ITIL4FEN Practices v1.1

ITIL4F® Practices
ITIL® 4
Foundation
Practices
(explained)
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ITIL4FEN Practices v1.0 © Fabio Savarino for QRP International, 2020 Page 1 of 42
ITIL4F® Practices
INDEX
Introduction ............................................................................................................... 4
Definition: Practice ........................................................................................................................................ 5
Definition: Practice Success Factor (PSF)....................................................................................................... 5
Definition: Metric .......................................................................................................................................... 6
Definition: Process ......................................................................................................................................... 6
Definition: Procedure .................................................................................................................................... 6
ROLES: competencies and responsibilities (within Practices) ....................................................................... 7
Practices: the Map ..................................................................................................... 9

Service Desk Practice ................................................................................................ 10
Purpose ........................................................................................................................................................ 10
Dimension of Service Management: example of resources ........................................................................ 10
Definition: Omnichannel communications.................................................................................................. 10
Definition: Service empathy ........................................................................................................................ 11
Definition: Moment of truth........................................................................................................................ 11
Activities related to the Service Desk Practice described in other Practice guides .................................... 11
PSF (Practice Success Factors) ..................................................................................................................... 12
KEY METRICS ................................................................................................................................................ 12
VALUE STREAM CONTRIBUTION (Heat map) .............................................................................................. 13
PROCESSES................................................................................................................................................... 14
User query handling Process ................................................................................................................... 14
Communicating to users Process ............................................................................................................ 16
Service Desk optimization Process .......................................................................................................... 16
ROLES: responsibilities, competence profile, and specific skills within the Service Desk Practice ............. 17
Organizational structures and teams .......................................................................................................... 18
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Automation and Tools ................................................................................................................................. 18
Partners and suppliers ................................................................................................................................. 19
Incident Management Practice ................................................................................ 20

Purpose ........................................................................................................................................................ 20
Definition: Incident ...................................................................................................................................... 20
Definition: Incident model........................................................................................................................... 20
Definition: Major incident ........................................................................................................................... 20
Definition: Workaround .............................................................................................................................. 21
Definition: Technical debt ........................................................................................................................... 21
Activities related to the Incident Management Practice described in other Practice guides ..................... 21
KEY METRICS ................................................................................................................................................ 22
PROCESSES................................................................................................................................................... 25
Incident handling and resolution............................................................................................................. 25
Periodic incident review .......................................................................................................................... 25
ROLES: responsibilities, competence profile, and specific skills within the Incident Management Practice
..................................................................................................................................................................... 26
Change Enablement Practice.................................................................................... 31

Purpose ........................................................................................................................................................ 31
Definition: Change ....................................................................................................................................... 31
Definition: Standard change ........................................................................................................................ 31
Definition: Change Authority ....................................................................................................................... 32
Definition: Change model ............................................................................................................................ 32
Definition: Emergency change..................................................................................................................... 32
Activities related to the Change Enablement Practice described in other Practice guides ........................ 33
KEY METRICS ................................................................................................................................................ 34
PROCESSES................................................................................................................................................... 36
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Change lifecycle management................................................................................................................. 36
Change optimization................................................................................................................................ 37
ROLES: responsibilities, competence profile, and specific skills within the Change Enablement Practice . 37
Conclusions .............................................................................................................. 42
Introduction
THE ITIL® 4 CORE PUBLICATIONS
● ITIL® Foundation: ITIL 4 Edition
● ITIL® Specialist: Create, Deliver and Support
● ITIL® Specialist: Drive Stakeholder Value
● ITIL® Specialist: High Velocity IT
● ITIL® Strategist: Direct, Plan and Improve
● ITIL® Leader: Digital and IT Strategy
● ITIL® practice guide library
The ITIL® practice guide library includes two layers of publications:
● The 34 practice guides: a collection of guides which describe the 34 ITIL 4 practices. These
practice guides share a common structure, are referred to in all Specialist, Strategist, and Leader
publications, and may also contribute to the ITIL 4 syllabuses. Note that selected content from the
practice guides may be examinable.
● Supplementary practice publications: a continually growing collection of papers which provide

detail on methods, tools and techniques, case studies, templates, and examples to help ITSM
practitioners. These publications are not referred to in the ITIL 4 core publications, and their
content is not examinable.
Most of the content of the practice guides should be taken as a suggestion of areas that an
organization might consider when establishing and nurturing their own practices. The practice
guides are catalogues of topics that organizations might think about, not a list of answers. When
using the practice guides, organizations should always follow the ITIL guiding principles
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Definition: Practice
A set of organizational resources designed for performing work or accomplishing an objective.
These resources are grouped into the four dimensions of service management.
Each practice guide within the ITIL practice guide library provides structured information about
one ITIL practice. Practice guides may be complemented by supplementary publications such as
templates and detailed descriptions of methods and techniques.
Each practice begins with a purpose statement. The purpose statement is a brief description of the
role that the practice fulfils in an organization.
The purpose statement explains what may be derived from the practice, although the practical
implementation may differ from what is described in ITIL 4, depending on the needs of the
organization. Practices may be combined, split, or only partially implemented.
Each practice guide introduces key concepts that are specific to the practice being described,
along with key terms and definitions.
These terms and concepts are:
● specific to the practice

