ITIL Foundations V4

In the current data-driven market,  for businesses to grow and manage costs, they must effectively manage IT services as part of their operations.  A good IT Service Manager uses the ITIL framework and practices to make value-driven decisions while eliminating waste.

The goal of taking this exam is to demonstrate that you know and can implement the foundational concepts of IT Service Management.  It covers the core principles of IT service management, the Service Value System, 15 best practices, and lays the foundation for pursuing more advanced ITIL certifications.  

• 60 Minutes
• 40 questions, each worth 1 point
• 65% (26 / 40 ) correct to pass
• Multiple-choice questions with 4 possible answers.  

To demonstrate that you:

• know essential terms used in IT Service Management
• know essential concepts, principles, and practices 
• understand select operational methods 
• understand 15 ITIL practices in greater detail

You don't need to memorize the terms marked wtih (extra).  Those are more general terms that are used in ITIL literature often, but not specifically asked on the test, but good to know!   

Enabling customers to reach a desired outcome without having ownership of the whole process, its costs and risks.  e.g. a network management service.  Services are often made up of one or more products.   

1. A product is tangible, like the .exe file you install or the tech that responds to alerts  

 What the service does, its function as it pertains to the needs of the consumer.  If you USE it, it does what the consumer wants it to do.   E.G a cloud storage provider will provide the storage space, accessibility, security and scalability, that fits the function the consumer needs  

• The service is "Fit for Purpose" 

How the service performs, that it does what was stated it will do, will meet the agreed upon requirements.  E.G a cloud provider has SLAs on uptime, data integrity warranty, security assurance, backup warranty, etc.   

1. Warranties provide trust that the service will work as planned and the provider stands behind the product.  
2. The service is "Fit for Use"

Specifies what service they need and if what is offered meets their need.  E.G. a department head that pilots the software with a team and communicates with the service providers concerning how well the service meets their needs.  Has a clear understanding of what the biz need is and if the service meets that need  

The people that use the service on a regular basis, directly interact with it to complete a task.  Their feedback is important when looking at service improvements   

 A set of specific / unique capabilities the organization offers that provides value to customers in the form of a service.   E.G a Cell phone providers, ISP providers.  Service management is about the collaborative value creation between providers and consumers through a service relationship.   

1. The nature of value: a particular group of customers finds the service beneficial to them (a perceived benefit) 
2. The nature and scope of Stakeholders: how the final product should look and what it encompass 
3. How the service provides value: understanding what the customer perceives as valuable about the service  

  Thee person or team that approves the financial cost of the service.  May not use the service themselves.  E.G a PMO office that purchases software   

A set or collection of organization resources designed to perform work or accomplish and objective.  ITIL has 34 practices, broken into 3 categories: General Managment Practices, Service Management Practices, Technical Management Practices.   

 An organization’s activities both direct and indirect should generate value for itself, its customers and stakeholders 

1. Focus on Value creation: mostly about creating value for the service consumers (that use the service regularly) , but also other stakeholders as well.  Can adapt it for different stake holder groups  
2. Identify the consumers of the service: need to know who is using the service and how they are using.  ID key stakeholders. 
3. Consumers perspective of value: need to understand value from the customers viewpoint, how and why a customer uses the service, the costs and risks associated with using service.   
4. Customer Experience (CX) / User Experience (UX): the customer’s experience with the service and the provider, all the interactions a customer would have with the organization and its products.  Some parts are measurable, like SLA or price some are subjective, like layout design.   
5. Understand what outcomes the customer wants to use the service for, how they use the service, how they perceive the service provider 

 When looking to replace outdated or ineffective services with new ones, don’t discard everything.  Carefully analyze what the current landscape is and what can be reused.  Use direct observation along with good data to quantify what is good (processes, services, products, etc) and what’s not. 

