One of the biggest changes in V3 is the Service Lifecycle Approach: The five core books are Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation and Continual Service Improvement. Service Strategy was not covered a lot in V2, so much of this material is really new, and the goal is to provide organizations with the ability to design, develop and implement Service Management as a strategic asset and to think and act in a strategic manner. Continual Service Improvement as a Practice is also fairly new material.

Another major change is the move from discussing Business and IT Alignment to Business and IT Integration. Also, V2 talks about a Service Catalog, while V3 talks about a Service Portfolio and Service Catalog.

Within Service Design, Service Transition and Service Operation, the processes that were in V2 have been updated and modified based on good practice. There have also been new processes added, such as Knowledge Management, Event Management and Supplier Management. Service Request Management has also been removed from the Incident Management process and is now its own process. Finally, V3 provides more prescriptive guidance than V2. Whereas V2 told you what you should do, V3 goes a bit further and tells you how you should do it.

Robert Stroud, CA ITSM & ITG Evangelist:

ITIL Version 3 has been developed to meet the growing needs for the integration between business and IT to ensure the transparent delivery of business services representing the current and future state of ITSM delivery.

The new books consist of a core or central theme that follows the Deming (Plan-Do-Check-Act) lifecycle with an integrated approach from planning to execution, monitoring and provisioning, which form the basis for IT service improvement. ITIL V3 introduces more detailed guidance, which thereby enables faster and more cost-effective implementations.

The qualification scheme is in the process of being upgraded with the initial testing on all five core books available in June 2007. Existing qualifications will continue to be recognized and a refresher course will be provided to move practitioners from ITIL V2 to ITIL V3.

ITIL V3 now follows the lifecycle approach and has moved from a focus on individual ITIL processes to the services that IT delivers. This, coupled with the more detailed guidance, will allow CIOs to more actively communicate the value of IT to the business, while enabling IT staff to focus on the elements that drive value to the business.

ITIL V3 will provide the CIO with the ability to measure the value of the ITIL process implementation and the business services delivered, which will enable him to focus on business value rather than IT process. This week the ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) Version 3 refresh publications debut. bITa Planet asked a few leading thinkers in the vendor and consultant community to share some of their thoughts about the enhancements and improvements to the best practice framework.

George Spalding, vice president, and Gary Case, executive consultant, Pink Elephant, authors of the Continual Service Improvement ITIL book:

One of the biggest changes in V3 is the Service Lifecycle Approach: The five core books are Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation and Continual Service Improvement. Service Strategy was not covered a lot in V2, so much of this material is really new, and the goal is to provide organizations with the ability to design, develop and implement Service Management as a strategic asset and to think and act in a strategic manner. Continual Service Improvement as a Practice is also fairly new material.

Another major change is the move from discussing Business and IT Alignment to Business and IT Integration. Also, V2 talks about a Service Catalog, while V3 talks about a Service Portfolio and Service Catalog.

Within Service Design, Service Transition and Service Operation, the processes that were in V2 have been updated and modified based on good practice. There have also been new processes added, such as Knowledge Management, Event Management and Supplier Management. Service Request Management has also been removed from the Incident Management process and is now its own process. Finally, V3 provides more prescriptive guidance than V2. Whereas V2 told you what you should do, V3 goes a bit further and tells you how you should do it.

Robert Stroud, CA ITSM & ITG Evangelist:

ITIL Version 3 has been developed to meet the growing needs for the integration between business and IT to ensure the transparent delivery of business services representing the current and future state of ITSM delivery.

The new books consist of a core or central theme that follows the Deming (Plan-Do-Check-Act) lifecycle with an integrated approach from planning to execution, monitoring and provisioning, which form the basis for IT service improvement. ITIL V3 introduces more detailed guidance, which thereby enables faster and more cost-effective implementations.

The qualification scheme is in the process of being upgraded with the initial testing on all five core books available in June 2007. Existing qualifications will continue to be recognized and a refresher course will be provided to move practitioners from ITIL V2 to ITIL V3.

ITIL V3 now follows the lifecycle approach and has moved from a focus on individual ITIL processes to the services that IT delivers. This, coupled with the more detailed guidance, will allow CIOs to more actively communicate the value of IT to the business, while enabling IT staff to focus on the elements that drive value to the business.

ITIL V3 will provide the CIO with the ability to measure the value of the ITIL process implementation and the business services delivered, which will enable him to focus on business value rather than IT process.
This week the ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) Version 3 refresh publications debut. bITa Planet asked a few leading thinkers in the vendor and consultant community to share some of their thoughts about the enhancements and improvements to the best practice framework.