● important for fulfilling the purpose of the practice
● applicable in most scenarios where the practice is applied.
The scope section provides a list of activities and responsibilities that are included in the practice.
It also provides a list of adjacent activities and responsibilities that are not included, with
references to the practices where these activities are described.
The ITIL 4 scoping of the practices should not be treated as definitive. Organizations should adapt
these recommendations, based on their scale, structures, competencies, and other factors. ITIL 4
practices may be merged or further divided when institutionalized in the organization.
Each practice guide includes a number of Practice Success Factor (PSF).
Definition: Practice Success Factor (PSF)

A complex functional component of a practice that is required for the practice to fulfil its
purpose.
A PSF is more than a task or activity: it includes elements from all four dimensions of service
management. A PSF can also be defined as ‘a key sub-practice’. The nature of the activities and
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resources of PSFs within a practice may differ, but together they ensure that the practice is
effective.
Organizations need appropriate methods for determining the degree to which a practice is
achieving its objectives, or how well the practice (or some part of it) is contributing to the SVS.
Each practice guide provides ways to measure the success of the practice through the use of key
metrics.
Definition: Metric
A measurement or calculation that is monitored or reported for management and improvement.
The effectiveness and performance of the ITIL 4 practices should be assessed within the context of
the value streams to which each practice contributes. However, a practice’s potential is defined by
its design and the quality of the resources, which can be measured and assessed in any context.
Metrics are insufficient for assessment and decision-making. To be used as an indicator, a metric
must have a pre-defined target value and possibly a tolerance. Each organization will define its
own target values and tolerances: these cannot be taken from ITIL 4 or any other publication.
Each Practice guide includes details of the practice’s contribution to the Service Value Chain (SVC):
so for each Practice it's possible to find a Heat map (a Figure) showing the contribution (from 0 to
3 High) at different levels of the Practice to the 6 activities of the SVC.
This is based on the overview provided in ITIL Foundation: ITIL 4 Edition.
Each practice guide includes processes and activities that may be necessary to fulfil the purpose of
that practice.
Definition: Process
A set of interrelated or interacting activities that transform inputs into outputs.
A process takes one or more defined inputs and turns them into defined outputs. Processes define
the sequence of actions and their dependencies.
Some practice guides also include descriptions of procedures, which outline commonly recognized
and recommended ways of performing processes.
Definition: Procedure
A documented way to carry out an activity or a process.
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The processes and procedures described in the practice guides highlight areas that organizations
may find beneficial and inspire them to redefine their own processes and procedures. However, if
adopted, they should always be adapted to the organization’s architecture, needs, and objectives.
ROLES: competencies and responsibilities (within Practices)
This topic is to be considered within the Organizations and people dimension.

The practice guides do not describe the practice management roles such as practice owner,
practice lead, or practice coach. They focus instead on the specialist roles that are specific to each
practice. The structure and naming of each role may differ from organization to organization, so
any roles defined in ITIL should not be treated as mandatory, or even recommended.
Remember, roles are not job titles. One person can take on multiple roles and one role can be
assigned to multiple people.
Roles are described in the context of processes and activities.
Each role is characterized with a competency profile based on the model shown in the following
Table:
COMPETENCY CODES AND PROFILES
Competency code Competency profile (activities and skills)
L Leader Decision-making, delegating,

overseeing other activities, providing
incentives and motivation, and
evaluating outcomes.
А Administrator Assigning and prioritizing

tasks, record-keeping, ongoing reporting,
and initiating basic improvements.
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C Coordinator/communicator
Coordinating multiple parties,
maintaining communication between
stakeholders, and running awareness
campaigns.
М Methods and techniques expert

Designing and implementing work
techniques, documenting procedures,
consulting on processes, work analysis,
and continual improvement.
Т Technical expert Providing technical (IT)

expertise and conducting expertise-
based assignments.
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Practices: the Map

GENERAL MANAGEMENT SERVICE MANAGEMENT TECHNICAL MANAGEMENT
PRACTICES PRACTICES PRACTICES
ARCHITECTURE MANAGEMENT AVAILABILITY MANAGEMENT DEPLOYMENT MANAGEMENT

CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT BUSINESS ANALYSIS INFRASTRUCTURE AND PLATFORM
INFORMATION SECURITY CAPACITY AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
MANAGMENT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT AND
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT CHANGE ENABLEMENT MANAGEMENT
MEASUREMENT AND REPORTING INCIDENT MANAGEMENT
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IT ASSET MANAGEMENT
MANAGEMENT MONITORING AND EVENT
PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT MANAGEMENT
PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROBLEM MANAGEMENT
RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT RELEASE MANAGEMENT
RISK MANAGEMENT SERVICE CATALOGUE MANAGEMENT
SERVICE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT SERVICE CONFIGURATION
STRATEGY MANAGEMENT MANAGEMENT
SUPPLIER MANAGEMENT SERVICE CONTINUITY MANAGEMENT
WORKFORCE AND TALENT SERVICE DESIGN
MANAGEMENT SERVICE DESK
SERVICE LEVEL MANAGEMENT
SERVICE REQUEST MANAGEMENT
SERVICE VALIDATION AND TESTING
NOTE : -IN DETAILS 7 PRACTICES ARE IN ITALIC AND

