Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

Managing Information Technology (IT) is a Resource Process Category supporting the Value Chain. ITIL is a “best practice”approach that has been proven in practice and is accepted by organisations focused on improving their IT services. ITIL can be used as framework and as a reference model on which to develop IT service processes that integrate with the daily operations of an organisation. Using a framework can accelerate the development of the processes and provides a checklist  to ensure all requirements are covered.

The above diagram is a high level representation of the ITIL framework created in ARIS Express. From the above EPC Value Chain Diagram more detailed processes can be developed and linked providing a process map. ITIL has five process groups that cover the processes required for the planning, design and development of the day to day operations of an IT Services operation and the continual improvement of those processes.

1. Service Strategy
2. Service Design
3. Service Transition
4. Service Operation
5. Continual Service Improvement

The ITIL framework is not just a reference mode for IT Service Organisations. I have on past  projects, referred to the ITIL Framework when developing customer service help desk processes when integrating with CRM.

One of the major advantages of using standard frameworks is that they often come with suggested Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). KPIs are used to continuously monitor the performance of key business processes as part of a continuous process improvement programme, and also be used to compare a company's performance against it’s competitors in a similar industry segment. Below is a list of suggested KPI’s associated with ITIL Incident Management.