Difference Between ITIL® V3 vs V4

 

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 Information Technology Infrastructure Library or better known as the ITIL® framework is one of the leading framework in the area of IT Service Management. Since IT is a domain that remains in a continuous flux, it becomes very important for ITIL® creators to upgrade it regularly to keep up with modern technologies. Implying to this, recently, Axelos Ltd has introduced a new version of ITIL i.e ITIL V4. Through the medium of this article on ITIL® V3 vs ITIL® V4, I will highlight the major changes that have been introduced in the latest version of ITIL.

ITIL® V3 Framework

ITIL V3 is the third version of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library framework which refers to a collection of best practices for managing information technology recognized globally. This framework emphasizes the concept of IT as a service that helps in achieving business goals. ITIL V3 is considered as one of the best ITSM frameworks and was released in 2007. The best feature of ITIL is that it is always evolving to fit better into today’s business environment. In order to align with the latest trends or practices like DevOps, Lean and mainly Agile, creators of ITIL have developed a new framework called ITIL 4 which satisfies the customer or IT organization’s requirements.

ITIL® V4 Framework

As mentioned earlier, ITIL v4 is an upgraded version of the ITIL V3 framework and includes improved strategic elements that provide a better alignment of the IT service management with the business requirements. ITIL v4 was released early in 2019 and helps in building an effective IT Service Management process by providing an end-to-end operating model for the creation, delivery and continual improvement of tech-enabled products and services.

ITIL V4 also provides guidance to the organizations which is needed in order to address new service management challenges. It helps in utilizing the potential of modern technology which can work efficiently in an era of Cloud, Agile, DevOps and transformation. The core components of this framework are the ITIL Service Value System (SVS) and the four dimensions model. The main elements of the ITIL SVS are listed below:

1. Service Value Chain (SVC)
2. ITIL Practices
3. ITIL Guiding Principles
4. Governance
5. Continual Improvement

Now that you are familiar with ITIL V3 and ITIL V4, let’s us now find out the major changes that were introduced in ITIL V4.

What is in ITIL 4?

ITIL 4 provides an emphasis on the business and technology world, how it works today, and how it will work in the future with Agile, DevOps and digital transformation.

ITIL® V3 vs ITIL® V4

Below I have listed down the most important changes and updates that have been introduced in ITIL V4.

1. ITIL V3 Process vs ITIL V4 Practices

In ITIL V3, a process is a sequence of activities that have been upgraded to practices in ITIL V4 which refers to something which you can perform using the right resources. ITIL V3 processes describe a flow of activities, along with the information about suggested roles, metrics, and other process-related information. On the other hand, ITIL V4 practices are the capabilities that can be performed as an organization.

2. ITIL V3 26 Processes vs ITIL V4 34 Practices

26 processes of ITIL V3 are now replaced by 34 practices in ITIL V4

ITIL V3 Processes

Service Strategy

1. Strategy Management
2. Demand Management
3. Service Portfolio Management
4. Financial Management
5. Business Relationship Management

Service Design

1. Service Catalog Management
2. Availability Management
3. Information Security Management
4. Service Level Management
5. Capacity Management
6. Design Coordination
7. Supplier Management
8. IT Service Continuity Management

Service Transition

1. Transition Planning and Support
2. Change Management
3. Change Evaluation
4. Release and Deployment Management
5. Service Assets & Configuration Management
6. Service Validation and Testing
7. Knowledge Management

Service Operation

1. Access Management
2. Event Management
3. Service Request Fulfillment
4. Incident Management
5. Problem Management

Continual Service Improvement

1. The Seven-Step Improvement

ITIL V4 Practices

General Management Practices

1.     Architecture Management
2.     Continual Improvement
3.     Information Security Management
4.     Knowledge Management
5.     Measurement and Reporting
6.     Organizational Change Management
7.     Portfolio Management
8.     Project Management
9.     Relationship Management
10.  Risk Management
11.  Service Financial Management
12.  Strategy Management
13.  Supplier Management
14.  Workforce and Talent Management

Service Management Practices

1.  Availability Management
2.  Business Analysis
3.  Capacity and Performance Management
4.  Change Control
5.  Incident Management
6.  IT Asset Management
7.  Monitoring and Event Management
8.  Problem Management
9.  Release Management
10.  Service Catalog Management
11.  Service Configuration Management
12.  Service Continuity Management
13.  Service Design
14.  Service Desk
15.  Service Level Management
16.  Service Request Management
17.  Service Validation and Testing

Technical Management Practices

1.  Deployment Management
2.  Infrastructure and Platform Management
3.  Software Development and Management

3. ITIL V3 Service Lifecycle vs ITIL V4 Service Value System

ITIL V3 Service lifecycle is composed of five stages and is based on a waterfall model. These 5 stages are Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operations and Continual Service Improvement.