-THERE ARE 34 PRACTICES UNDERLINED
-OUT OF SYLLABUS SCOPE PRACTICES ARE NOT BOLD -8 ADDITIONAL STUDIED PRACTICES ARE IN BOLD
The following sections describe a reduced version of 3 fundamental Practices, chosen as the more
suitable for elevating the ITIL4 Foundation courseware, in order to give the participants the
opportunity to learn additional information about:
- SERVICE DESK PRACTICE

- INCIDENT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE
- CHANGE ENABLEMENT PRACTICE
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Service Desk Practice

Purpose
The purpose of the Service Desk Practice is to capture demand for incident resolution and
service requests. It should also be the entry point and single point of contact for the service
provider for all users.
Dimension of Service Management: example of resources
The following table is a very good example of how -within each Practice- it's possible to find not
only activities, but resources (as according to the definition of Practice at page 3):
Dimension of service management (4D) Example of Service Desk Practice resources
Organizations and people Dedicated team, sometimes known as

service desk (so these functional teams
might have the same name of this Practice)
Information and technology Dedicated information system, sometimes

known as service desk (so these tools might
have the same name of this Practice)
Value streams and processes Workflows and procedures for

communications with users
Partners and suppliers Involved third parties, in some cases known

as service desk (so these functional teams
might have the same name of this Practice,
but coming from external suppliers)
Definition: Omnichannel communications

Unified communications across multiple channels based on sharing information across the
channels and providing a seamless communication experience.
Multiple channels are often used for communications between a service provider and its users.
Multichannel communications may be convenient, but they can also introduce confusion if they
are not integrated. The development of multichannel communications to provide seamless
experience and information flow has led to omnichannel communications.
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Definition: Service empathy

The ability to recognize, understand, predict, and project the interests, needs, intentions, and
experiences of another party in order to establish, maintain, and improve the service
relationship.
Service empathy is important for organizations and those involved in service management. A
service support agent should not share a user’s frustration, but they should recognize and
understand it, express sympathy, and adjust their actions accordingly.
Although automated communication systems can be enhanced with the emerging capabilities of
emotional analysis (based on language, voice, and facial expressions), these systems cannot
demonstrate empathy. Service empathy is usually fulfilled by human interactions via channels
such as chat, video, and voice calls, and through face-to-face meetings.
Definition: Moment of truth

Any episode in which the customer or user comes into contact with an aspect of the
organization and gets an impression of the quality of its service. It is the basis for setting and
fulfilling client expectations and ultimately achieving client satisfaction.
Many moments of truth in service relationships occur during communications between users and
the service provider, and so are common where the Service Desk Practice is involved. This is true
despite the fact that overall user satisfaction is defined by many factors, and service quality is
generally more important than convenience of communications.
The Service Desk Practice is also used for collecting information about user satisfaction. Surveys or
other satisfaction research tools generally use the communication channels established by this
practice.
Activities related to the Service Desk Practice described in other Practice guides
There are several activities and areas of responsibility that are not included in the Service Desk
Practice, although they are still closely related to the service desk.
This concept means that even if we will find and use organizational resources coming from the
Service Desk Practice in order to carry out the following Activities, the Activities themselves are
described as a part of other Practices (but not the Service Desk).
Activity (other) Practice guide
Incident resolution and management Incident management
Management and fulfilment of service Service request management

requests
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Definition of content, timing, and format of All practices providing information to or
communications between users and the using information from users. These
service provider include incident management, problem
management, change enablement, release
management project management,
software development and management,
infrastructure and platform management,
information security management,
and others
Monitoring of technology and service Monitoring and event management

performance
Management of improvement initiatives Continual improvement
Communications between the service Relationship management

provider and stakeholders other than users
Maintenance and improvement of the use Knowledge management

of information and knowledge
PSF (Practice Success Factors)
See the PSF Definition at page 4. The Service Desk practice includes the following PSFs:
1. enabling and continually improving effective, efficient, and convenient communications

between the service provider and its users
2. enabling the effective integration of user communications into value streams
KEY METRICS
The effectiveness and performance of the ITIL practices should be assessed within the context of
the value streams to which each practice contributes.
Further guidance on metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs), and other techniques that can
help with this can be found in the Measurement and reporting Practice guide.
Key metrics for the Service Desk Practice are mapped to its PSFs. They can be used as KPIs in the
context of value streams to assess the contribution of the Practice to the effectiveness and
efficiency of those value streams.
Practice Success Factors (PSF) Example metrics
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Enabling and continually improving Quality of the information received via

