In the world of IT, one of the biggest stories of 2019 has been the launch of ITIL 4. With some fundamental changes from ITIL 3, like the move from processes to practices and the Service Value System, ITIL 4 is an effort to unite the entire organization’s digital operations under a shared system of value while also allowing the flexibility for agile, DevOps, and other IT methodologies.
If you are not familiar with the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) framework, you can read a good history on CIO here, but in summary, it is an evolving framework of best practices that bring IT and IT service management in better alignment with the needs of organizations.
In this blog post we will discuss the new elements of ITIL 4 and how Agiloft and ITIL 4 are perfectly matched to deliver value and agility to ITSM and the entire enterprise.
Service Value System (SVS)
From Axelos:
“The service value system (SVS) is a key component of ITIL 4, which facilitates value co-creation. It describes how all the components and activities of an organization work together to enable value creation. As the SVS has interfaces with other organizations it forms an ecosystem and can also create value for those organizations, their customers and stakeholders.”
Through the exchange of value, organizations can create an ecosystem between the IT department that creates the applications, the customers and employees that use them, as well as the business leaders that define the business goals the applications aim to achieve. This ecosystem can best be created with a single platform that can easily extend across departments, bring their processes into the larger enterprise goals, integrate with other applications, as well as provide a customer service portal. This exchange of value through an extensible data model is much like our contract and commerce lifecycle management (CCLM) methodology, which puts contract data at the core of all commercial activity. IT service management can achieve this by creating a platform built around the customer, employee, product, and asset data that they need to drive value across the organization.
The most import part of the SVS is that to create a true functional ecosystem, it must be focused on continual improvement and constantly adapt to the needs and challenges of the organization.
ITIL 4 Guiding Principles
In addition to the SVS, ITIL 4 is based on seven guiding principles. We found a great description of these principles on ITSM.tools:
“ITIL 4 now has seven (rather than the previous nine), which are meant to help IT professionals adopt and adapt the framework to their own needs and circumstances. They should be followed at every stage of service delivery and enable professionals to approach and navigate difficult decisions.”
The ITIL 4 guiding principles:
- Focus on value
- Start where you are
- Progress iteratively with feedback
- Collaborate and promote visibility
- Think and work holistically
- Keep it simple and practical
- Optimize and automate
Let’s take a closer look at how Agiloft enables IT to adhere to these guiding principles.
Focus on value
The idea that IT and ITSM teams must provide better value to business stakeholders is not new, but the technology to allow them to deliver on that promise is new. With robust no-code platforms like Agiloft, IT teams can take ITSM and integrate it with other departments like legal, operations, sales, and others and do it at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional software. Without custom code there are no custom bugs, and most configuration changes like new fields, advanced permissions, and business rules can be completed with just a few mouse clicks instead of weeks or months of development.
Start where you are
This one is self-explanatory, but the idea is that there’s ‘no time like the present’ to begin your ITIL journey. It’s worth noting that Agiloft offers a free trial of our complete platform as well as an unconditional satisfaction guarantee on software and implementation services so there is no risk in trying Agiloft. Also, with our highly configurable platform, hosted SaaS or on-premise options, pre-built integrations, and open APIs, we can meet you where you’re at and build your system to suite your organization’s current infrastructure.
Progress iteratively with feedback
This one is a big deal at Agiloft and was one of the reasons Agiloft CEO Colin Earl created the platform in 1991. Here is what Colin recently said on this in Aithority:
“A second challenge is user adoption, which really flows from the first. If the system isn’t fully tailored to the needs of the customer, then it’s not going to be adopted. We actually build into our project timelines one or two rounds of iterations for user feedback after the system has been developed and turned over for initial use.”
Collaborate and promote visibility
The above quote feeds into this principle as well. With good user adoption you get more users participating in the improvement and change management cycle. At Agiloft we do this with an Enhancements table that lets customers, partners, and employees request enhancements. These can be attached to customer support tickets, project tasks, and new releases.
Think and work holistically
This is the essence of ITIL in recent years: build your ITSM to suite your organizational goals, not merely your IT department goals. Agiloft’s extensible platform gives you an opportunity to build a platform with a truly holistic approach, not only across your entire organization but also incorporating data and from customers, suppliers, and other third parties that influence your enterprise data and value stream. This gives you visibility into these previously siloed processes and data, enabling your organization to predict, plan, and govern your organization’s most commercially vital data and processes—whether that’s internal productivity, customer feedback, supplier performance, regulatory compliance, or all the above.
Keep it simple and practical
Any strategy that is not practical is doomed to failure eventually. By keeping your changes iterative, you can stick to practical changes within your organization. When it comes to ITIL, it may seem like you have to go all-in to get the maximum benefit of the framework. It’s important to understand that ITIL 4 is a framework, not a rigid mandate. That’s why Agiloft’s out-of-the-box ITSM platform lets you turn on or off the aspects of the ITIL framework that are practical for your organization. This lets you focus on what matters and configure the platform to best suite your needs while giving you the option to gradually implement the full ITIL framework over time.
Optimize and automate
This is where ITIL 4 and Agiloft’s missions are most aligned: making your organization more agile. Our easy-to-configure platform gives you the tools to continually refine and improve your ITSM processes as well as expand those processes to incorporate previously siloed data and departments. With the ability to integrate with other platforms and processes, including contract management, business process management, and more, Agiloft empowers your IT department to drive value across the organization with your most important data as the center of your company’s commercial activity.
Read more about Agiloft ITSM on the blog here or schedule a custom demo to see first-hand how Agiloft’s ITIL-ready Service Desk can automate your IT operations.
