ITIL®v4 Foundation Course Study Notes

ITIL® Definition
Service – a means of enabling value co-creation by facilitating outcomes that
customers want to achieve, without the customer having to manage specific costs
and risks
Value – the perceived use, benefit or importance of an object/ process/ product/
service – successful products and services would add value to the end users/
consumers. Value is created when a service has more positive than negative
outcomes.
Service management (according to ITIL®) – a set of specialized organizational
capabilities for enabling value for customers in the form of services. An organization
would need to understand the nature of value, stakeholders and how create can be
created through services.
Organisation – a person/group of people/ teams/ body that has functions with
responsibilities, authorities and relationships to create values by achieving
objections.
Service Provider – an organization that provides a service – can be internal /
external to the user / consumer organization. A service provider needs to know who
the customers and stakeholders are need to consider these aspects of the service:
cost, risk, outputs, outcomes, utility, warranty
Stakeholder – a person or organization that has an interest / involvement in an
organization, product, service, practice or others which will be affected by them e.g.
service consumer, service provider, service provider employees, society and
community, charity organisations, shareholders
Service Consumer – entities receiving the service, can be divided as 3 roles:
Customer – A person who defines the requirements for a service and takes
responsibility for the outcomes of service consumption
User – A person who uses services
Sponsor – A person who authorizes budget for service consumption

ITIL® Key concepts: Creating value

Products – created from configurations of resources, e.g. people, information,
technology, value streams, processes, suppliers, partners
Output – a tangible or intangible deliverable of an activity
Outcomes – a result for a stakeholder enabled by one or more outputs
Cost – the amount of money spent on a specific activity or resource
Risk – a possible event that could cause harm or loss or make it difficult to achieve
objectives. Risk can also be defined as uncertainty of outcome and can be used in
the context of measuring the probability of positive outcomes as well as negative
outcomes
Utility – the functionality offered by a product or service to meet a particular need
Warranty – the assurance that a product or service will meet agreed requirements

ITIL® Key concepts: Service Relationship

Service Offerings – a description of one or more services, designed to address the
needs of a target consumer group, may include goods, access to resources and
service actions
Service Relationship – co-operation between a service provider and a service
consumer, including service provision, service consumption and service relationship
management
Service Provision – activities performed by an organization to provide services,
including management of resources to deliver the goods, service, actions, service
performance management and continual improvement
Service Consumption – activities performed by an organization to consume
services, including management of the consumer’s resources to use the service,
service use actions and receiving goods
Service Relationship Management – includes activities performed jointly by a
service provider and a service consumer to ensure continual value co-creation based
on service offerings

ITIL® Co-creation of Value

• Value is co-created
o a bi-directional relationship between the organization and its customers
o by focusing on customer experience and interaction
o by active Customer Involvement
o by Collaborating with suppliers
• Total service relationships includes each product/service offered to customers.

7 ITIL® guiding principles

A guiding principle is a recommendation that guides an organization in all
circumstances which allows it to integrate different working and management
methods within service management of the organization.
Focus on value – Everything the organization does should link back, directly or
indirectly,
• to value for itself,
• its customers and
• other stakeholders
need to understand
• service consumers,
• their perception of value,
• map outcome to value and understand
▪ Customer Experience (CX – total functional and emotional interactions)
o and
▪ User Experience (UX – just focus on usability and aesthetics)
needs to maintain a focus on value in day-to-day operations as well as improvement
projects
Start where you are – to understand the current situation thoroughly to consider if
anything can be reused / built upon make an
• inventory of current services,
• processes and methods and
• measure the performance in an objective way
Progress iteratively with feedback –
• by organizing work into
o smaller,
o more manageable sections that can be executed and
o completed in a timely manner,
• the focus on each effort will be sharper and easier to maintain feedback helps to
understand
o value perception of stakeholders,
o demands,
o opportunities and
o risks
• working iteratively allows more flexibility to respond to changes going small and
going fast
Collaborate and promote visibility –
• working together with a shared goal to remove silos internally and
• externally need to understand
o priorities,
o flow of work,
o bottlenecks,
o resources utilitization
• different communication methods to effectively communicate with different
stakeholders
Think and work holistically – the services/outputs need to work in an integrated
way to handle activities of the organization as a whole to focus on
• the delivery of value,
• holistic thinking and
• working through collaboration and communication
Keep it simple and practical –
• always use the minimum number of steps to accomplish an objective with
outcome-based thinking
o designed for the majority and
o create handling rules for exceptions
• doing fewer things better for quick wins
Optimize and automate –
• optimization and automation are needed to make something as effective / useful
as it needs to be,
• optimize iteratively and
• optimisation/automation impact to be continually monitored with a focus on value
Automation – use of technology to perform steps consistently with little or no human
intervention