1. Goodhart’s Law – when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.  Basically people are good at adapting behavior to meet a metric, but in so doing, that can distort the outcome.  eg. Prioritizing service desk call times which leads to rushing and not fixing the issue.  The key is to measure metrics that correlate directly with the intended outcomes. 
2. How to ‘Start where you are’:  
3. Take an objective look at current state and focus on parts that bring value to customer /desired outcome.  Are the current elements ‘fit for purpose’ (utility) and ‘fit for use?’ (warranty) 
4. Leverage successful practices: what services or practices are providing value, how can they be replicated or expanded to achieve the desired state. The focus is on learning why the practice is successful, not just ramping it up a ton. 
5. Apply Risk Management principals: think about the risks embedded in the service and reduced / new risks with a new solution 
6. Sometimes fresh start is best, but rarely. 

Don't do it all at once, divide the project into smaller, more easy to handle segments.  Each iteration should be timely, provide a tangible result and lay the groundwork for future enhancements.  Keep a constant focus on value creation.  Keys to this guiding principal:  

1. Balance understanding with making progress: don’t get so lost in analysis you don’t make any changes, a broad view is important, but acting and moving forward is essential 
2. Continual feedback is key, make sure to incorporate feedback at all levels 
3. Each iteration should produce a minimum viable product (MVP) -- a basic, yet functional version of the product.   Don’t try to go so fast that you don’t have a functional product to work from. 
4. The main idea is to carefully plan out each module and it product and use feedback to refine the product and remove defects from moving down the value stream 

 Getting the stakeholders involved and collaborating in an open and fair way yields better results.  Genuine collaboration, not silos or hidden projects is essential.  The more informed people are about what is happening and why it is happening, the more involved they will be and contribute productively.  Not providing visibility and keeping a project hidden leads to speculation and a more negative reception.   

• Need to engage with all relevant stakeholder groups (anyone with an interest in the outcomes and activities of the organization. Customers are the primary stakeholders to collaborate with.  They are using the services to achieve business outcomes; you need to engage with them.  (e.g. supplier works with organization to find a solution to a common customer, request or need. )
• The level of stakeholder involvement varies, as does their role during the process.  They may just approve a purchase order or be deeply involved in the details; you need to know their level of involvement and illicit the right kind of collaboration with them. 
• Provide regular updates about the project, and provide visibility on what is happening.  tailor your communications to the different types of stakeholders and focus on collaboration, not 100% consensus.   

 There aren't any services that work in isolation; the quality of an organization's outputs is contingent on how well all of the parts work together in a cohesive manner.  To have a comprehensive approach, you need to see all the components and how they fit together.   

1. Realize that systems are complex and vary in their complexity.  What works in a simpler system may not work in a complex system, where  
2. Set up timely and effective collaboration mechanisms between all stakeholders  
3. Look for patterns and persistent system needs to anticipate needs and get a comprehensive perspective 

 You want to achieve the objectives with the fewest possible steps.  Remove any process or service that doesn’t add value.  Don’t try to anticipate every scenario or situation when designing a service, instead create general rules that can address exceptions more generally 

1. When evaluating a service, practice, process, the key question is to ask is if it aids in creating value. Break it into parts and ask if the parts drive value or not. 
2. Only add controls or metrics when they are necessary, don’t add just to add something.  Simplicity is better than sophistication and leverage quick wins, like removing an unnecessary step or metric that just wastes time 
3. Identify objectives that may conflict and find compromise, often in a complex system different parts won’t agree, identify those early and address them.   
4. Overall, the goal is to focus on what is creating value and why it is, simplify where you can.  

Optimization is refining something to its most effective and functional state.  

