What’s Covered in the ITIL Service Lifecycle? (Part 2)

In the previous article, there are two ITIL Service Lifecycle that have been discussed, namely Service Strategy and Service Design. Furthermore, this article part 2 will discuss the last three ITIL Service Lifecycle which divided into Service Transition, Service Operation, and Continual Service Improvement.

The Processes of Service Transition, Service Operation, & Continual Service Improvement

ITIL or Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a volumes library that describes a best practices framework for delivering IT services. ITIL has been updated several times and ITIL V4 now becomes the latest ITIL version which complements its previous version (ITIL V3). As stated in previous article, ITIL V3 organizes five lifecycle process of ITIL divided into: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, and Continual Service Improvement. This article will specifically discuss the last three lifecycle process of ITIL, namely Service Transition, Service Operation, and Continual Service Improvement.

First, Service Transition is the stage where the results of the service design stage are implemented into a new service. As a lifecycle stage, Service Transition has six ITIL processes divided into transition planning and support, change management, service asset & configuration management, release & deployment management, service validation & testing, and knowledge management.

Next, Service Operation is a lifecycle stage that includes all daily operational activities for managing IT services. It has various guidelines on how to manage IT services efficiently and effectively. Service Operation has six ITIL processes that divided into event management, incident management, problem management, request fulfilment, change management, and access management.

Then, Continual Service Improvement is the last stage in ITIL Service Lifecycle. It provides important guidance for creating improvements that would support the life cycle approach. This stage focuses on increasing efficiency, maximizing service effectiveness, and optimizing service costs. The seven processes of Continual Service Improvement are Identify the approach for improvement, state what will you measure, collect the data, process the data, analyze the data and information, present and use the information, and implement corrective or remedial activities.

Conclusion

ITIL Service Management supports this transformation through the use of the Service Lifecycle, which is split into 5 distinct lifecycle stages: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, and Continual Service Improvement. Each stage is dependent on the other lifecycle stages for inputs and feedback.

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References

Kornev. A. (2011). Service Operation. Norwich: TSO (The Stationery Office).

Lloyd. V., Rudd, C. (2011). ITIL Continual Service Improvement. Buckinghamshire: OGC.

Rance. S. (2011). Service Transition. Norwich: TSO (The Stationery Office).