4 Dimensions of Service Management

Need to consider all the 4 dimensions of service management in order to deliver

services that offer high quality or efficiency successfully
❖ Organizations and People – The complexity of organizations is growing, and
• it is important to ensure that the way an organization is
o structured and
o managed, as well as its
o roles,
o responsibilities, and
o systems of authority and communication,
• is well defined and supports its overall strategy and operating model.
• including
o structure,
o culture (shared values, trust, transparency, leadership styles, coordination),
o staffing/competencies and
o roles and responsibilities
❖ Information and Technology –
• what info is managed/supported
• by which technology and
• whether enough knowledge to deliver the services,
 • how information is
o stored,
o managed,
o protected,
o archived and
o disposed of
• information management includes:
o availability,
o reliability,
o accessibility,
o timeliness,
o accuracy and
o relevance
❖ Partners and Suppliers – encompasses an organization’s relationships (working
and contractual) with other organizations that are involved in the
• service creation and
• support/improvement
▪ Service integration and management (SIAM) – a management methodology
that uses a service integrator role to coordinate service relationships across all
Suppliers
▪ Factors affecting supplier strategy:
• strategic focus,
• corporate culture,
• resource scarcity,
• cost concerns,
• subject matter expertise,
• external constraints and
❖ Value Streams and Processes –
• concerned with how the various parts of the organization work in an
o integrated and
o coordinated
• way to enable value creation through products and services by focusing on
what activities,
o the organization undertakes and
o how they are organized as well as
o how the organization ensures that it is enabling value creation for all
stakeholders
▪ Value Stream – a series of steps an organization undertakes to create and
deliver products and services to consumers
▪ Process – a set of inter-related activities that transform inputs into outputs
ITIL® Service Value System

ITIL® Service Value System (SVS) – a model representing

• how all the components and activities of an organization work together
• to facilitate value creation
• describing how all the
o components and
o activities
• of an organization work together as a system to enable value creation,
• including the following:
▪ Guiding Principles – stable organizational guide regardless of changes in
• goals,
• strategies,
• management structure, etc.
▪ Governance – how the organization is
• managed and
• controlled
▪ Service Value Chain – a set of interconnected activities that is performed to
deliver value
▪ Practices – sets of organisational assets for performing work or accomplishing
objectives
▪ Continual Improvement – activities to
• monitor and
• enhance
the services to ensure alignment to changing stakeholder expectations
▪ Inputs and Outcomes
ITIL® Service Value Chain

ITIL® Service Value Chain – an operating model

• outlining key activities
o to respond to demand and
o create value by delivering
▪ products and
▪ services,
• including the following activities:
➢ Plan – to ensure
• a shared understanding of the vision,
• current status, and
• improvement direction for
• all four dimensions and
• all products and services across the organization,
• including all planning activities
➢ Improve –
• ensure continual improvement of
o products,
o services and
o practices
• across all value chain activities and
• the four dimensions of service management
➢ Engage – provide a good understanding of
• stakeholder needs,
• transparency, and
 • continual engagement and good relationships with all stakeholders, including
all interaction with external parties
➢ Design & Transition – ensure that products and services continually meet
stakeholder expectations for
• quality,
• costs and
• time to market
➢ Obtain/Build – ensure that service components are
• available when and where they are needed and
• meet agreed specifications, including obtain new resources
➢ Deliver & Support – ensure that services are delivered and supported according
to
• agreed specifications and
• stakeholders’ expectations
These service value chain activities rely on inputs and creates outputs for other
activities and can happen in any order, in parallel or repeated/iterated.
Note: products and services/demand and value are Service Value System
components