The new ITIL V4 framework is based on a Service Value System (SVS) which describes how all the components and activities should work together as a system to enable value creation for the organization.

4. ITIL V3 Continual Service Improvement vs ITIL V4 Continual Improvement

ITIL V3 CSI model has been updated in ITIL V4 and is renamed as CI model. The ITIL V4 model for continual improvement provides a structured approach for identifying and implementing various improvements that can be applied at different levels of the organization. It consists of seven steps and in some ways is comparable with the seven-step improvement process described in the ITIL V3 framework.

5. ITIL V3 9 Guiding Principles vs ITIL V4 7 Guiding Principles

The 9 guiding principles of the ITIL V3 framework are now reduced to 7 guiding principles in ITIL V4.

ITIL V3 Guiding Principles

1. Focus on Value
2. Design for Experience
3. Start where you are
4. Work Holistically
5. Progress Iteratively
6. Observe Directly
7. Be Transparent
8. Collaborate
9. Keep it Simple

ITIL V4 Guiding Principles

1. Focus on Value
2. Start where you are
3. Progress Iteratively with Feedback
4. Collaborate and Promote Visibility
5. Think and Work Holistically
6. Keep it Simple and Practical
7. Optimize and Automate

6. ITIL V3 Four P’s vs ITIL V4 Four Dimensions

The four P’s in the ITIL V3 framework has been changed to four dimensions in the ITIL V4 framework.

ITIL V3 Four P’s

1. People
2. Process
3. Product
4. Partners

ITIL V4 Four Dimensions

1. Organizations and people
2. Information and technology
3. Partners and suppliers
4. Value streams and processes

7. ITIL V4 Automation Support

ITIL V4 framework promotes the need for more AI and Automation in the field of ITSM. In ITIL Foundation, ITIL 4 Ed published by Axelos Ltd., “optimize and automate” guiding principle has been described as: "Resources of all types, particularly human resources (HR), should be used to their best effect. Eliminate anything that is truly wasteful and use technology to achieve whatever it is capable of. Human intervention should only happen where it really contributes value."

8. Emphasis on Governance in ITIL V4

The governance component of the ITIL V4 framework is present in the service value system and talks about the ways of directing and controlling any organization. In the earlier framework, this was covered as a subtopic and didn’t hold much importance but in the ITIL V4 framework it sits prominently in the SVS and a full chapter is dedicated to it.

9. ITIL V3 Value vs ITIL V4 Value Co-Creation

ITIL V3 framework defines a ‘service‘ as a means of delivering value to the customer by facilitating the outcomes that he wants to achieve without undergoing any specific cost or risk. But in the ITIL V4 framework, the definition of ‘Service’ has been updated to a means of value co-creation by facilitating the outcomes that a customer wants to achieve without undergoing any cost or risk. Value Co-Creation in ITIL V4 framework not only needs Service Provider contribution but equal participation and contribution from Consumers, Regulators, and Suppliers is also required.

Service Strategy

This is the initial stage of the ITIL® service lifecycle. This stage helps organizations in identifying their business mission and vision. This also helps in developing strategies to meet customer requirements and priorities by analyzing the current market needs and existing offerings. The Service Strategy stage is composed of 5 ITIL® processes which I have discussed below in detail:

1. Service Portfolio Management

This process mainly focuses on the management of the IT service’s portfolios which are offered. Service Portfolio Management process guarantees that the delivered services stay aligned with the goals of Service Strategy. This process is made up of 4 sequential activities which are, defining the services, analyzing services, approving and chartering services.

2. Financial Management

This process focusses on financial spending and various services in a business such as budgeting, accounting, and charging activities and many more. Financial Management also takes care of the costs that are required to provide services while maximizing its value. This process is made up of three sequential activities which are budgeting, accounting, and charging.

