What Do You Get When You Integrate ITIL® 4 With RCA?

Blog Post • Best Practice Insights, Trainer Experience • [read_meter]

ITIL 4 has evolved from the previous Life Cycle Model to a Service Value System and the Service Value Chain Activities. With this came the introduction of Guiding Principles, Four Dimensions, Governance, and Practices. The various practices embodied in General Management, Service Management, and Technical Management Services have become more professional and rely heavily on the assumption that IT Professionals already have all the skills to execute these practices successfully. This is a major “ask” and we need to recognize that the average IT professional would need practical help to execute most of these practices.

This new Service Value System is going to be highly challenging and taxing if teams do not have a common approach and common templates to work from. IT professionals need something that will tie together the various components of ITIL 4 successfully. In fact, we need to have the “how-to” component of all the Guiding Principles, Dimensions and Practices and interweave it with the fiber of the ITIL 4 Service Value System.

If you use the Problem-solving for ITIL customized templates with worked questions and combine that with certain key actions, you would have an extremely high chance of successfully interacting with all the various factors effortlessly. Let’s look at some of the Templates and Key Actions to give an idea of potential efficiencies:

  • Templates – The templates are quick and easy frameworks that follow a logical sequence. These templates would prescribe the WHAT and HOW for the following:
    • Determining the core issues in a design, problem or multiple issues situation. Exploiting the 80/20 principle and focus on those issues, which when addressed, would also solve many other issues.
    • Correctly and accurately identifying both the Restoration Action and Root Cause for an incident without having any minority reports. This template is the backbone for a stable and robust Incident and Problem Management practice.
    • Finding internal consensus and innovative solutions for any ITIL challenge. This template identifies the appropriate stakeholders and forges diverse inputs from all stakeholders in such a way that the level of buy-in and commitment is sky-high.
    • Identifying the most appropriate high impact risks and developing effective avoiding actions to reduce the likelihood of the risk. At the same time identifying contingent actions to reduce the impact of the potential risk if it does occur.
  • Worked Questions – Each template has very specific worded and worked process questions that could be used in any type of problem situation. The benefit is that you use these questions with SME’s and you are assured of extracting high-value answers.
  • Key Actions – The Problem-solving for ITIL processes prescribe to the following key actions while working through any template and set of worked questions:
    • Irrelevant data confuses teams
    • Specificity is the ultimate requirement for success
    • Vague questions produce vague answers
    • There is no replacement for “factual data”

Imagine the IT staff transforming more easily and effortlessly towards ITIL 4 because all of them are using the same template to achieve a common result within the new ITIL 4 Value System.

About the author

Marcel Foederer
Master Trainer at ITpreneurs and ITIL 4 Lead Architect

As an IT Service Management trainer, consultant and line manager with over 25 years of experience in IT, Marcel has performed strategic and tactical assignments in a wide variety of areas. For the ITIL 4 update, Marcel has been part of the ITIL 4 Lead Architect Team and Review Team at AXELOS. Through his association with AXELOS, Marcel comprehends the background, the architecture, and the underlying reasons of the ITIL 4 update.

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