ITIL® DefinitionsIT Asset – any financially valuable component that can

contribute to the delivery of an IT product or service
❖ Event –
• any change of state that has significance for the management of a service or
other configuration item,
• events are typically recognized through notifications created by an IT service,
• configuration item or monitoring tool
❖ Configuration Item – any component that needs to be managed to deliver an IT
service
❖ Change – the addition, modification or removal of anything that could have a
direct or indirect effect on IT services
❖ Incident – an unplanned interruption to or reduction in the quality of a service
❖ Problem –
• a cause, or
• potential cause,
of one or more incidents, requiring
• investigation and
• analysis to
o identify the causes,
o develop workarounds and
o recommend longer-term resolution
❖ Known Error – a problem that has been analysed but not yet resolved
15 ITIL® Practices
ITIL® Practice – a set of organizational resources designed for performing work or
accomplishing an objective enabled with resources from 4 dimensions of service
management
List A
1. Information Security Management
2. Relationship Management
3. Supplier Management
4. IT Asset Management
5. Monitoring and Event Management
6. Release Management
7. Service Configuration Management
8. Deployment Management
List B
1. Continual Improvement
2. Change Enablement
3. Incident Management
4. Problem Management
5. Service Request Management
6. Service Desk
7. Service Level Management
There are in total 34 ITIL® practices:
❖ 14 general management practices – adopted and adapted for service
management from business management
❖ 17 service management practices – developed in service management and IT
service management
❖ 3 technical management practices – adopted and adapted for service
management from technology management
Only the following 15 ITIL® practices are required for the ITIL® 4 Foundation Exam,
the first 8 practices would require only an awareness:
1. Information Security Management –
• to protect the information needed by the organization to conduct its business
• including understanding and managing risks to the
o confidentiality,
o integrity and
o availability
• of information, as well as other aspects of information security such as
o authentication and
o non-repudiation
2. Relationship Management –
• to establish and nurture the relationships between the
• organization and its
• stakeholders at
 o strategic and
o tactical level
• including
o identification,
o analysis,
o monitoring and
o continual improvement
• of relationships with and between stakeholders
3. Supplier Management –
• to ensure the organization’s
o suppliers and
o their performances
• are managed appropriately to support the seamless provision of quality
o products and
o services
• including creating
o closer,
o more collaborative
• relationships with key suppliers to
o uncover and
o realize
• new value and
• reduce the risk of failure
4. IT Asset Management –
to plan and manage the full lifecycle of all IT assets to help the organization to
• maximize value,
• control costs,
• manage risks,
• support decision making about purchase,
• re-use,
• retirement and
• disposal of assets and
• meet requirements
o regulatory and
o contractual
5. Monitoring and Event Management –
• to systematically observe
o services and service components, and
o record and report
• selected changes of state identified as events including
o identifying and
o prioritizing
o infrastructure,
o services,
o business processes and
o information security events and
• establishes the appropriate response to those events
6. Release Management – to make new and changed services and features
available for use
7. Service Configuration Management –
• to ensure
o accurate and
o reliable
• information about the configuration of services and
• the configuration items that support them, is available
o when and
o where
• it is needed including information on
o how configuration items are configured and
o the relationships between them
8. Deployment Management –
• to move
o new or
o changed
• hardware,
• software,
• documentation,
• processes or
• any other component to environments
o live
o staging
o testing
The following 7 practices are required to be studied in more depth as 17 questions
will be asked on these topics:
1. Continual Improvement –
• to align the organization’s
o practices and
o services
• with changing business needs through the ongoing improvement of
o products,
o services and
o practices or
o any element
• involved in the management of
o products and
o services
• improvement opportunities are to be documented in the continual improvement
register (CIR) which allows improvement ideas to be
o logged,
o prioritised,
o tracked and
o managed
• continual improvement at all levels of the organization by all staff, even suppliers
and partners will need to contribute (often included in contracts) activities include:
o Encouraging continual improvement across the organisation
o Securing time and budget for continual improvement
o Identifying and logging improvement opportunities
o Assessing and prioritising improvement opportunities
o Making business cases for improvement action
o Planning and implementing improvements
o Measuring and evaluating improvement results
o Coordinating improvement activities across the organisation