3. Strategy Management for IT Services

This process performs an analysis of the IT services to know their overall market position. Four sequential activities are performed in this process which are, performing a strategic assessment, generating a strategy, executing strategy, measuring and evaluating.

4. Demand Management

This process is used to assesses the current customer demand against the services which are being provided to them. Demand Management focusses solely on understanding the customer’s demands and coordinating it with the capacity, availability, and types of services that are provided. There are four sequential activities that are performed in this process which are identifying sources of demand and forecasting, analyzing the patterns of business activity and user profiles, developing differentiated offerings and managing operational demand.

5. Business Relationship Management

This is the final process in the ITIL Service Strategy stage. Activities like creation and management of customer relationships, comprehension of customer needs, and implementation of required services to meet those needs are performed in Business Relationship Management process. The three sequential activities that are performed in this process are request and complaint handling, identifying opportunities, and managing business relationships.

Service Design

This is the second stage of the ITIL® service lifecycle. This is the stage of designing processes and functions. In this, service management processes, technology, infrastructure, and products are planned and designed thoroughly in order to meet both customers as well as business demands. This stage is composed of 8 ITIL processes which I have discussed below in detail:

1. Service Level Management

This process basically involves planning for defining the targets for the overall organizational service delivery and then measuring their performance. For easier measurement and comparison of services against the actual service performance the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are used which help in deciding the service level goals. In other words, this process is made up of four sequential activities, which are understanding requirements and drafting SLA’s, negotiating the SLA’s, defining and standardizing the SLA’s, and monitoring and reporting service performance.

2. Service Catalog Management

This process mainly ensures that there is an updated service catalog available with easy accessibility to the services that are required by the customers to remain productive. There are four sequential activities followed in this process, which are documenting service definition and description, agreeing on service catalog contents, and producing and maintaining the service catalog.

3. Capacity Management

This process helps a business to meet its requirements by ensuring that the involved systems are operating their optimum capacity. There are five sequential activities that complete this process. These activities are monitoring capacity and performance data, analyzing the capacity data, investigating capacity issues, defining and revising capacity plans, and reviewing and optimizing capacity.

4. Availability Management

This process ensures that the required services are available to the customer at any point in time. There are four sequential activities that are performed in this process namely monitoring availability, analyzing availability data, investigating service unavailability, availability planning, and reviewing availability and testing.

5. IT Service Continuity Management

This process mainly focusses on risk management and business continuity. This process is made up of three sequential activities, which are developing requirements and continuity plans, implementing continuity plans, and invoking the continuity plan.

6. Information Security Management

This process centers on providing protection to the system and data along with people has access to them. Information Security Management includes activities like intrusion detection, limitation, and prevention, as well as minimizing the damage and fixing problems. There are five sequential activities performed in this process which are understanding security requirements, producing security policies, implementing security policies, assessing information assets and risks, and reviewing security controls.

7. Supplier Management

This process mainly monitors all supplier relationships which also include recording whether the involved parties are adhering to contracts and agreements. This process is made up of five sequential activities that are, defining requirements, evaluating suppliers, selection of suppliers, manage performance, and renewing/ terminating contracts.

8. Design Coordination

This process takes care of the management of the service design phase by monitoring the resource availability and various service needs in order to determine whether the design is of optimum quality and effective enough to deliver the needs. The four sequential activities that form this process are defining policies and methods, planning resources and capabilities, managing design risks, and improving service design.

Service Transition

This is the third stage of the ITIL® service lifecycle. This is the stage of project management where it focuses on maintaining the current state of service all while deploying the new organizational changes as well as managing services via transitions/discontinuations. It also helps in risk mitigation. The Service Transition stage is composed of 7 ITIL processes which I have discussed below in detail:

1. Change Management

This process ensures that with the changes in the business needs, the services remain scalable and reliable. This process is made up of five sequential activities which are registration and categorization, risk and impact analysis, approval, coordinate change build and test, authorize change deployment, and finally review and close change record

2. Change Evaluation

This process includes anticipation and management of changes, as well as evaluation of the changes that will help in moving forward. The three sequential activities that form this process are planning evaluation, evaluating predicted performance, and evaluating actual performance.

3. Release and Deployment Management

This process takes care of software deployment while ensuring that the business changes have minimal impact on the presently active production environment. There are five sequential activities that are performed in this process which are release planning, build and test release, deploying, early life support, and reviewing and closure.

