Ebony and Ivory - Agile and ITIL

Today technology has been integrated into almost every aspect of business and continues to grow in importance with every new innovation. It is impacting organizational structures, business processes, how and what products and services we offer to our customers. This tidal wave of change is increasing in complexity and velocity. These dynamics are shaping the strategies we must employ to manage our IT environments.

Given the changes that are happening in the digital world today, support organizations have had to look at how to enhance and speed up the traditional waterfall approach to management of our IT infrastructures. ITIL and Agile are not contradictory of each other. Agile development provides opportunities to assess the direction of a project throughout its development lifecycle. It is a methodology on how to deliver projects, that is iterative, adaptive and an incremental approach to project management which can be used for almost any type of project.

ITIL is about best practice in IT Service Management. It’s a holistic collection of processes and functions on how to define, design, transition, run and continuously improve services and the processes that support their delivery. ITIL’s perspective is from the operational point of view, recognizing that value to the customer is delivered during service operation and therefore operational requirements must be engaged as early as Service Strategy. ITIL is neutral about what types of tools or management methodologies are used, which means that ITIL and Agile are complementary and not competitive.

From a design perspective, both usually have a starting point of an approved business case and gather business requirements. One in the form of a Service Level Requirements document, the other in user stories. Both then prioritize these requirements or improvement opportunities ensuring they align to customer needs and the overall business strategy.

During the transition phase time boxed sprints are employed. Normally the sprint will start with a sprint planning meeting and daily standup meetings, which help to track progress and to eliminate impediments. The sprint ends with the sprint review meeting, where the new or changed service is formally accepted. There can also be a Sprint Retrospect Meeting, which results in lessons learned for the next sprint.

In ITIL the change transition planning and support process gets employed to oversee coordination and prioritization of resources. Moving into change, SACM and release and deployment controls are utilized to insure that intended outcomes are being realized and risk assessment are being properly review, along with accurate recording of data, information and knowledge. This will normally finish with a post implementation review where the change is accepted into operations and lessons learned can be recorded for future changes. In speaking with a number of my students, it’s in the actual deployment and the operational phases where they are still working on the integration of methodologies. They incorporate Agile in the Strategy, Design and large parts of the Transitions stage, but in the Operation stage, the rigor of the ITIL concepts is still a requirement when integrating older applications and systems with new that are still prevalent in real world situations (off the island). This helps to safeguard service availability, security and continuity while Agile ensures the quickened pace to deliver new capabilities to the business. This ties in with creating a culture of ITIL’s continuous improvement, while looking to move forward with greater speed, without compromising quality.

Four Service Characteristics

Recently I came across several articles by researchers and experts that laid out definitions and characteristics of services. ITIL provides us with a definition that can help drive the creation of value-laden services: A means of delivering value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks. An area that ITIL is not so clear is in terms of service characteristics. Several researchers and experts put forth that services have four basic characteristics (IHIP): Intangibility—Services are the results of actions not things. They have no physical presence and represent a logical set of elements. One way to think of service is “work done for others.” Heterogeneity—Also known as “variability”; services are unique items because of the mechanisms used to deliver services, which is people. Because the people element adds variability, the service is variable. This holds true, especially for the value proposition—not eve...

What Is A Service Offering?

The ITIL 4 Best Practice Guidance defines a “Service Offering” as a description of one or more services designed to address the needs of a target customer or group. As a service provider, we can’t stop there! We must know what the contracts of our service offering are and be able to put them into context as required by the customer. Let’s explore the three elements that comprise a Service Offering. A “Service Offering” may include: Goods, Access to Resources, and Service Actions 1. Goods – When we think of “Goods” within a service offering these are the items where ownership is transferred to the consumer and the consumer takes responsibility for the future use of these goods. Example of goods that are being provided in the offering – If this is a hotel service then toiletries or chocolates are yours to take with you. You the consumer own these and they are yours to take with you. ...

What is the difference between Process Owner, Process Manager and Process Practitioner?

This article was originally published in 2015. With the Introduction of ITIL 4, some of this best practice has changed. See ITIL 4 and the Evolving Role of Roles . Updated Definitions in ITIL 4: Process Owner: In ITIL 4, the concept of 'processes' has expanded into broader 'practices.' Consequently, the Process Owner is now often referred to as the 'Practice Owner.' This individual is accountable for the overall design, performance, integration, and improvement of a specific practice within the organization. They ensure that the practice achieves its intended outcomes and aligns with the organization's objectives. Process Manager: Now commonly known as the 'Practice Manager' in ITIL 4, this role is responsible for the day-to-day management of the practice. The Practice Manager ensures that activities are carried out as intended, manages resources assigned to the practice, and oversees the practitioners performing the work. Process Practit...

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