Optimization involves: 

1. Evaluate the current condition of what you want to optimize and areas for enhancements and improvement.   
2. Determine the desired future state you are trying to achieve, with an emphasis on simplification and creating value 
3. Ensure stakeholders are engaged  
4. Do iterative steps and get feedback.  Have clear metrics to determine progress. 
5. Continually assess and look for other areas of improvement 
6. Automation is leveraging technology to complete one or more steps accurately and consistently with little or no, human input.  Best for simple and repetitive tasks.  
7. An example would be resource optimization where available resources are aligned with org needs, considering cost, scope, and quality
8. Simplify and/or optimize before automating

Each element of the  4 dimensions of Service Management is vital to delivering services and products that provide value to customers and other stakeholders.   Collectively, they offer a perspective of the whole organization, its value streams, and direction for improvements.  Ignoring one or more of the dimensions will lead to major issues in the quality and/or delivery of services.  The dimensions are also subject to outside forces.  Each service and the overall Service Value System (more below) can and should be interpreted through the 4 dimensions. 

Focus on the organizational structure, its people, roles, systems of authority and communication.  Often complex and overlapping.  Need to clearly define the structure and how it aligns with overall strategy and objectives. 

1. Think about the customers, employees, suppliers and other stakeholders, their competencies. Look at leadership styles.  Look at how different part of the organization interact.   
2. Each individual should see their role in value creation for the organization use that as what unites each business unit toward a common goal.   
3. Encompasses roles, responsibilities, organizational structure, culture and staffing competencies 
4. If looking at the whole SVS, the organization is the service provider 

 In the scope of a service, this involves the info that is produced, used and managed by the service and the technologies that facilitate and support the service.  For most businesses customers, information is the principal output.  An HR service, for example, manages and keeps secure all kinds of data on employees.   

1. Think about what type of info is the service handling 
2. Is there additional info and knowledge required to deliver and manage the service? 
3. What processes are in place / need to be put in place to manage, archive, secure, dispose of information produced 
4. How do the services / service components fit together?  What is the architecture of info as it flows from one service to another?   
5. Optimize factors like availability, reliability, accessibility, the relevance of what is being shared, can that be tweaked?  
6. Regulatory compliance: many services use data that has legal rules, like GDPR (general data protection regulation) and HIPAA 
7. When planning for a service, an improvement to a service, think about: 
8. Compatibility with existing architecture 
9. Regulatory and compliance  
10. Future viability 
11. Alignment with strategies and goals  
12. Skills and support – are new skills or support needed to use the service? 
13. Automation capabilities 
14. New risk / constraints or costs 
15. Other things to consider in this dimension is the culture and nature of the business. A sector that is regulated vs one that is not, or a company that is heavy into AI, while another is not.   

 The service the organization provides is dependent on services from other businesses; we can’t offer our product without outside services and vendors.   

1. Contractual and other forms of agreements between partner orgs, suppliers 
2. Relationships between orgs can be very complex to very simple.  Could be ordering supplies (printer paper),  to highly involved and working in a partnership to provide a service (manage printers for a company, they lease only) 
3. Factors in choosing suppliers and partners: 
4. Strategic focus – Org can focus on it’s core products and purchase services for secondary functions or want to control most in house 
5. Culture – past partnerships and agreements often have a strong impact on future contracts 
6. Resource scarcity: if the organization doesn’t have the resources it needs, can purchase them 
7. Cost concerns: weight the cost of internally managing all parts of the service or outsource it and what the vendor chanrges  

 Focus on the activities, workflows, controls and procedures that are used to reach objective(s).  How the different organizational segments work together to create value.   

1. A value stream is the sequential steps that an organization uses to deliver products and services.  Uses parts of the service value chain.  Need to define the value streams for each product and service.   
2. Map out the value streams in the organization, look for non-value producing activities 
3. A process is a structured set of activities designed to accomplish a specific objective.  Processes take one or more inputs and creates the defined outputs.  Processes must be measurable  
4. For specific services, look at the overall delivery model and value stream.  Who / what performs the actions.  What is essential to deliver the service? 