George Spalding, vice president, and Gary Case, executive consultant, Pink Elephant, authors of the Continual Service Improvement ITIL book:

One of the biggest changes in V3 is the Service Lifecycle Approach: The five core books are Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation and Continual Service Improvement. Service Strategy was not covered a lot in V2, so much of this material is really new, and the goal is to provide organizations with the ability to design, develop and implement Service Management as a strategic asset and to think and act in a strategic manner. Continual Service Improvement as a Practice is also fairly new material.

Another major change is the move from discussing Business and IT Alignment to Business and IT Integration. Also, V2 talks about a Service Catalog, while V3 talks about a Service Portfolio and Service Catalog.

Within Service Design, Service Transition and Service Operation, the processes that were in V2 have been updated and modified based on good practice. There have also been new processes added, such as Knowledge Management, Event Management and Supplier Management. Service Request Management has also been removed from the Incident Management process and is now its own process. Finally, V3 provides more prescriptive guidance than V2. Whereas V2 told you what you should do, V3 goes a bit further and tells you how you should do it.

Robert Stroud, CA ITSM & ITG Evangelist:

ITIL Version 3 has been developed to meet the growing needs for the integration between business and IT to ensure the transparent delivery of business services representing the current and future state of ITSM delivery.

The new books consist of a core or central theme that follows the Deming (Plan-Do-Check-Act) lifecycle with an integrated approach from planning to execution, monitoring and provisioning, which form the basis for IT service improvement. ITIL V3 introduces more detailed guidance, which thereby enables faster and more cost-effective implementations.

The qualification scheme is in the process of being upgraded with the initial testing on all five core books available in June 2007. Existing qualifications will continue to be recognized and a refresher course will be provided to move practitioners from ITIL V2 to ITIL V3.

ITIL V3 now follows the lifecycle approach and has moved from a focus on individual ITIL processes to the services that IT delivers. This, coupled with the more detailed guidance, will allow CIOs to more actively communicate the value of IT to the business, while enabling IT staff to focus on the elements that drive value to the business.

ITIL V3 will provide the CIO with the ability to measure the value of the ITIL process implementation and the business services delivered, which will enable him to focus on business value rather than IT process.
Ken Turbitt, BMC Software global best practices director:

In various meetings at BMC UserWorld EMEA in Prague, where we had the privilege of having Sharon Taylor (Chief Architect of ITIL V3 and Chief Examiner of ITIL V3) together with Michael Nieves (Accenture and co-author of the Service Strategies book), it became apparent that ITIL V3 is not a revolution, just an evolution. In fact, it is simply catching up with that is actually happening today in the market. Yes, it has brought in some new thinking and processes, but these are in place in many organisations today.

The life-cycle approach is a new way of looking at IT, getting away from the silo approach of functions, and taking an holistic approach to services: From Strategy, and how this integrates with the business strategy, goals and objectives, through into the Design of the service based on that strategy, to Transitioning that design whilst managing or minimising the disruption, and on into Operations of that new service until the end, with continual improvement at each phase.

The new ideas include:

-- BSM (business service management)- Already in the market with many organisations and vendors. This is now defined and recommended as a Strategy and Design in V3.

-- Business Impact Analysis – Assessing the Events, Incidents, Problems and Changes in terms of the possible or actual impact on the business.

-- Request Fulfillment – Many organisations are doing this today, but using Incident Management to record standard repeatable requests. ITIL v3 has recognised this and makes the separation, ensuring disruption to service is managed with Incident Management and Standard requests managed this way.

-- Access Management – Controlling access to the infrastructure with auditing.

-- Configuration Management System – Moving with the market to show that a CMDB is just a database; what is needed for Configuration management is a system incorporating Discovery, Topology, Reconciliation and reporting together with a federated CMDB. This makes up a CMS.

-- Knowledge Management – Moving the Known Error Db within Problem management to a more mature KM system with skills, roles, responsibility details.

-- Service as an Asset with Utility and Warranty – A new way of thinking that a service could be an asset, with costs and revenues associated to it, so it now needs to be viewed with its utility (fir for purpose) and warranty (supportability, already in V2, capacity, availability, etc.)

-- Service Portfolio Management – A layer above Service catalogue to incorporate Service Projects, Costs, Resources, etc., for analysis and management of all that is happening with the IT services.

So as you can see, whilst these are new in ITIL V3, they are not new in the market and many organisations are already delivering these functions, just under different names.