effective, efficient, and convenient service desk channels, measured against
communications between the service agreed information quality criteria.
provider and its users Convenience of the service desk
communications channels and interfaces,
measured against agreed criteria.
Satisfaction of the key communicating
stakeholders with the quality of the
information and the convenience of the
service desk communication channels.
Enabling the effective integration of user Quality of the information received via
communications into the value streams service desk channels measured against the
requirements of the value streams.
Satisfaction of the key stakeholders using
the information communicated via service
desk channels.
Number and percentage of the incorrect
triage of user queries.
The correct aggregation of metrics into complex indicators, will make it easier to use the data for
the ongoing management of value streams and for the periodic assessment and continual
improvement of the Service Desk Practice. There is no single best solution.
VALUE STREAM CONTRIBUTION (Heat map)

This topic falls within the Value Streams and Processes.
Like any other ITIL management practice, the Service Desk Practice contributes to multiple value
streams. It is important to remember that a value stream is never formed from a single practice.
The Service Desk Practice combines with other practices to provide high-quality services to
consumers. The main value chain activities to which this practice contributes are:
● Engage
● Deliver and support
For each Practice it's possible to draw a Heat map of the contribution of the Practice to the Service
Value Chain (SVC) activities.
The contribution of the Service Desk Practice to the service value chain is shown in the following
Figure: it's clear that Engage and Deliver and support receive a High contribution (score 3):
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PROCESSES
Each practice may include one or more Processes (see the Definition at page 5) and activities that
may be necessary to fulfil the purpose of that practice.
Service desk activities form three processes:
● User query handling

● Communicating to users
● Service desk optimization
User query handling Process
This process ensures user queries are captured, validated, and triaged for further processing.
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Communicating to users Process
This process ensures that various types of information are communicated to users through the
appropriate channel(s)
Service Desk optimization Process
This process ensures that the lessons from managing user communications are learned and that
approaches to this practice are continually improved.
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ROLES: responsibilities, competence profile, and specific skills within the Service
Desk Practice
This topic falls within the Organizations and People dimension.
Here you can find just few examples of Roles and related skills, within different Processes of the
Service Desk Practice (for the competency codes, please refer to the Table on page 6):
Activity Responsible role Competence profile Specific skills

PROCESS: User query handling
Acknowledge and Service desk agent CA Communication,
record the user writing, business,
query service awareness,
and some level of
technical skills
Triage the user query Service desk agent MATC Understanding
and initiate the demand and
appropriate activities classifying based on
the process rules
PROCESS: Communicating to users
Information sending Service desk AMT Channel technical
Manager expertise
PROCESS: Service Desk optimization

Service desk review Service desk LM Decision making,
manager overseeing other
activities, and
evaluating
outcomes
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Organizational structures and teams

Unlike in other practices, where organizational units perform different practice roles depending on
the value stream activity they are involved in, the Service Desk Practice typically has a dedicated
team that focuses on performing its processes. Generally, the service desk team is the first line of
user support. This section describes different organizational models that can accommodate tasks
that are traditionally assigned to service desk team.
There are several common ways of organizing a dedicated user communication team:
1. Local service desk team

2. Distributed service desk team
3. Virtual service desk team
4. Hybrid service desk organization
There is no single method of determining how many service desk teams a service provider needs.
Analysis can start with a simple mind map of the key factors that influence the workload. The
factors include:
● service desk organization type
● the queueing theory or Erlang variables (query arrival rate, acceptable waiting time, dropout
rate, length of queue, and so on)
● additional workload generated for the service desk team by other practices (model incidents,
IMAC requests, surveys, and so on)
● user and customer service level expectations
● excepted staff turnover rate
Automation and Tools

This topic falls within the Information and Technology dimension.
In many cases, the work of the Service Desk Practice can significantly benefit from automation.
The Service Desk Practice guide provides a table showing general automation solutions referred to
the 3 PROCESS activities (see page 12): for each activity it's indicated the Means of automation,
the Key functionality, and finally the Impact on the effectiveness of the Service Desk Practice.
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Partners and suppliers

This topic falls within the Partners and suppliers dimension.
Driven by commercial interest, outsourced service desk processes and teams can be an invaluable
source methods of organizing a service desk team. In a competitive environment of EUC, the most
successful service desk approaches should be easy to select based on PSFs. A potential client or a
good practice adopter should ask whether a certain service desk idea makes communication
channels more convenient to users and whether information managed by that service desk adds
net value to the users.
Where organizations aim to ensure a fast and effective Service Desk Practice, they usually try to
agree close cooperation with their partners and suppliers, removing formal bureaucratic barriers
in communication, collaboration, and decision making. Refer to the Supplier Management Practice
guide for more information on this.
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Incident Management Practice

