ITIL practices

The ITIL practices are those practices that the ITIL framework recognizes as practices. The ITIL definitions may differ from the others. According to the ITIL Foundation 4e by Axelos,

A practice is a set of organizational resources designed for performing work or accomplishing an objective.

In the ITIL universe, each practice supports multiple activities of the ITIL service value chain and includes resources based on the four dimensions of service management.

Trivia

Everyone-involved-in practice

According to the service value system developed by AXELOS Limited, everyone should be involved in the continual improvement practice. Because of that, this practice caps not only the general management practices it belongs to, but also all the other practices.

Categories

• General Management Practices, which are adopted/adapted for service management from general business.
• Service Management Practices, which are specific to service management and ITSM.
• Technical Management Practices, which are adopted/adapted for service management from technology management.

General Management Practices

General management practices have been adopted/adapted for service management from general business management domains.

15 practices

There are 15 general management practices:

1. To understand according to Bloom's taxonomy for the ITIL 4 Foundation exam:
   • Continual improvement practice
2. To recall according to Bloom's taxonomy for the ITIL 4 Foundation exam:
   • Information security management practice.
   • Relationship management practice.
   • Supplier management practice.
3. Not covered by the ITIL 4 Foundation exam:
   • Architecture management practice.
   • Knowledge management practice.
   • Measurement and reporting.
   • Portfolio management practice.
   • Organizational change management practice.
   • Project management practice.
   • Risk management practice.
   • Service financial management practice.
   • Strategy management practice.
   • Workforce and talent management practice.

Continual Improvement

Main wikipage: Continual improvement practice

The purpose of the continual improvement practice is to align the organization's practices and services with changing business needs through the ongoing identification and improvement of services, service components, practices or any element involved in the efficient and effective management of products and services.

Information Security Management

Main wikipage: Information security management practice

The purpose of the information security management practice is to protect the information needed by the organization to conduct its business.

Relationship Management

Main wikipage: Relationship management practice

The purpose of the relationship management practice is to establish and nurture the links between the organization and its stakeholders at strategic and tactical levels.

Supplier Management

Main wikipage: Supplier management practice

The purpose of the supplier management practice is to ensure the organization's suppliers and their performance are managed appropriately to support the provision of seamless, quality products, services and components.

Service Management Practices

Service management practices have been developed in service management and IT service management (ITSM) industries.

17 practices

There are 17 service management practices:

1. To understand according to Bloom's taxonomy for the ITIL 4 Foundation exam:
   • Change control practice.
   • Incident management.
   • Problem management practice.
   • Service desk.
   • Service level management practice.
   • Service request management practice.
2. To recall according to Bloom's taxonomy for the ITIL 4 Foundation exam:
   • IT asset management practice.
   • Monitoring and event management practice.
   • Release management practice.
   • Service configuration management practice.
   • Service continuity management practice.
3. Not covered by the ITIL 4 Foundation exam:
   • Availability management practice.
   • Business analysis practice.
   • Capacity and performance management practice.
   • Service catalogue management practice.
   • Service design practice.
   • Service validation and testing practice.

Change Control

Main wikipage: Change control practice

A change is the addition, modification, or removal of anything that could have a direct or indirect effect on IT services. The purpose of the change control practice is to maximize the number of successful IT changes by ensuring that risks have been properly assessed, authorizing changes to proceed, and managing the change schedule.

Incident Management

Main wikipage: Incident management

An incident is an unplanned interruption to a service, or reduction in the quality of service. The purpose of the incident management is to minimize the negative impact of incidents by restoring normal service operation as quickly as possible.

Problem Management

Main wikipage: Problem management practice

A problem is a cause, or potential cause, of one or more incidents. The purpose of the problem management practice is to reduce the likelihood and impact of incidents by identifying actual and potential causes of incidents, and managing workarounds and known errors.

Service Desk

Main wikipage: Service desk

The purpose of the service desk practice is to capture demand for incident resolution and service requests. It should also be the entry point/single point of contact for the service provider with all of its users.

Service Level Management

Main wikipage: Service level management practice

The purpose of the service level management practice is to set clear business-based targets for service performance, so that the delivery of a service can be properly assessed, monitored and managed against these targets.

Service Request Management

Main wikipage: Service request management practice

A service request is a request from a user or a user's authorized representative that initiates a service action which has been agreed as a normal part of service delivery. The purpose of the service request management practice is to support the agreed quality of a service by handling all agreed user-initiated service requests in an effective and user-friendly manner.

IT Asset Management

Main wikipage: IT asset management practice

An IT asset is any valuable component that can contribute to delivery of an IT product or service. The purpose of the IT asset management practice is to plan and manage the full lifecycle of all IT assets, to help the organization.

Monitoring and Event Management

Main wikipage: Monitoring and event management practice

An event is any change of state that has significance for the management of a configuration item (CI) or IT service. The purpose of the monitoring and event management practice is to systematically observe a service or service component, and record and report selected changes of state identified as events.

Release Management

Main wikipage: Release management practice

The purpose of the release management practice is to make new and changed services and features available for use.

Service Configuration Management

Main wikipage: Service configuration management practice

A configuration item (CI) is any component that needs to be managed in order to deliver an IT service. The purpose of service configuration management practice is to ensure that accurate and reliable information about the configuration of services, and the Cis that support them, is available when and where it is needed.

Service Continuity Management

Main wikipage: Service continuity management practice.

Technical Management Practices

Technical management practices have been adapted from technology management domains for service management purposes by expanding or shifting their focus from technology solutions to IT services.

3 practices

There are 3 technical management practices:

1. To recall according to Bloom's taxonomy for the ITIL 4 Foundation exam:
   • Deployment management practice.
2. Not covered by the ITIL 4 Foundation exam:
   • Infrastructure and platform management practice.
   • Software development and management practice.

Deployment Management

Main wikipage: Deployment management practice

The purpose of the deployment management practice is to move new or changed hardware, software, documentation, processes, or any other component to live environments. It may also be involved in deploying components to other environments for testing or staging.