*This is an acronym for: Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental, not one of the dimensions.  It is a model used to analyze how external forces may affect a service or product  

The SVC is an operational model you use to capture demand, employ best practices (to design, build, deliver, and support a service) to offer the greatest value to the customers and organization.  A service is often composed of one or more products and frequently relies on other suppliers.  The SVC is a method to deliver real outcomes that customers want as efficiently and as cost-effectively as possible.   

The SVC is part of the larger Service Value System.  It is the 'mechanism'  in the service value system that produces, or improves upon existing products and services.   The SVS provides an end-to-end view of creating value, and it also emphasizes being adaptable to external factors and continuously improving. 

Picture the different parts as cogs that interconnect, and the output from one part is used for the next step. 

The main parts of the SVC:

•  Plan
• Improve
• Engage
• Design and Transition
• Obtain/Build
• Deliver and Support   

The Plan and Improve part of the SVC are the 'big cogs', you are thinking holistically and at the whole-organization level in scope.

Plan:  This is a high-level view of the current state of the organization and the intended outcomes it hopes to achieve.  Think across the four-dimensions, how will the actions you have planned affect them?  

Improve:  all your services and products could be improved on.  Consider improvements you can make to products and services to futher drive value.  Consider the product or service in relation to each of the four dimensions, what could be improved on? 

PLAN:   

Inputs needed for this activity:  

1. policies, governance, requirements set by the orgs governing body 
2. Aggregated demands and opportunities identified in Engage activity 
3. Ongoing improvements, current state of value chain and plans from Improve  
4. Status reports about improvements from Improve activity 
5. Updates and details about new or modified products / services from Design and Transition and Obtain/ Build 

Outputs of this activity: 

1. Strategic, operational plans 
2. Portfolio decisions for Design and Transition  
3. Identify improvement opportunities for Improve 
4. A comprehensive product and service portfolio for Engage 
5. Contract and agreement specifications for Engage 

IMPROVE: 

Inputs for this activity: 

1. Performance data from Deliver and Support 
2. Feed back from stakeholders from Engage 
3. Info about new / modified products in Design and Transition and Obtain / Build 
4. Info about 3rd party components from Engage 

Outputs for this activity:  

1. Plans for improvments across whole value chain 
2. Performance info about value chain for Plan activity and governing body 
3. Requirements for contracts and agreements for Engage activity 
4. Service performance info for Design and Transition activties.  

The purpose of this practice is to protect the information needed by the organization to conduct its business.  Need to understand and manage risks to confidentiality, integrity, and availability of info (CIA).  The goal is to make sure that the organization's information is protected to a level that is consistent with values and minimizes business risk.  This practice includes: 

1. Identifying assets that need to be protected (hardware, software, wireless, workstations, etc.) 
2. Identify the risks that could impact these resources and what steps can be taken to manage/minimize these risks.   
3. Monitoring and continual improvements to ensure security and meet emerging threats.  

Key concepts of Info security practice: 

• CIA: confidentiality, availability, integrity 
•  Confidentiality – only people or systems that should see the information can see it, it is available to authorized entities only. 
• Integrity – the information is accurate and can only be modified by authorized people or system 
• Availability – the info is available when needed and where it is needed.  
• Authentication – the person or system is who they say they are, verification that what is stated is true.  Can use MFA, biometrics etc 
• Non-repudiation – can determine who and what did a certain action, the ability to audit and have proof of what was done and by who.   
• Assets – anything of value, hardware, people, processes, websites, etc 
• Threat – a possible event that could harm an asset 
• Threat actor – a person or group that poses a threat to assets 
• Vulnerability -- a weakness that could be exploited against an asset.  

 The goal is to build and maintain relationships between internal/external customers, stakeholders, suppliers, partners etc.  Need to understand the expectations of the customer and consumers of the service and meet those needs, as well as communicate and foster productive interactions.  This practice is designed to establish and nurture to links between an organization and its stakeholders.  Ensure that all parties have clear expectations and needs, and goals are aligned with what the service provides.  