Purpose
The purpose of the incident management practice is to minimize the negative impact of
incidents by restoring normal service operation as quickly as possible.
Normal service operation is typically defined within service level agreements (SLAs), or other
forms of service quality specification, as that which may be agreed internally by the service
provider. The specification can include more quality criteria than were initially agreed with the
customers. Consequently, the incident management practice includes the restoration of the
normal operation of services and resources, even when their failure or deviation is not visible to
the service consumers.
The incident management practice is a fundamental element of service management. The quick
restoration of a service is a key factor in user and customer satisfaction, the credibility of the
service provider, and the value an organization creates in the service relationships.
Definition: Incident
An unplanned interruption to a service or reduction in the quality of a service.
The incident management practice ensures that periods of unplanned service unavailability or
degradation are minimized, thus reducing negative impacts on users. There are two main factors
enabling this: early incident detection and the quick restoration of normal operation.
Definition: Incident model

A repeatable approach to the management of a particular type of incident.
The creation and use of incident models are important activities in the incident management
practice.
Definition: Major incident

An incident with significant business impact, requiring an immediate coordinated resolution.
Major incidents are often associated with a higher level of complexity. It would be beneficial to
implement a model (supported by a dedicated PROCESS or PROCEDURE) to manage major
incidents.
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Major incidents are often associated with a higher level of complexity.
Definition: Workaround
A solution that reduces or eliminates the impact of an incident or problem for which a full
resolution is not yet available. Some workarounds reduce the likelihood of incidents.
Sometimes, it may be impossible to find a system solution for an incident. In these situations,
service providers may apply a workaround.
Workarounds promptly restore the service to an acceptable quality. However, workarounds can
increase technical debt and may lead to new incidents in the future.
Definition: Technical debt

The total rework backlog accumulated by choosing workarounds instead of system solutions
that would take longer.
Activities related to the Incident Management Practice described in other Practice

guides
There are several activities and areas of responsibility that are not included in the Incident
Management Practice, although they are still closely related to it.
Incident Management in order to carry out the following Activities, the Activities themselves are
described as a part of other Practices (but not the Incident Management).
Investigating causes of incidents Problem management
Communicating with users Service desk
Implementation of changes to products Change enablement

and services Deployment management
Infrastructure and platform management
Project management
Release management
Software development and management
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Monitoring technology, teams, and supplier Monitoring and event management
performance
Management of improvement initiatives Continual improvement
Management and fulfilment of Service request management

service requests
Restoring normal operations in case of a Service continuity management
disaster
See the PSF Definition at page 4. The Incident Management practice includes the following PSFs:
1. detecting incidents early

2. resolving incidents quickly and efficiently
3. continually improving the incident management approaches
KEY METRICS
Key metrics for the Incident Management Practice are mapped to its PSFs. They can be used as
KPIs in the context of value streams to assess the contribution of the Practice to the effectiveness
and efficiency of those value streams.
Detecting incidents early Time between incident occurrence and detection

Percentage of incidents detected via monitoring
and event management
Resolving incidents quickly and efficiently Time between incident detection and acceptance
for diagnosis
Time of diagnosis
Number of reassignments
Percentage of waiting time in the overall incident
handling time
First-time resolution rate
Meeting the agreed resolution time
User satisfaction with incident handling and
resolution
Percentage of the incident resolved automatically
Percentage of incidents resolved before being
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reported by users
Continually improving the incident Percentage of incident resolutions using

management approaches previously identified and recorded solutions
Percentage of incidents resolved using incident
models Improvement of the key practice
indicators over time
Balance between speed and effectiveness metrics
for incident resolution

Like any other ITIL management practice, the Incident Management Practice contributes to
multiple value streams. It is important to remember that a value stream is never formed from a
single practice.
The Incident Management Practice combines with other practices to provide high-quality services
to consumers. The main value chain activities to which this practice contributes are:
● Engage
The contribution of the Incident Management Practice to the service value chain is shown in the
following Figure: it's clear that Engage and Deliver and support receive a High contribution (score
3):
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PROCESSES
Incident Management activities form two processes:
● Incident handling and resolution

● Periodic incident review
Incident handling and resolution
This process is focused on the handling and resolution of individual incidents, from detection to
closure.
Periodic incident review
This process ensures that the lessons from incident handling and resolution are learned and that
approaches to incident management are continually improved.
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ROLES: responsibilities, competence profile, and specific skills within the Incident
Management Practice
Here you can find of Roles and related skills, within different Processes of the Incident
Management Practice (for the competency codes, please refer to the Table on page 6):

PROCESS: Incident handling and resolution
Incident detection Technical specialist TC Understanding of the
service design, resource
Users configuration, and business
impact of events and
symptoms
Incident registration Incident manager AT Good knowledge of IT

service management
Service desk agent (ITSM) tools and
procedures
Technical specialist
Incident Incident manager TC Understanding of the

classification service design, resource
Service Desk agent configuration, and business
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impact
Technical Good knowledge of
specialist requirements and
commitments for incident
resolution
Good knowledge of
incident models
Incident diagnosis Supplier TC Understanding of the

service design, resource
Technical configuration, and
specialist business impact
Knowledge of incident
models, diagnostic tools,
methods
Analytical skills
Incident resolution Supplier T Understanding of