4. Service Validation and Testing

This process provides details of the testing and measuring results as well as helps in making decisions regarding service changes and continuation. Five sequential activities are performed in this process which are, planning and designing tests, verifying test plans and designs, preparing test environments, performing tests, evaluating exit criteria, and cleaning test environments and closure.

5. Service Asset and Configuration Management

This process is mainly responsible for the management of the configuration items (CIs) attributes, status, owner, relationships, and change/activity history, etc. There are five sequential activities in this process, namely management and planning, CI identification, CI control, Status accounting and reporting, and verification and accounting.

6. Knowledge Management

This process involves gathering and assembling of useful knowledge that will be further used in resolving the issues by technicians and customers. This process is made up of five sequential activities which are defining knowledge management strategy, identifying and gathering data sources, drafting knowledge, technical reviews, editorial reviews, and lastly publishing.

7. Transition Planning and Support

This process is less common and is implemented to plan for the transition of a new or updated service into production. There are five sequential activities that are performed in this process, namely, defining transition strategy, preparing for service transition, planning and coordinating service transition, and monitoring and reporting progress.

Service Operations

This is the fourth stage of the ITIL service lifecycle. This stage offers various ways to manage the smooth delivery of the services on a regular basis. The ultimate objective of this stage is to provide value to the customers. This stage keeps tabs on the changes in the business needs based on the ever-changing technologies in today’s market. The Service Operation stage is composed of 5 ITIL processes which I have discussed below in detail:

1. Incident Management

This process takes immediate action to restore the interruptions in service due to various incidents such as password resets, printer failures, or an error message, etc. There are five sequential activities in this process, namely, registering & categorizing the incident, prioritizing, investigating and diagnosing, resolution, and finally closure.

2. Problem Management

This process focusses on pinpointing and preventing recurrence of the problems and incidents. There are five sequential activities performed in this process, which are problem detection and logging, categorizing, investigating and diagnosing, and problem resolution and closure.

3. Event Management 

This process checks and analyzes all the service events that may occur from various applications, monitoring solutions, and other systems to take necessary actions to ensure service continuity. Five sequential activities performed in this process are event notification, detecting the event, correlating and filtering events, categorizing events, and lastly reviewing event and closure.

4. Access Management

This process prevents unauthorized system access by allowing access only to legitimate users. This process is made up of five sequential activities that are accessing requisition, verifying and validating, provision of rights, monitoring the access, tracking the access and finally de-provisioning the access.

5. Service Request Fulfillment

This process receives, logs, prioritizes and resolves various service requests that are often received by the service desk. There are five sequential activities in this process that are, requesting registration, validating request, categorizing and prioritizing requests, reviewing and authorizing requests, and request closure.

Continual Service Improvement

This is the final stage of the ITIL® service lifecycle. This stage introduces the improvements and policy changes/ updates within the ITIL® process framework for service growth and enhancement. This stage basically pinpoints the areas of improvements and the effects of those improvements you have made by analyzing the metrics. It thoroughly analyses the reasons for success as well as the failure of each business which further helps in identifying the market trends, bottlenecks, and flaws. This stage guides a business in making changes that will improve its business processes. The Continual Service Improvement stage is made up just one process which is discussed below:

1. Seven-Step Improvement

This process is made up of seven sequential steps which are identifying the strategy for improvement, defining what you will measure, gathering data, processing data, analyzing information and data, presenting and using information, and implementing improvement.

ITIL 4 vs ITIL v3 – Total change or minor tweak?

While ITIL 4 has kept much of what folks liked about ITIL V3, this is a major rethink with some smart thinking, rearrangement, and re-pitching of the previous approach. We’ll talk about some of the substance a little later, but first, it’s worth looking at the new approach, attitude, and structure of ITIL: there is a discernibly different nature to this new version of ITIL that manifests in several ways.

More conform than control?

