ITIL advocates that IT services are aligned to the needs of the business and support its core processes. It provides guidance to organizations and individuals on how to use IT Service Management (ITSM) ­­­as a tool to facilitate business change, transformation and growth. Some are believing that ITIL has run its course.  In truth I believe the opposite is true.   In the past, and still today, many organizations believe that Best Practice and ITSM processes are focused on the Service Operation Lifecycle.   Implementation, process design, and ITSM tools have had a very heavy focus on processes like Incident, Problem, Change and Configuration Management. Few have yet to recognize or have not seen the value in the guidance for Service Strategy and Service Design processes and roles.   How did these get overlooked? In the last three or so years I have seen a bit more buzz about “Business Relationship Management”.   Less so for “Demand” and “Strategy Management” for IT Services. Few are

At the core of ITSM is the idea of delivering services to customers, how these services will be engaged to deliver some form of value to the customer and the customer’s organization, and the value captured by the service provider.  For this to be accomplished we must first understand the key elements of an IT service and how, as a service provider, we deliver the correct set of services effectively and efficiently.   “A service is a means of delivering value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks”.  This allows the customer to create the desired business outcome without having to invest in specialized tools or skills.  By linking activities performed by the service provider to the desired business outcomes the provider can be seen as contributing value, not just as a cost to the business. The value of a service is derived from what it enables someone to accomplish or what outcomes it enables them to