methods and
Technical procedures required for
specialist incident resolution
User
Incident closure Incident ACT Understanding of the

manager service design, resource
configuration, and
Service Desk business impact
agent Good knowledge of the
requirements and
Technical commitments for
specialist incident resolution
PROCESS: Periodic incident review
Incident review Incident TCL Understanding of the

and incident manager service design, resource
records analysis configuration, and business
Product owner impact
Good knowledge of the
Service owner requirements and
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Supplier resolution
models,
diagnostic tools, methods,
and analytical skills
Incident model Incident TMC Understanding of the

improvement manager service design, resource
initiation configuration, and business
Product owner impact
Good knowledge of the
Service owner requirements and
resolution
models, diagnostic tools,
and methods
Knowledge of the
organization’s continual
improvement and change
enablement practices
Incident model Incident CA Knowledge of
update manager communication procedures
communication and tools
Product owner
Service Desk
agent
Service owner
The incident management practice does not recommend any particular organizational model.
However, the organizational structure influences how the practice is performed, as it involves
specialists with different areas and levels of expertise. Typical methods of grouping specialists
include, among others:
● technical domain
● product/service
● territory
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● consumer types
The expansion of Agile methods and quality changes in IT systems (such as self-healing systems)
call for the wider use of horizontal team structures, rather than hierarchical team structures.
Flatter structures and respective collaboration methods, such as swarming, replace tiered ones to
facilitate cooperation and the free flow of information. The main driver of such change is the
rejection of rigid tiering and its replacement by a more dynamic, self-organized collaboration.

The effectiveness of the incident management practice is based on the quality of the information
used.
This information may take various forms, depending on the incident models in use.
Any actions taken should be documented to produce an accurate timeline.
The incident management practice should be automated.

In some cases, all activities after a particular activity in the incident handling and resolution
process can be fully automated using pre-defined scripts and scenarios for specific types of
incidents.
Note that automation tools used in the incident management practice could include not only
organization-wide tools, which are valid for all incidents, but also some local custom tools.
The Incident Management Practice guide provides a table showing general automation solutions
referred to the 2 PROCESS activities (see page 21): for each activity it's indicated the Means of
automation, the Key functionality, and finally the Impact on the effectiveness of the Incident
Management Practice.

Very few services are delivered using only an organization’s own resources. Most, if not all,
depend on other services, often provided by third parties outside the organization.
Incident models should define how third parties are involved in incident resolution and how the
organization ensures effective collaboration. This will depend on the architecture and design
solutions for products, services, and value streams.
Defined standard interfaces may become an easy way to communicate conditions and
requirements in order for a supplier to become a part of the organization’s ecosystem.
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Such interface description may include rules of data exchange, tools, and processes that will
create a common language in the multi-vendor environment.
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Change Enablement Practice

Purpose
The purpose of the change enablement practice is to maximize the number of successful service
and product changes by ensuring that risks have been properly assessed, authorizing changes to
proceed, and managing the change schedule.
The change enablement practice aims to ensure that changes to services and their components
are controlled and that they meet the organization’s change-related needs. Authorized changes
should enable the desired outcomes and meet the organization’s requirements regarding change
throughput (the number of changes made and the speed of change realization) and risk
management.
Definition: Change
The addition, modification, or removal of anything that could have a direct or indirect effect on
services.
Stakeholders are more interested in the value that a change enables than in the technical details
of the change.
Changes are accomplished using various approaches and methodologies, each of which represents
a different level of business risk.
Organizations have multiple value streams, most of which include changes. The change
enablement practice must be adaptive to meet the needs of various approaches to change
development.
Definition: Standard change

A low-risk, pre-authorized change that is well understood and fully documented, and which can
be implemented without needing additional authorization.
Examples of standard changes include:

● fulfilment of a service request
● maintenance of infrastructure
● routine testing of contingency measures
● routine software updates.
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Definition: Change Authority

A person or group responsible for authorizing a change.
When there is no effective standardized approach to a change, organizations usually attempt to

plan, authorize, and control that change. They follow a process that includes collective expert
assessment, authorization, and control.
These are ‘normal changes’, some of which are low risk. The change authority for these is usually
someone who can make rapid decisions, often using automation to accelerate the change. When a
normal change is high risk, the change authority might be the management board or the
equivalent.
Definition: Change model

A repeatable approach to the management of a particular type of change.
Change models provide guidance for handling normal changes. Organizations usually develop
change models that determine procedures and roles for the assessment, authorization, and
ongoing control of changes based on their type.
The models may determine an approach to the change enablement practice in all four dimensions
of service management: Organizations and People, Information and technology, Value streams
and processes, Partners and suppliers.
Change models may be helpful when managing uncertainty in complex situations. For example, a
process determined by the change model may include the safe-to-fail testing of several
hypotheses before one or some of the solutions are implemented.
Definition: Emergency change

