Seven Guiding Principles, Study notes of Information Technology

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ITIL v

The Service Value System

Seven Guiding Principles

One of the most important components of the ITIL Service Value System is the ITIL Guiding Principles. A guiding principle is a recommendation that provides universal and enduring guidance to an organization, which applies in all circumstances, regardless of changes in its goals, strategies, type of work, or management structure.

1. Focus on Value  Everything the organization does should link back, directly or indirectly, to value for itself, its customers, and other stakeholders.  Value is defined by consumer needs.  Value is achieved through support of the intended outcomes and optimization of the service consumer’s costs and risks.  Value changes over time and in different circumstances. The people who are part of the service supply chain must always ask: Who is the consumer and what is the customers perception of value? Why does the consumer use the services and what do the services help them to do? How does the services help the consumer meet their goals? What are the costs / financial consequences and risks for the service consumer? 2. Start Where You Are  Assess where you are.  Understand the role of measurement.  Look at what exists as objectively as possible, using the customer, or desired outcomes as the starting point.  When examples of successful practices or services are found in the current state, determine if and how these can be replicated or expanded upon to achieve the desired state.  Apply your risk management skills.  Recognize that sometimes nothing from the current state can be re-used. 3. Progress Iteratively with Feedback  Resist the temptation to do everything at once. By organizing work into smaller, manageable sections (iterations) that can be executed and completed in a timely manner, the focus on each effort will be sharper and easier to maintain.  Start small building into large improvement.  Feedback will help understand:

• End user and customer perception of the value created.
• The efficiency and the effectiveness of the value chain activities.
• The effectiveness of service governance as well as management controls.
• The interface between the organization and partner / supplier network.
• The demand for the products and services. Feedback Mechanisms effectiveness:

internal capabilities. To avoid this, the organization needs to perform such critical analysis activities as understanding the flow of work in progress, identifying bottlenecks and excess capacity, and uncovering waste.

5. Think and work holistically It may be easier to think about your bit of the work in isolation, but this results in poor practice. There’s little point in one part of your organization working faster or more efficiently if this puts a strain on some other part of the organization. You need to think about how the work you do contributes to the overall creation of value. This way you can make decisions that benefit everyone. No service, practice, process, department, or supplier stands alone. They all interact in complex ways to create value. You need to think about the whole thing whenever you’re making a decision or planning an improvement.  Ask how does it all work together?  Remember that nothing stands alone.  Establish end to end visibility.  Altering one element can impact others.  6. Keep it simple and practical Focus on the simple things that create value, rather than on following complex processes just because they have been in use for a long time. Ask why complex steps exist and unless there is a solid, current reason, stop doing them. Use the minimum number of steps that you need and don’t do anything that isn’t creating value for one of your stakeholders. One implication of this principle is that your processes need to cover the basics and shouldn’t be designed to cover every possible situation. Train people to recognise when they need to do something different, and then trust them to do it. If everyone in an organization has a good grasp of the ITIL guiding principles, then they should make the right decisions in most situations.

 Use the minimum number of steps.  Establish outcome-based thinking.  Eliminate things of no value.  Judge what to keep.  Start with uncomplicated approach – basics.  Agree on Objectives. 

7. Optimize and Automate (eliminate waste)