ITIL 4 Process Templates

ITIL® 4, the latest edition of the popular service management framework, has now been released, and I'm often asked these days when an updated ITIL 4 edition of our ITIL® Process Map will be available. The problem - or opportunity, depending on how you see it - is that ITIL 4 no longer defines a specific set of processes that we can translate into process templates. But organizations will surely need to define their processes also in the new world of ITIL 4, so in this short video I want to elaborate a bit on how we can provide process templates for ITIL 4.

Let's first recap that ITIL V3 was organized around the service lifecycle and defined 26 processes. These processes could be translated into the process templates that we provide as the "ITIL Process Map". So things were quite straightforward with ITIL V3.

With ITIL 4, the situation is somewhat more complicated, because there are no process definitions. As its authors say, "ITIL 4 takes a holistic approach" and "focuses on end-to-end service management from demand to value".

The key components of the new ITIL 4 are

• The four dimensions model, and
• The ITIL service value system (SVS).

The service value system includes several elements:

• Guiding principles
• Governance
• Service value chain (SVC)
• Practices, and
• Continual improvement.

I cannot explain all of these elements in this short video, but we're going to take a closer look at the ITIL 4 practices, because it is here where we find many familiar processes from ITIL V3, such as

• Continual improvement
• Incident management, or
• Service level management.

At first sight, this collection of practices seems to be an expanded version of the 26 service lifecycle processes in ITIL V3, and one might think organizations are now supposed to implement 34 processes. But that's not the case, because quite a few practices are not processes. Here's an example:

The ITIL 4 practice of organizational change management addresses the human side of change. It's about engaging with all stakeholders affected, to ensure that changes go smoothly. These techniques can be applied in many situations, and most organizations would not treat this as a process.

So not everything contained in ITIL 4 is a process, but of course organizations need to define and implement their processes. Otherwise, how would they function?

Now the question is, can we provide process templates for ITIL 4? I think this is quite possible, because there is still a common set of service management processes that most organizations will need. And for these processes, it's entirely feasible to create templates.

We even have more options now, because ITIL 4 is not prescriptive about processes.

First, we don't necessarily need to dump the ITIL processes. As AXELOS state, the earlier ITIL V3 processes are still valid guidance, and we will continue offering our (ITIL V3 / 2011-based) ITIL Process Map.

Second, ITIL 4 now says we should keep things "simple and practical", so there is now an opportunity for a fresh start, with a leaner set of service management processes. The point is, the processes of an organization should not be difficult to understand, and it should be easy to adapt the processes to the specific needs of the organization.

In fact, we have already started to offer a streamlined set of processes, and we call it the "YaSM® Process Map".

The YaSM model is in tune not only with ITIL, but also with other modern service management frameworks and approaches, such as VeriSM™, FitSM and SIAM®.

The benchmark for the YaSM processes is ISO 20000, the international standard for service management, so YaSM is perfect for organizations that want to get certified against ISO 20000.

And here's what the YaSM process model looks like: We ensured it has a streamlined, clear structure with five service lifecycle processes and a number of supporting service management processes. These processes will certainly look familiar to you if you know any edition of ITIL, or other service management frameworks.

For every YaSM process, we provide detailed templates, so you don't have to start from nothing when defining your service management processes.

If you have another minute or two, I can show you what these templates look like - and how they compare with ITIL.

The first example is incident management. It's a process in ITIL V3 and a practice in ITIL 4.

In the YaSM model we have an incident management process with the typical high-level activities such as

• Resolve major incidents
• Resolve incidents in 1st level support, and
• Resolve incidents in 2nd level support.

For each of these sub-processes, the YaSM model contains an additional level of detail in the form of a swim lane diagram. This one, for example, describes the activities to be performed in 1st level support:

• After an initial analysis,
• they should search the knowledge base,
• match the incident to a problem if possible
• ... and so on ...

This is classical incident management as we know it from ITIL, ISO 20000 and virtually all other service management frameworks.

My second example is service design, a service lifecycle stage in ITIL V3. In ITIL 4, service design is a practice and a key activity in the service value chain.

ITIL V3 says service design is made up of several processes, such as

• design coordination,
• service level management,
• availability management,
• capacity management, and so on.

Service design in ITIL 4 is no longer a web of processes, but a collection of key activities such as

• plan for new or changed services
• produce service requirements and specifications, and
• identify the required service components.

In the YaSM model we translate this guidance into a streamlined service design process. If we zoom in a little you can see that designing a service in YaSM is quite straightforward:

• It involves defining the required service properties,
• designing the required infrastructure,
• outlining the implementation approach and
• preparing the service implementation.

Again, we have an additional level of detail for each sub-process in the form of a swim lane diagram, such as this one, describing the recommended steps for designing the required infrastructure for a service:

• Identify the required infrastructure and other capabilities,
• Specify the required modifications to the technical infrastructure,
• and to the external supporting services,
• ... and so on ...

I hope you will agree that this is much easier to understand than the complex web of service design processes we had in ITIL V3.

So the choice is yours. You can go with the ITIL Process Map for ITIL 2011 or use our streamlined YaSM model.

To learn more about YaSM and the The YaSM Process Map, please visit yasm.com. There you will also find our complete contact details if you want to get in touch with us.

Thanks for watching, and take care!