1. Need to engage with the stakeholders throughout the service lifecycle, essential to make sure the services are aligned with business objectives and meet customer requirements.  
2. This practice builds trust and satisfaction with customers and stakeholders 
3. Can make a stakeholder map based on their level of influence and interest.  This can change over time, for different services 

Key terms: 

• stakeholder map: a 4-square chart based on the level of influence and intrest level.  This lets you tailor communications to and level of outreach. 

The focus is on careful selection, management and evaluation of suppliers to ensure they are delivering value to the organization.  Need to develop good, strong and mutually beneficial relationships between org and suppliers.  Need to examine the whole lifecycle of the service and how to leverage the suppliers capabilities to drive value.  Good supplier management practices allow an organization to manage their supply chain, ensuring that the right services are delivered at the right time, at the right cost and within the expected cost and warranty.  

1. The supplier's responsibility is to provide services to the organization.  The first step is to identify available suppliers and reaching out for info.

Key terms:

• RFI – request for information – the initial, often informal request to get info about the product and the supplier. 
• RFP -- Request for Proposal – this is a detailed document that lays out the objectives, scope, timeline, cost, and expected outcomes that the org produces.  Suppliers then submit a comprehensive proposal.  Usually for more complex projects 
• RFQ – request for quote – request a pricing quote for specified products or services.  More for straightforward purchases  
• RFB -- Request for Bid – request for suppliers to submit a competitive bid.  More elaborate than a Request for Quote  
• RFD -- Request for Demonstration – request a live demo or presentation, outlines the demo requirements, integrations, features etc.   
• Contractual agreements: details the service level agreements, utility, warranty, terms and conditions, payment terms.    

 The goal is to maximize value in the procurement, distribution, and disposal of IT assets. Covers the whole lifecycle of the assets.  Includes both hardware, software, licensing. .  Consider:  

1. How to maximize value 
2. Control costs 
3. Manage risks 
4. Support decision-making  about purchase, reuse, retirement, and disposal of assets 
5. Meet regulatory and contractual requirements 

Key Terms: 

•  IT Asset: any financially valuable component that can contribute to the delivery of an IT product or service   
• ITAM lifecycle: Planning and Budgeting > Acqusition > Assignement > Utilization > (AUDITING) > Decomission > Disposal  

 The goal is to continually monitor services and IT infrastructure to identify and respond to events that could impact services. It prioritizes infrastructure, IT security, and business processes to record and report changes that may impact services.  It also establishes an appropriate response to those events and conditions that indicate potential faults or incidents.    

Key terms: 

•  Event: any change in state to a service or CI item that is significant.  Can be:
  • Informational - No impact on service, no response required
  • Instructional - potential impact on service, predefined responose
  • Warning - services may be impacacted, investigate 
  • Exception - incident, services are impacted, incident management

The goal is to make new and changed services and features available for customers with minimal interruptions to services.  Release mangement is the link between change enablement and deployment management.  

**this is different than Deployment Management, the emphasis here is on realeases going smoothly and avalable for use.  

Key terms:

• Release: a version of a service or configurable item which is being made available for use
•  Push or Pull method to deliver release: can have release pushed to users, or make it available for them to pull it down on their own.   

The goal is to develop and maintain an accurate information on all CI (configuration items) and the configuration of services .  Need to ensure that the assets needed to deliver services are properly controlled and accurate and reliable info is available for those assets. 

 Key terms: 

• Configuration items (CI): a physical or digital item that requires management to deliver IT services.  Need to know the asset and the relationship between assets.

The goal is to successfully move a service or feature to a live, production environment.  Covers the whole life cycle, from planning, scheduling, testing, and deploying.  This is different from release management; inyou moving a service or feature from a testing or stage environment to a live enviroment.  