A change that must be introduced as soon as possible.
The change enablement practice should ensure that changes are implemented effectively, safely,
and promptly in emergency situations. Changes that help to correct emergency situations are
commonly known as emergency changes.
Change models for emergency changes often include bypassed or delayed procedures, such as
change request registration or updating of the change schedule. They may also determine a
dedicated change authority of high power and availability, together with other special
arrangements. The aim is to accelerate changes while keeping risks at an acceptable level.
Two important considerations regarding emergency changes:
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● ‘Emergency’ does not mean ‘no rules or control’. Emergency changes can be standardized and
automated. This can accelerate them without compromising control. Emergency does not always
mean completely unpredictable and unknown.
● Some emergency changes do deal with unpredictable and unknown situations. They may need
fast implementation of the best available solution without sufficient information or time for
testing. This applies to situations where the cost of delay is equal to or higher than the risks
associated with unsuccessful change.
Activities related to the Change Enablement Practice described in other Practice

guides
The scope of the change enablement practice includes:

● planning changes to controlled environments in the organization
● planning change models and change standardization
● planning individual change workflows, activities, and controls
● scheduling and coordinating all ongoing changes
● controlling the progress of changes from initiation to completion
● communicating change plans and progress to relevant stakeholders
● assessing change success, including outputs, outcomes, efficiency, risks, and costs.
There are several activities and areas of responsibility that are not included in the Change
Enablement Practice, although they are still closely related to it.
Change Enablement Practice in order to carry out the following Activities, the Activities
themselves are described as a part of other Practices (but not the Change Enablement).
Change initiation All other practices
Change realization Architecture management

Deployment management
Infrastructure and platform management
IT asset management
Release management
Service catalogue management
Service configuration management
Service design
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Service level management
Software development and management
Supplier management
Workforce and talent management
Change risks assessment and Risk management

control
Costs control, financial evaluation Service financial
of changes management
Management of projects Project management
Management of organizational Organizational change

changes management
Testing Service validation and

testing
See the PSF Definition at page 4. The Change Enablement practice includes the following PSFs:
1. ensuring that changes are realized in a timely and effective manner

2. minimizing the negative impacts of changes
3. ensuring stakeholder satisfaction
4. meeting change-related governance and compliance requirements.
KEY METRICS
Key metrics for the Change Enablement Practice are mapped to its PSFs. They can be used as KPIs
in the context of value streams to assess the contribution of the Practice to the effectiveness and
efficiency of those value streams.
Ensuring that changes are realized in a Aggregated timeliness processing index (TPI)a over
timely and effective manner the period Average time of change realization per
change model
Change initiators’ satisfaction with change outcomes
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Change initiators’ satisfaction with change timeliness
Change success/acceptance rate over period
TPI for individual changes
Minimizing the negative impact of changes Business impact of change-related incidents

Impact of changes identified as sources of
problems/errors Number and duration of change-
related incidents
Ensuring stakeholder satisfaction with Stakeholder satisfaction with the procedures and
changes and change enablement communications for the change enablement practice
Stakeholder satisfaction with realization of individual
changes
Meeting change-related governance Compliance with formally stated requirements,

and compliance requirements according to audit reports
Number and criticality of change-related audit
findings and non- compliances
Number and impact of change-related compliance
incidents

Like any other ITIL management practice, the Change Enablement Practice contributes to multiple
value streams. It is important to remember that a value stream is never formed from a single
practice. The Change Enablement Practice combines with other practices to provide high-quality
services to consumers.
The main value chain activities to which this practice contributes are:
● Obtain/build
● Design and transition
● Improve
The contribution of the Change Enablement Practice to the service value chain is shown in the
following Figure: it's clear that all the four activities mentioned above receive a High contribution
(score 3):
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PROCESSES
Change Enablement activities form two processes:
● Change lifecycle management

● Change optimization
Change lifecycle management
The main activities of this process concerning changes are: Registration, Assessment,
Authorization, Planning, Realization control, Review and closure.
The key outputs of the process are: change records, change schedule, change review reports, and
changed resources and services.
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Change optimization
The main activities of this process concerning changes are: Change review analysis, Change Model
improvement initiation, Change Model update communication.
The key outputs of the process are: change review analysis report, improvement initatives, change
requests, updated change models, updated standard change procedures.
ROLES: responsibilities, competence profile, and specific skills within the Change
Enablement Practice
Here you can find examples of Roles and related skills, within different Processes of the Change
Enablement Practice (for the competency codes, please refer to the Table on page 6):
PROCESS: Change lifecycle management
Change registration Change coordinator TA Understanding of
change models and
Change manager
registration
Product procedures
development team
Product owner
Resource owner
Service owner
Change assessment Change coordinator TC Good knowledge of
the products,
Change manager including their
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Product architecture and
development team configuration
Product owner Business impact

Resource owner analysis Risk analysis
Risk and compliance

expert
Service owner
Technical expert
Change authorization Change coordinator CTM Good knowledge of
the products,
Customer architecture and
representative configuration
Product Understanding of
development team change models
Product owner Business impact

