ITIL Lifecycle Suite/Collection Manuals. 5 vols: Service Strategy WITH Service Design AND Service Transition AND Service Operation AND Continual Service Improvement [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

There will be many that feel ITIL v3 is lacking in parts, however, these will be the same people that felt ITIL v2 wasn't required when it was originally published.

There is a large amount of work in ITIL v3 and those who are displaying the signs of resistance towards it will simply need time to see that it is in fact the new commonsense approach for IT Service Management.

Let's begin...

All five books start with a common section that reviews Service Management as a Practice. In here you will find what you would expect. What is Service Management, What are Services, Business Processes discussed and a good section that explains the concept of the Service Lifecycle.

Service Strategy
Includes a section on Service Strategy Principles. Where the concept of service assets are raised against the three differnt Service Provider types. The book then moves into some heavy duty stuff where Service Strategy itself is defined as four distinct phases. This is real heavy going so don't try to read it at the end of a busy day.

Service Strategy then looks at organizational considerations as well as addressing the imporant issue of organizational culturee, before rounding out with a link to the other four volumes, a section on technology and finally the risks, challenges and critical success factors.

Service Design is next and it (like Transition and Operations) has two dominant sections. The first on Service Design principles looks at the concepts and activities of service design (things like identifying service requirements and design constraints). The other major section looks at the Service Design processes (Catalogue Management, Service Level Management, Capacity Management, Availability Management, IT Service Continuity Management, Information Security and Supplier).

The Service Design book finishes with technology, organizational issues, technology, implementation and challenges, risks, critical success factors.

Service Transition follows the pattern of Service Design. The principles section of Transition is very short; but then you have over 110 pages on processes (Transition Planning and Support, Change Management, Service Asset and Configuration Management, Release and Deployment, Evaluation and Knowledge Management).

Service Transition concludes with the same topics as Transition.

Service Operation continues the pattern, but throw in a sizeable chunk on the four defined functions (Service Desk, Application Management, IT Operations Management and Technical Management). The processes covered are event management, incident, problem, request fulfilment and access management).

Finally, the Continual Service Improvement volume. Issues dealt with here include Governance, Deming and benchmarks. Processes covered are the 7 step improvement process, service reporting, service measurement and some other topics which I would call concepts, rather than processes (ROI for CSI, Business questions).

The book introduces some techniques for CSI which is where Deming is expanded, assessments and gap analysis is covered and benchmarking gets a mention.

Finish off with technology, implementation, risks and challenges and that is the five books.

Service Strategy - 257 pages
Service Design - 317 pages
Service Transition - 251 pages
Service Operation - 251 pages
CSI - 215 pages

Approximately 10% is a direct repeat in each book (the opening sections).

For those who have been understanding and applying the underlying concepts of ITSM since version 2, this is a natural evolution of the framework, and many of the IT shops are currently using one or more ITIL process.
I just want to point out some things that I found on this new version:
- some topics from ICT IM (infrastructure management) are now incorporated as part of the Service Lifecycle. For example Strategy and Event Management. In the past this two processes were NEVER taught in ITSM Foundation classes. The same can be said for Security and Application Management. Now they are part of the service lifecycle, wich is good for those who already knew this was necessary, but it could be very complex for those people completely new in ITIL.
- small but certain portions of the books are completely "copy and paste" excerpts from the previous V2 books, while other parts are improved and of course there are a LOT of new material.
I strongly suggest you buy first Design, Transition and Operations book. Specially the Operations book. And after a carefull understanding, proceed with Strategy and CSI.
Someone can say this books are really expensive. Yes, they are. But I just can think how much an IT degree (MBA) costs in this days. This is really a MBA in managing an IT organization. So the investment worths it, because you get the knowledge MOST of the world class IT shops are using.

I was excited to learn that the OGC was looking to 'evolve' ITIL but I've not been overly impressed with the output. Granted I've only finished reading two of the five books in the suite but have seen little in them to necessitate a five book re-write. And the style in which it is presented sends shivers down my spine. If I'd not been previously experienced in ITSM I'd have been intimidated by the material.

The point of the suite was to provide IT managers with a systematic approach to plan, design, implement, manage and improve IT process management. In other words they spent a lot of time throwing a project management wrapper around the ITSM processes... not exactly rocket science unless you were one of those that threw common sense out the window to religiously follow a consultant's 'expert' opinion and ended up mired in an undisciplined and incomplete ITSM installation.

I do credit them with the separation of the Service Management methodologies. It was due and makes more sense. I think that this section will benefit many who have struggled with the Service Catalog in Version 2.

Overall, I think readers will suffer through a lot of noise in these books trying to find the truly 'evolved' items that were promised.