Key Terms:

• Development/integration environment – for software creation and integration with other software development 
• Test environment – assess the software and components 
• Stage environment – for evaluation in an environment that mirrors production, test with other applications 
• Live / production environment – the environment where users interact with and consume the service  

Approaches for deployment: 

• Phased deployment 
• Continuous deployment 
• Big bang deployment 
• Pull deployment 

 The goal is to align the organization's practices and services with changing business needs through the ongoing improvement of the products, services, and practices.  

Key terms: 

•  SWOT – Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats
•  The Continual Improvement Model (see below** for more):  used to advance the continual improvement projects.  It is focused on delivering customer value and ensuring the improvements undertaken align with the vision and overall objectives of the organization. 
•  Continual Improvement Register (CIR): a document or database used to track improvements from conception to completion. It serves as a central repository for capturing, assessing, prioritizing, and tracking the progress of improvement initiatives.    

This practices is  focused on ensuring that changes to the environment are done in a controlled and efficient manner.  The goal is to maximize value and benefits to the organization while minimizing downtime and disruption of service.  You need a structured approach to changes and a clear understanding of the potential impacts of the change on existing services and business operations. 

Key terms: 

1. Change: addition / removing or modifying a component that would directly or indirectly affect a service.   
2. A standard change – low risk, preauthorized, routine types of changes that are well documented.  Examples are: fulfilling a service request, standard incident response changes, infrastructure maintenance and updates, software patching and updates. 
3. Normal change: medium, high or unknown risk, authorization needed.  Begins with a Request for Change (RFC)  
4. RFC – kicks off the change enablement process.  Usually internally developed, but can be from supplier or partner, based on changes they are making. 
5. Emergency changes: need to be done immediately, but still done in a controlled fashion.  Can be standardized and automated  
6. Change model: a repeatable model for managing the different kinds of changes.   
7. Change Advisor board (CAB): formalized team to approve changes, not as prevalent in an agile framework.   

 The goal is to restore services and processes to normal operations after an unexpected outage.   Need to communicate updates and get feedback to validate satisfactory resolution.   

Key terms:

• Incident: an unplanned interruption to a service or impacted service quality 
• Incident model: a standardized method to managing a specific types of incidences 
• Major incident: a significant impact to business operations, needs immediate response 
• Workaround: a temporary solution that mitigates the problem, when a complete resolution is not possible yet 
•  Swarming: a way to manage certain incidents (e.g. when the incident falls outside of the predefined recovery procedures) – getting many different stakeholders working together initially, until it is clear who is best placed to continue and who can move on.    

 The goal is to understand the root causes of incidents and make changes in order to prevent future incidents.  This practice involves analyzing incident records to look for trends and investigate the root causes.   

Key Concepts: 

• Problem: a cause or potential cause of an incident 
• Prioritization: deciding which tasks to do first, when resources can’t be allotted for all tasks 
• Task priority: ranking tasks from high to low importance and doing the highest priority first 
• Workaround: a temporary solution to minimize the impact of an incident until a complete resolution is found.  Some workarounds reduce the likelihood of incidents 
• Error: an issue or misconfiguration that can cause an incident  
• Known error: a problem that has been analyzed but remains unresolved

the goal is to  support the agreed quality of a service by handling, user initiated service requests in an effective and user-friendly manner

Key terms:

• Service request: a user request for a service action that is a standard part of the services being delivered.  Service request can be for many things: 
  •  A service delivery action – provide a report 
  • Information – how to access a meeting  
  • Provision of resource – new device  
  • Access to a resource – access to folder 
  • Feedback, complaints, compliments .   

• Request catalog – part of the service catalog where users can submit service requests.   
• Service catalogues: structured information about all the services and service offerings of a service provider, relevant to a specific target audience 

The  service desk is the primary point of contact between IT, IT services and users.  The service desk handles incidents and fulfilling service requests

The goal is  to  establish clear business-based targets for service levels and to ensure that delivery of services is properly assessed, monitored and managed against these targets.