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ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is a set of best practices standards for Information Technology (IT) service management.  The United Kingdom's Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) created ITIL in response to the growing dependence on Information Technology to meet business needs and goals.  ITIL provides businesses with a customizable framework of best practices to achieve quality service and overcome difficulties associated with the growth of IT systems. 

While owned by the CCTA since the mid-1980s, ITIL is currently maintained and developed by the Office of Government Commerce.  Developed in the late 1980's by the CCTA (now the OGC), by the mid 1990's it had become the world-wide standard in service management.  ITIL has become increasing popular as a scalable public domain framework. 

The Service Management section of ITIL is made up of eleven different disciplines, split into two sections, Service Support and Service Delivery:

Service Support

• Configuration Management
• Change Management
• Release Management
• Incident Management
• Problem Management
• Service Desk

Service Delivery

• Service Level Management
• Capacity Management
• Financial Management for IT Services
• Availability Management
• IT Service Continuity Management

Benefits

The IT Infrastructure Library offers a systematic, professional approach to the management of IT service provision.  Adopting its guidance can provide benefits such as:

• Customer satisfaction with IT services which meet their needs
• Reduced risk of not being able to meet the business requirements for IT services
• Reduce costs in developing procedures and practices with an organization
• Better communication and information flows between IT staff and customers
• Assurance to the IT Director that staff are provided with appropriate standards and guidance
• Greater productivity and best use of skills and experience
• A quality approach to IT service provision

There are also benefits to the IT Service customer, such as:

• Reassurance that IT services are provided in accordance with documented procedures, which can be audited
• The ability to depend upon IT services, enabling the customer to meet business objectives
• The provision of clearly defined contact points within IT services for inquiries or discussions about changing requirements
• The knowledge that detailed information is produced to justify charges for IT services and to provide feedback from monitoring of service level agreements

The IT Infrastructure Library emphasizes the importance of providing IT services to satisfy business needs, in a cost-effective manner.  Many IT directorates are attempting to become more customer oriented, demonstrating their contribution to the business.  The library can help organizations to make this transition.

Organizations are encouraged to adapt the guidance to suit their needs, but are cautioned against omitting activities without due consideration since IT service management is a set of integrated and coordinated functions.  Organizations are likely to gain most benefit in the longer term from implementing all of the functions rather than some discrete functions.  The IT Infrastructure Library guidance is sufficiently flexible to allow experienced staff to use their acquired knowledge and skills while at the same time providing the inexperienced with sufficient material about what needs to be done to deliver quality IT services.

Equally important, joining the ITIL ‘club’ admits an organization to a consistent and comprehensive approach to service management ranging from software products to consultancy, training and qualifications.  The common approach brings with it a common language of ITIL terms, which permits easier understanding of suppliers and products.

Additional resources for information:
www.pinkelephant.com
www.itsmf.com
www.itilpeople.com

ITIL® is a registered trademark and a registered community trademark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is registered in the US Patent and Trademark Office.