• Continual Improvement model

o What is the vision?
o Where are we now?
o Where do we want to be ?
o How do we get there?
o Action required?
o Did we get there?
o How do we keep the momentum going?
2. Change Enablement –
• to maximize the number of successful
 o service and
o product
• changes by ensuring that risks have been accurately assessed,
• authorizing changes to proceed, and
• managing the change schedule
• change authority to authorize changes
• must balance
o delivering benefits through successful changes vs
o protecting live service from harmful changes
• Change types:
A. Standard changes –low-risk, preauthorised changes
B. Normal changes – need to be scheduled, assessed and authorized, may be
low-risk or high-risk
C. Emergency changes – need to be implemented as soon as possible, some
steps may be ignored, may need a separate change authority
3. Incident Management –
• to minimize the negative impact of incidents by restoring normal service operation
as quickly as possible
• incidents need to be logged, prioritised, and resolved within agreed timescales
• may need escalation
• activities include:
o design the incident management practice (e.g. swarming)
o prioritise incidents
o use an incident management tool
4. Problem Management –
• to reduce the
o likelihood and
o impact
• of incidents by identifying
o actual and
o potential
• causes of incidents and
• managing
o workarounds and
o known errors
• 3 phases of problem management
A. problem identification – problem logging
B. problem control – problem analysis, documenting workarounds/known errors
C. error control – identify permanent solutions, reassessment of errors,
improvement of workarounds
5. Service Request Management –
• to support the agreed quality of a service by handling all pre-defined,
• user-initiated service requests in an effective and user-friendly manner
▪ service requests are part of normal service delivery (not incidents)
▪ should be automated and standardised as much as possible
6. Service Desk –
• to capture demand for
 o incident resolution and
o service requests.
• It should also be the
o entry point and
o single point of
• contact for the service provider with all of its users
skills required:
• empathy,
• emotional intelligence,
• effective communication,
• customer service skills
7. Service Level Management –
• to set clear business-based targets for service levels, and
• to ensure that delivery of services is properly
o assessed,
o monitored, and
o managed
• against those targets
• service level is a measure of service quality
❖ Service Level agreement (SLA) is a document of agreement of the service
performance from the customer’s point of view
• service level,
o establishes
o monitors and
o analyses performance,
• performs service
o reviews and
o identifies
o improvement opportunities
• collect information from:
o business metrics,
o operational metrics,
o customer feedback and
o customer engagement

ITIL® Foundation Exam Tips

✓ “When in the ITIL® Foundation Exam, do as what ITIL® would do.”
✓ Make best use of mock exams
✓ Read the exam questions carefully — word by word
✓ 1 hour exam time is more than enough for answering the 40 multiple choice
questions, you are highly advised to re-read the questions and answers, if time
allows revise in order to spot any careless mistakes!
✓ The ITIL® Foundation level can be completed with 4-6 hours of studies

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Continual improvement & the guiding principles
When thinking about continual improvement, the 7 guiding principles should be kept
in mind at all times. Some principles are more relevant than others depending on the
continual improvement step/stage. The main relations can be seen below.