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Foreword
OGC’s foreword
As co-founder of the ITIL concept and leader of its early development, I’m delighted by the positive impact it has made on companies and organizations around the world. What began as a UK government initiative to set out an efficient, successful and reliable approach to service management is now a global endeavour, with publications, training and support tools available in various languages. Of course, successful growth doesn’t happen by chance and ITIL has proven itself many times over through the benefits it brings to the businesses that embed its practices.
Since its creation in the late 1980s, ITIL has been developed to keep up to date with a constantly changing service management environment. Here in the latest version, I am pleased to see a top-quality product. Consultation with experts on a global scale brings you leading practices, identified through experience and brought together with the skills and expertise of our publishing partner, The Stationery Office (TSO).
I believe ITIL will continue to play an important role within government as an effective standard framework for delivery. However, the real value in ITIL is that its benefits are available to every organization, large or small, with a genuine desire to deliver a high-performing service provision. May your organization be one of those!
John Stewart
Office of Government Commerce
Chief Architect’s foreword
This book is dedicated to the people who practise IT service management. Through their knowledge and experiences we have shaped the present and can see further toward the future along our journey to service excellence.
Over the past two decades the world of IT has changed dramatically. The IT Infrastructure Library framework has grown along with it and has shaped a community of practice that has spawned an entire industry. What hasn’t changed in all that time is the need for us as practitioners of service management to learn how best practices evolve and how they support and influence the customer’s successes or failures.
In a world of growing complexity, choice and globalization, ITIL has remained at the heart of the industry, growing and evolving to meet the needs of service providers. The current version of ITIL is a product of this evolution.
Within the pages of this book, we will introduce ITIL to the novice, further educate the practitioner and transform our understanding of IT service management best practices.
This book captures the basic concepts of the ITIL Service Lifecycle and its benefits. It serves as a reference to ITIL service management practices, but should not be considered a substitute for the ITIL core practice set.
It is from here we begin the journey into the ITIL service management practices.
Sharon Taylor
Chief Architect, ITIL Service Management Practices
