Updating The Library – ITIL® 4

As a member of the AXELOS Lead Architect Team where I am involved in the development of the new version of ITIL I want to share some information about the underlying reason for the update of ITIL (ITIL4), the current status of the development of ITIL4 and how the AXELOS team operates to create a version of ITIL, that’s fit for purpose and fit for use.

The fourth Industrial Revolution, which is, at its core, the marriage of physical and digital technologies, has the potential to ripple across industries, businesses and communities, affecting not just how we work, but also how we live and relate to one another. This revolution is advancing at extraordinary speed, driven by technologies that are developing at an exponential rate.”

Source: Forbesinsights

Background and reason for ITIL® 4

In order for businesses and professionals to successfully prepare and navigate the Fourth Industrial Revolution, AXELOS is developing ITIL4.

Now businesses want a more flexible IT organization providing higher velocity and even higher quality performance. The main point of adopting ITIL is to help IT organizations move at the speed that the business needs while aligning the framework with other methods such as Agile, DevOps and Cloud computing.

We will be looking to produce practical guidance to help demonstrate how ITIL can help meet these business challenges.

Current status

At this moment in time I am not allowed to share many details, but be sure the new version is aligned with the latest industry standards and methodologies like Cloud computing, Agile, DevOps, IT4IT, IoT and more. To ensure, for example, a breakdown of the walls between Development, Operations, and other units within IT and combine that with other concepts like Automation, to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness to continue to deliver value to the business.

AXELOS has learned from previous development processes and thus have changed their approach with this update process. It is not just a small team working on the update, but a huge community of industry experts is currently involved in the development. So when the entire process is done there will be a balanced, well rounded, up to date, ready to go and robust framework again.

Reference Materials

The new book is going to be more focused on preparing students for what (IT) Service Management is and what important is to deliver value to their customers across the different steps in the Service Value Chain and what their role is in this process.

The book that we as a team will produce is an easy-to-use book with a lot of examples about the application of ITIL practices to be used in both the traditional Waterfall environments as well as in the modern high performing IT organizations.

Qualification Scheme

As the team is currently working on the qualification scheme, we are still debating what the scheme will look like beyond the Foundation level, but compared to the ITIL 2011 scheme it will be simpler, clearer and more focused on the practical application of specific tasks and needs in the market.

Rest assured that it will be a great product that can continue to be used as the de-facto framework for IT organizations in the modern world. Although ITIL is going to be updated, the current version is still good practice and is the de-facto framework all over the world for IT service management organizations.

I am looking forward to continuing the development journey of ITIL and be part of its construction team. Keep your eye out to the blog and email from ITpreneurs as I will keep you up to date on the progress and other exciting aspects related to ITIL4. In case of any question, please do not hesitate to get in touch with your ITpreneurs contact person or directly with me via marcel.foederer@itpreneurs.com.