What’s New with the ITIL 4 Books and Content

As we enter 2020, many of us who are awaiting the higher-level, and more detailed, ITIL 4 best practice content (that’s the level above the ITIL Foundation content that was published in early 2019) might still be unaware as to what that new ITIL 4 content will look like. Yes, we know that there’s now an ITIL service value system (SVS), service value chain, and 34 management practices – if you don’t, then I suggest that you read my blog 10 Key Changes in ITIL 4 (and My Take on Them) – but what’s going to be available “above” the ITIL Foundation publication?

Well, if you want to know, then please keep reading as I explain how the new ITIL 4 best practice guidance breaks down.

There are four “physical” ITIL 4 publications

These four books are already available online now in beta form – the deal is that you can subscribe to the “draft” online versions of the four books now and the hard copy books will be sent to you when formally published in Q1 2020. You can get these via the TSO Shop.

“But what are these books?” I hear you cry.

The four ITIL 4 “physical” publications are:

1. Create, Deliver and Support
2. Drive Stakeholder Value
3. High Velocity IT
4. Direct, Plan and Improve.

Each of these is described below.

The Create, Deliver and Support publication

This describes how value streams can be built and managed, including how continual improvement iterations and feedback loops can be included in them.

The book states that it “…explores areas such as development, testing, knowledge, customer and employee feedback, new technologies, sourcing, and ways of managing work.”

It’s very much focused on what service management capabilities need to be in 2020 and beyond.

The Drive Stakeholder Value publication

ITIL 4 states that “Everyone contributes to value co-creation, including employees from large and small organizations, contractors, and customers.”

This ITIL 4 publication is, therefore, a framework that can be adopted and adapted for individual situations – with it aimed at individuals and organizations involved in service relationships, such as product and service provision, consumption, and relationship management roles/capacities.

The target audience for the book includes ITSM roles such as:

• Business relationship managers
• Service delivery managers
• Service desk managers
• Service level managers
• Service and solution architects
• Product owners and digital product managers
• Portfolio managers
• Supplier relationship managers and vendor managers

The High Velocity IT publication

This publication is for practitioners working in digitally enabled organizations. Aimed at helping them to develop relevant practical competencies and to integrate new concepts, techniques, and technologies into their current ways of working.

Ultimately, improving how they and their colleagues:

• “Provide products and services
• Continually raise their standards of work
• Trust and are trusted
• Accept ambiguity and uncertainty
• Commit to continual learning.”

The Direct, Plan and Improve publication

This publication is aimed at practitioners with a foundational knowledge of ITIL 4 who want to develop this further.

The book states that “Regardless of organizational role, everyone has authority, even if it is limited to personal direction. Everyone should plan. And everyone should be contributing to, if not leading, improvement.”

To help, this publication offers up principles, methods, techniques, tools, and templates that can be used to direct, plan, and improve (no matter your role).

So, that’s the four physical ITIL 4 publications explained. Then there’s the online, subscription-based, body of ITSM best practice – My ITIL.

The My ITIL subscription

To quote the AXELOS website, “As a My ITIL subscriber, you can access a range of templates, toolkits, and resources to apply ITIL best practice and excel in your career.”

This is the home of the detailed content related to the 34 ITIL 4 management practices. And, because it’s an online resource, these can be updated over time to reflect any necessary changes within the ITSM ecosystem.

At the time of writing this blog, the following 15 management practices were available to subscribers:

1. Risk Management: ITIL 4 Practice Guide
2. Service Design: ITIL 4 Practice Guide
3. Software Development and Management: ITIL 4 Practice Guide
4. Problem Management: ITIL 4 Practice Guide
5. Incident Management: ITIL 4 Practice Guide
6. Change Enablement: ITIL 4 Practice Guide
7. Organizational Change Management: ITIL 4 Practice Guide
8. Service Validation and Testing: ITIL 4 Practice Guide
9. Service Level Management: ITIL 4 Practice Guide
10. Deployment Management: ITIL 4 Practice Guide
11. Release Management: ITIL 4 Practice Guide
12. Service Desk: ITIL 4 Practice Guide
13. Knowledge Management: ITIL 4 Practice Guide
14. Continual Improvement: ITIL 4 Practice Guide
15. Monitoring & Event Management: ITIL 4 Practice Guide

You can see how these are spread across the full set of 34 management practice in the table below:

Therefore, there are still 19 more ITIL 4 Practice Guides to be made available on My ITIL.

What you get in a management practice document

This is the important bit for me. How is each of these guides going to help me and other ITSM practitioners? I’ll use Incident Management as an example.

First of all, while this is online content, it’s actually available as a series of downloadable PDFs – one per management practice.

These PDFs are split into five main sections that cover:

1. General information about the practice – there’s the practice’s purpose and description, terms and concepts, scope (including related activities and the Practice Guides where these can be found), practice success factors, and key metrics.
2. The practice’s processes and activities and their roles in the service value chain – there’s the contribution to value streams and the relevant processes (such as incident handling and resolution).
3. The organizations and people involved in the practice – there’s the roles, competencies, and responsibilities, and organizational structure and teams (including guidance related to getting the most out of people in teams).
4. The information and technology supporting the practice – there’s information exchange (which talks to the quality of the information used), and automation and tooling (including the automation solutions for the practice).
5. Considerations for partners and suppliers for the practice.

As an indication of how much content there is in each Practice Guide, the Incident Management PDF is 33 pages long including the cover, end, and content pages.

But there’s more…

A subscription to My ITIL not only offers up the 34 Practice Guides, there’s also:

• ITIL-related white papers and downloadable pocketbooks
• Video tutorials
• Downloadable templates (in Excel and Word)
• Job profiles for various ITSM roles.

Plus, a discussion group capability.

So, that’s what you should expect from the new ITIL 4 best practice content. Is there anything that I haven’t mentioned that you’d like to see available to you and your colleagues? Please let me know in the comments.