ITIL V3 took a confident, arguably even arrogant, approach to its scope and applicability. That’s neither a complaint nor an accusation: V3 made a deliberate attempt to expand ITSM applicability by introducing a service lifecycle, covering every part of a service’s life, from cradle to grave – from demand or opportunity through to termination and withdrawal of the service. That was a fair enough reaction to the best practice ecosystem back in 2006, but it isn’t the way the world looks now. ITIL 4 has recognized that, and instead of trying to deliver a framework that addresses and subsumes other approaches, ITIL 4 sets out to integrate, support and complement other frameworks. Concessions are made in terms of changed definitions and structures, some key ideas are presented in ways relevant to the application of any best practice, not just ITIL. And crucially, ITIL doesn’t repeat or contradict what’s already commonly used, instead – like Devops – it signals its relevance to the ITSM space. The end result is a supportive and constructive set of advice that works much better in the current environment of multiple frameworks integrated across an ever more complicated service. 

Start at the beginning this time

Axelos has recognized that people tend to start at the beginning. Agile advocates starting with a minimum viable product – something usable that delivers initial real value. ITIL 4 has reflected this by starting with the Foundations (sensible building for houses or best practice frameworks). The initial release was the foundation book and examination combo – much more is to come, but this has allowed feedback to adjust those foundations and make it more likely that the subsequent, more detailed, and advanced guidance is consistent and useful. 

Bringing the best parts together

Just like a car company bringing successful features from one model into new versions of a different model, ITIL 4 has brought together successful ideas from across the broadest range of existing ITIL frameworks. Most notable is how the guiding principles from ITIL practitioner have been tidied, spruced off and shaped to be made a key aspect of ITIL 4 Foundation. It will bring what have always been good ideas to a wider audience, and that must make sense. 

Changes and innovations

But it isn’t all attitude and recycling. There are differences and additions that make ITIL 4 fit into the ‘IT Best Practices’ space better. Most notable are the relabelling of processes and functions as ‘practices’, and the introduction of value streams and the service value system. They are important enough to justify blogs of their own, and they will get them too. But it’s worth setting out the changes here at a high level.

Several things with value

The most noteworthy change in ITIL 4 is the disappearance of the service lifecycle. Instead, we have the Service Value System, a flexible illustration of the component concepts available and required to deliver efficient ITSM. Unlike the service lifecycle, there is no single, fixed path, rather, it sets a landscape through which organizations can work with stakeholders to create value to their customers. These are new concepts for many in ITSM, and they will probably be the most challenging part of the new material and examinations – but a little effort will deliver understanding and recognition of their usefulness.

Also on the value front, ITIL 4 points out that value isn’t just created by one party and passed on to another. If we are to succeed, then every stakeholder should see value for them in every action and service. That means value is ‘co-created’ by all parties: everyone involved should contribute and receive value.

Fitting into the DevOps world

As I mentioned above, ITIL 4 seeks to set a consistent tone with its surroundings, and prime amongst those surroundings are the immensely popular DevOps and Agile approaches to IT. Some of these will require adjustment from experienced ITIL folks, but they do all make sense, especially to the many ITSM people with knowledge of the DevOps and Agile concepts. Let’s look specifically at a few to let you get a feel for the situation:

• Incident & Problem: In ITIL 4 an incident is something that actually affects a user, detracting from the service they receive. An issue which has the potential to impact a service, but isn’t actually doing so yet, is a problem – something to be investigated and (hopefully) prevented before it does damage. Not only does this bring ITIL’s usage of incident in line with other frameworks, but also brings it much nearer the English language meaning of ‘incident’.
• Deployment and Release. Combined into a single process (release & deployment) in ITIL V3 these terms have been much more carefully defined, and separated, over recent years and ITIL 4 needs to reflect that. Now, deployment specifically means to put things in place, ready for use. Release is the term covering making something available for users to use.
• Practices. In the V3 foundation exam, there was always a question designed to check the understanding of the difference between process and function. A little ironic really since ITIL V3 use of the terms was debatable at best. Now all these are bundled under a single term – ‘practice’. This makes easier something that never needed to be complicated in the first place and, more importantly, it frees up the word ‘process’ to be used when ITIL 4 needs to talk about things that actually are processes. 

Summary

There is much more to be written about ITIL 4: as the latest in the ITIL series, as a framework that integrates with others, and as a new set of ideas for those who are coming to it fresh. I am sure most of you will read much of it over the coming months. But I hope your main take away from this higher-level introduction is that it has changed, for good. From being a posture of overarching coverage, it has stepped down to fit in with our modern world and its diverse less-siloed approach.

This brings us to the end of this article..