ITIL4 Study Guide

This is my study guide for the ITIL v.4 certification exam by Axelos.

ITIL 4 put simply is a service management certification over an operating model for the creation, delivery, and continual improvement of technological products or services.

Table of Contents

1. Service Management Overview
2. Guiding Principles
3. SVS and SVC
4. Most Important Practices
5. Other Examinable Practices

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Service Management

✧. ┊  Key Terms ✧ 4 Dimensions ✧ Value Streams & Processes ✧ Organizations & People ✧ Information & Technology ✧ Partners & Suppliers  ┊ .✧

ೃ⁀➷ Key Terms

Value - the perceived benefits, usefulness, or importance of something; co-created

Recipients define value

Organization - persons/groups with own functions and responsibilities with objectives

Service Management - set of specialized organizational capabilities to enable value to customers through services

Customer - defines requiremetnes for services

User - uses the service

Sponsor - authorizes budget for service

Supplier - supplies services to organization (external)

Service - enable value co-creation by giving outcomes customers want without them having to manage costs/risks

Product - configuration of resources that can be valuable to customers

Service Offering - mix of services and products sold to customer, includes

**Goods** - ownership given to customer

**Access to resources** - resources customer can use 

**Service Actions** - actions that service provider does for customer

Output - tangible/intangible deliverable of an activity

Outcome - result for stakeholder enabled by 1+ outputs

Cost - can be removed or imposed on customer (value proposition, or price for service consumption)

Risk - uncertainty of outcome (good opportunity; bad hazard)

Utility - something fit for purpose/ service does what it should

Warranty - something fit for use/ service does it good enough (availbility, capacity, security, continuity)

Value is utility, warranty, and perception.

ೃ⁀➷ 4 Dimensions

VOIP - factors that can be influenced by organization internally. Stands for Value streams and processes, Organizations and people, Information and technology, and Parnters and suppliers.

PESTLE - external factors that must be considered. Stands for political, economical, social, technological, legal, and environmental.

ೃ⁀➷ Value Streams and Processes

• activities the organization should undertake
• things you should do to ensure/co-create value to stakeholders
• value stream mapping

ೃ⁀➷ Organizations and People

• how people/human resources are set up
• organizational structures like how teams are set up, etc
• decision making habits
• staffing and skill requirements
• leadership

ೃ⁀➷ Information and Technology

• tools and information needed to deliver value to customers
• how information is managed and stored, etc
• technology and innovation
• CMDB

ೃ⁀➷ Partners and Suppliers

• external help and vendors
• good vendor selection
• service integration

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Guiding Principles

✧. ┊  Focus on Value ✧ Start Where You Are ✧ Progress Iteratively ✧ Collaborate ✧ Think Holistically ✧ Keep It Simple ✧ Optimize and Automate  ┊ .✧

Recommendations that guide organizations

ೃ⁀➷ Focus on Value

• everything should directly or indirectly be valuable to stakeholders

ೃ⁀➷ Start Where You Are

• reuse existing resources instead of starting from scratch

ೃ⁀➷ Progress Iteratively with Feedback

• small steps (iterative)
• learn from feedback

ೃ⁀➷ Collaborate and Promote Visibility

• involving the right people at the right time to make right decisions

ೃ⁀➷ Think and Work Holistically

• big picture
• components are connected to other components, so think about the effects

ೃ⁀➷ Keep it Simple and Practical

• don’t overcomplicate things
• least steps
• outcome based thinking

ೃ⁀➷ Optimize and Automate

• maximize the value of human work
• automate after optimizing
• DevOps

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Service Value System & Service Value Chain

✧. ┊  SVS ✧ SVC  ┊ .✧

ೃ⁀➷ Service Value System

• Guiding principles
• Governance
• Service value chain
• Practices
• Continual improvement

SVS converts opportunity and demand into value for customers by applying service management.

