Page 28 - ITIL® Foundation 3.15

More Formal Information
ITIL® is the world’s most-accepted framework for the management of IT service delivery. It was developed in the UK beginning under the Margaret Thatcher administration. The British government was dealing with a loss of control of the IT environment brought on by the introduction of the desktop PC and other user technologies. They were feeling a loss of control of environments and lowering of quality in the delivery of services. A group of IT specialists (the CCTA - the central computer and telecommunications agency) was tasked with creating a framework for the management of IT services and improving the professionalism within IT. This group produced ITIL® (the IT infrastructure library) version 1. It was a large group of pamphlets that identified practices that were used by top performing IT organizations across Europe. The CCTA had interviewed these high-performing organizations and asked them what activities they each performed that seemed to work well. By identifying groups of activities that were performed across multiple organizations, and industries, ITIL® “best practices” were born. Version 2 of ITIL® grouped these pamphlets together into common topics creating a total of 9 books. Only two of these books were tested upon for version 2. These two volumes (service support & service delivery) were the basis for all version 2 certifications. With the introduction of version 3 in 2007, ITIL® re-grouped the topics from all of the books into a “lifecycle stages” analogy. This created the 5 core books of ITIL®. Topics and activities were revalidated and updated to reflect current practices. Also, a recognition that if something provided an organization with competitive advantage, it would be considered a “best practice” and probably not shared. Updated again, in 2011, ITIL® calls the suggested activities “good practice”. They are practiced across many organizations and multiple industries, and appear to work in most instances. ITIL® good practices are great starting points for your own development of processes and activities that will provide your organization with competitive advantage.
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