

The ITIL V4 service value system

The ITIL V4 value system is based on 7 guiding principles, or recommendations, to be observed throughout IT service activities:

1. focus on value ;
2. start from where you are;
3. progress iteratively, allowing for feedback;
4. collaborate transparently;
5. think and work holistically;
6. strive for simplicity and practicality;
7. optimize and automate to the maximum.

The 4-dimensional model

The second pillar of ITIL 4 is the 4 dimensions, which can be likened to the 4 Ps (People, Products, Partners and Processes).

We recommend that you consider each of these components throughout the course of your activities, in order to respect the SVS (Service Value System) as closely as possible.

• Organizations and people: understand your contribution to the SVS and integrate it into your day-to-day operations.
  
  
• Information and technology: intelligently and securely manage information linked to constantly evolving technologies (artificial intelligence, cloud computing, blockchain, etc.).
  
  
• Partners and suppliers: ensure that the use of partners and suppliers creates value, and define the right levels of dependency according to the company's constraints (availability of resources, budgets, corporate culture, etc.).
  
  
• Value chains and processes: determine which process-related value flows lead to the best product or service realization.

How can ITIL be integrated into my company?

For companies wishing to adopt the standard, there are numerous ITIL training courses available, as well as individual certifications provided by accredited organizations. By way of illustration, ITIL V3 certification has 5 different levels:

• ITIL Foundation,
• ITIL Practitioner,
• ITIL Intermediate,
• ITIL Expert,
• ITIL Master.

But while the ITIL approach is defined as a guide listing a set of best practices, it does not provide the technical means to achieve its objectives.

That's why we recommend using a number of tools in parallel. One example is Freshservice. A modern Service Desk software (using AI to manage IT incidents in an automated way), it is based on ITIL principles to deliver quality customer service.

See all software IT Service Management (ITSM)

The limits of ITIL?

While ITIL is a solid foundation for ITSM, it does not stand alone. Many experts recommend using it in conjunction with other tools and methodologies to manage IT service operations.

Ultimately, ITIL offers a structured, competitive framework. It's up to each company to adapt it to its own needs and organization.

How do you use ITIL? Let us know in the comments.