Surely you’ve asked yourself the question: “why implement ITIL 4?” Well… in order for me to answer that, I’ll start by explaining the concept of “Guiding Principles”, as they apply to all practices defined in ITIL 4.
These principles function as a kind of compass for the organization, which must follow them in all circumstances, regardless of changes to its objectives, strategies, type of work or management structure. It is important to note that they must be universal and enduring.
Let’s take a look at them!
Focus on value
Every activity in the organization should directly or indirectly relate to value for stakeholders. In this way, ITIL 4 encourages the joint creation of value among all those involved in the business, always considering the customer as the main piece. And obviously, value creation is the most important premise for achieving success.
Start where you are
This means not starting from scratch, without considering what is already available to be used. The current state should be investigated and evaluated directly to ensure that it is fully known and understood. There is likely to be a large amount of services, processes, programs, projects and people that can be used to create the desired result.
Progress iteratively with feedback
Even large initiatives should be carried out iteratively, without trying to do everything at once. Therefore, work should be organized into smaller, manageable portions that can be executed and completed in a timely manner, as this facilitates maintaining a clearer focus on each effort. Thus, feedback should be used before, during and after each iteration to ensure that actions remain focused and appropriate, even when circumstances change.
Collaborate and promote visibility
Working together across the boundaries of areas and practices produces results that are more widely accepted, more relevant to objectives and more likely to succeed in the long term. Achieving goals requires information, knowledge and trust. Thus, work and consequences should be visible, without hidden agendas, with information shared to the greatest extent possible.
Think and work holistically
No service or element of a service works in isolation. Consequently, results are delivered to internal and external customers through effective, efficient management and dynamic integration of information; technology; organization; people; practices; partners and agreements; all coordinated to provide defined value.
Keep it simple and practical
Eliminate any process, service, action or metric that will not produce value or useful results. And in a process or procedure, use the minimum number of steps necessary to achieve the goal.
Optimize and automate
Eliminate anything that represents waste, using technology to achieve what is possible. Resources of all types, particularly Human Resources, should be used to their best effect. However, human intervention should only occur when it really contributes value.
In ITIL 4, these guiding principles are not only used to support the Service Value System. Since they can serve as “an engine” and pull everything towards employees, teams and customers, who are the recipients of value creation. In this way, the principles and practices of ITIL 4 come together to enable and support Agile, Lean and DevOps initiatives.
But now effectively answering the question “ITIL 4 – Why and Why Now?”, I can say that for some it is interesting simply for competition in the market, for others the focus is on increasing revenue through high-quality services. For another group, it is a crucial choice that can make all the difference. The fact is that the world today is very dynamic, evolving rapidly, so the choice to adopt and adapt the best ITIL 4 practice can be a requirement for survival.
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