ITIL v3: The Evolution Of Service Management Philosophy

Linear Service Catalogs (v2) vs. Dynamic Service Portfolios (v3) : While ITIL has always been referred to as an IT Service Management Framework, the primary focus up until now has been on the ten Service Support and Delivery processes. In previous versions of ITIL, the concept of a "service" has almost been an afterthought or at least something you would get to later.

Consider that in ITIL v2 the process of Service Level Management has, as one of its many deliverables, a Service Catalog which can be summarized from the theory as a brochure of IT Services where IT publishes the services it provides with their default characteristics and attributes or Linear Service Catalog.

In contrast to this, a Dynamic Service Portfolio can be interpreted as the product of a strategic process where service strategy and design conceive of and create services that are built and transitioned into the production environment based on business value. From this point, an actionable service catalog represents the published services and is the starting point or basis for service operations and ongoing business engagement.

The services documented in this catalog are bundled together into fit-for-purpose offerings which are then subscribed to as a collection and consumed by business units.

Collection Of Integrated Processes (v2) vs. Service Management Lifecycle (v3): Based on publicly available information, we know the ITIL v3 core books are structured around a Service Lifecycle. This new structure organizes the processes we understand from ITIL v2 with additional content and processes we are waiting to hear more about within the context of the life span of IT Services.

From this observation, we can see the primary focus is shifting from process to IT Service. While processes are important, they are secondary and only exist to plan for, deliver and support services. This moves the importance and profile of the Service Catalog from being an accessory of the Service Level Management process to being the corner stone of ITSM.

As organizations evolve from a technology focus to a service orientation focus, these core changes to ITIL provide the context and ability to support this emerging reality.

Troy DuMoulin is one of Pink Elephant's leading IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and IT governance expert with a solid and rich background in business process re-engineering. He is a frequent speaker at ITSM events and is a contributing author to ITIL’s Planning to Implement IT Service Management book.