ೃ⁀➷ Service Value Chain

• uses value streams, which are steps that organization takes to co-create value with customers/stakeholders

• transforms demand into actual value

• PIEDOD (Plan, Improvement, Engage, Design & Transition, Obtain & Build, Deliver & Support
• plan to make sure you share understanding of the direction/vision
• continually improve products and services
• engage and understand needs and demands of stakeholder
• design and ensure services meet stakeholder needs
• obtain and make sure you have components (people, licenses, hardware, etc) needed to be available

• SLA conform service delivery

• an operating model
• can be used to map value streams

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Most Important Practices

✧. ┊  Intro ✧ Continual Improvement ✧ Change Enablement ✧ Incident Management ✧ Problem Management ✧ Service Desk ✧ Service Level Management ✧ Service Request Management  ┊ .✧

ೃ⁀➷ Intro

• practice: set of organizational resources to perform work or accomplish objective
• general management, service management, and technical management practices General Management Practices: Continual Improvement Service Management Practices: Change Enablement, Incident Management, Problem Management, Service Desk, Service Level Management, Service Request Management

ೃ⁀➷ Continual Improvement

• happens everywhere like SVS, SVC, etc
• reprioritization when new ideas are added
• everyone’s responsibility, may have Continual Improvement Team
• all 4 dimensions should be considered

ೃ⁀➷ Change Enablement

• aka change management
• maximize number of successful changes by using proper risk assessment, minimize negative impact of failed changes
• Types: standard, normal, emergency
• standard: pre-authorized, low cost and risk, can be Service Requests
• normal
• emergency: rapid action

ೃ⁀➷ Incident Management

• minimize negative impact of incidents by restoring normal operation asap

Incident - unplanned interruption or reduced quality

• incidents should be logged, prioritized, and managed

Swarming - multiple people on an issue

• swarming for fast solutions

ೃ⁀➷ Problem Management

• reduce likelihood of recurring incidents
• eliminating root causes

Problem - unknown cause of incident Known error - problem with known root cause, and no solution Workaround - alternative solution

• phases: problem identification, problem control, error control

ೃ⁀➷ Service Desk

• capture demand for incidents and service requests
• email, phone, chat, sms, forum, self service, etc

ೃ⁀➷ Service Level Management

• set clear business targets for service performance, in order to measure delivery of service
• SLA, OLA, UC
• Service Level Agreement: agreement between customer and service provider
• Operational Level Agreement: agreement between units within same organization
• Underpinning Contracts: agreement between service provider and external supplier

ೃ⁀➷ Service Request Management

• support agreed quality of services by handling user-initiated service requests (pre-defined)

Service Request - formal request for something that is not incident resolution, such as info, advice, how to, etc

• reuse existing workflows to define new workflows

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Other Examinable Practices

✧. ┊  Info Security Management ✧ Relationship Management ✧ Supplier Management ✧ IT Asset Management ✧ Monitoring & Event Management ✧ Release Management ✧ Service Configuration Management ✧ Deployment Management  ┊ .✧

ೃ⁀➷ Information Security Management

• protect info needed to conduct business
• CIA triad, Authentication, and Non-Repudiation

ೃ⁀➷ Relationship Management

• links between organizations and stakeholders
• communication and collaboration with internal/external stakeholders
• Relationships should be identified, analyzed, monitored, then improved

ೃ⁀➷ Supplier Management

• suppliers are managed to give seamless service provision to customers
• should be according to agreement (underpinning contracts)

ೃ⁀➷ IT Asset Management

• plan/manage full lifecycle of IT assets to maximize value and control costs
• decision making about reusing or purchasing new

IT Asset - a financially valuable component that contributes to delivery of IT products/services

ೃ⁀➷ Monitoring & Event Management

• events
• observe and record change for services
• identify events, categorize them, establish standard responses

Event - any change of state that has significance for management of config item or service

• Types: informational, warning, exception

ೃ⁀➷ Release Management

• make new/changed services/features available

Release - version of service that is made available for use

ೃ⁀➷ Service Configuration Management

• accurate info available when needed about services, config items, etc

Configuration Item - any component needing to be managed to deliver IT service Configuration Management Database (CMDB) - database or collection of databases holding CIs and connections Configuration Management System (CMS) - front end or user interface for CMDB

ೃ⁀➷ Deployment Management

• moving new/changed hardware or software documentation from one environment to the next
• deployment does not equal release

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