Resource owner analysis
Risk and compliance

expert
Service owner
Technical expert
Change planning Change coordinator TAC Good knowledge of
the products,
Understanding of
Product owner change models
Resource owner
Service owner
Change realization Change coordinator ATC Good knowledge of
control the products,
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Understanding of
Product owner change models
Resource owner
Service owner
Change review and Change coordinator TCA Good knowledge of
closure the products,
Customer architecture and
representative configuration
Business impact
Product analysis
development team
Product owner
Resource owner
Service owner
PROCESS: Change optimization
Change review Change coordinator TC Good knowledge of
analysis the products,
Product owner Understanding of

change models
Resource owner
Risk and compliance Business impact
expert analysis
Service owner Risk analysis

Change model Change manager TMA Good knowledge of
improvement the products,
Product including their
initiation
development team architecture and
Product owner configuration
Risk and compliance Understanding of

expert change models
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Service owner Business impact
analysis
Risk analysis
Change model Change manager CT Understanding of

update change models
Product owner
communication
Service owner Communication skills
Although the change manager role may be associated with a formal job title, it is unusual to see
dedicated organizational structures for the change enablement practice. Such structures are more
likely to be found in organizations with a complex bureaucracy and where many changes are
processed manually.
In product-focused organizations, job titles and job roles are not typically adopted for this practice,
because it is integrated with the day-to-day activities of product development teams and is
automated wherever possible.
Formal teams for the practice may include a change authority team (such as a CAB Change
Advisory Board) and temporary teams assigned for a specific change, especially if the change is
treated as a project (see the project management practice guide for more details on project
teams).

In most cases, the work of the change enablement practice can significantly benefit from automation.
The Change Enablement Practice guide provides a table showing general automation solutions
referred to the 2 PROCESS activities (see page 30): for each activity it's indicated the Means of
automation, the Key functionality, and finally the Impact on the effectiveness of the Incident
Management Practice.

Very few services are delivered using only an organization’s own resources.
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Change models should define how third parties are involved in change realization and how the
organization ensures the flow of changes. This depends on the architecture and design solutions
for products, services, and value streams.
The optimization of the change models supporting these solutions, however, involves the change
enablement practice.
Often, after the correct change model has been selected, further consideration of third- party
dependencies is needed during change assessment, planning, authorization, realization control,
and review.
Where contracts with customers and vendors can impose constraints on changes, it may be useful
to include standard changes and, in general, change models, into contracts.
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Conclusions
The purpose of this simplified guide to Practices was showing to readers the new structure of ITIL4
for what concerns in particular three of the 34 Practices, their main characteristics, and their
relationships with Processes (activities and outputs).
The aim of this document was to explain and to clarify the link and differences between the new
concept of Practices and the new concept of Processes, even compared with the old definition of
Process (formally the foundations of the old ITILv3 framework).
As the reader could apprehend, even if the new ITIL 4 has an "agile-style" first layout (meaning:
Service Value System, Service Value Chain, 4 Dimensions, 34 Practices...) going deeper in details
it's still possible to find either Processes or Procedures: so the value of the previous version of ITIL
framework is not lost at all.
The new ITIL 4 gives a plus to the organizational Agility, even within the IT Service Management
context: but it perfectly succeeded in combining a first layer of Agility with a potential structure
(more or less formal, as needed) coming from simplified Processes and Roles included into all
Practices.
Remember: tailoring is always mandatory!
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ITIL4F® Practices

Practices: the Map ..................................................................................................... 9

Incident Management Practice ................................................................................ 20

Change Enablement Practice.................................................................................... 31

The ITIL® practice guide library includes two layers of publications:

● Supplementary practice publications: a continually growing collection of papers which provide

These terms and concepts are:

● specific to the practice

Definition: Practice Success Factor (PSF)

ROLES: competencies and responsibilities (within Practices)

This topic is to be considered within the Organizations and people dimension.

COMPETENCY CODES AND PROFILES

Competency code Competency profile (activities and skills)

L Leader Decision-making, delegating,

А Administrator Assigning and prioritizing

М Methods and techniques expert

Т Technical expert Providing technical (IT)

Practices: the Map

ARCHITECTURE MANAGEMENT AVAILABILITY MANAGEMENT DEPLOYMENT MANAGEMENT

NOTE : -IN DETAILS 7 PRACTICES ARE IN ITALIC AND

- SERVICE DESK PRACTICE

Service Desk Practice

Dimension of Service Management: example of resources

Dimension of service management (4D) Example of Service Desk Practice resources

Organizations and people Dedicated team, sometimes known as

Information and technology Dedicated information system, sometimes

Value streams and processes Workflows and procedures for

Partners and suppliers Involved third parties, in some cases known

Definition: Omnichannel communications

Definition: Service empathy

Definition: Moment of truth

Activity (other) Practice guide

Incident resolution and management Incident management

Management and fulfilment of service Service request management

Monitoring of technology and service Monitoring and event management

Management of improvement initiatives Continual improvement

Communications between the service Relationship management

Maintenance and improvement of the use Knowledge management

PSF (Practice Success Factors)

1. enabling and continually improving effective, efficient, and convenient communications

Practice Success Factors (PSF) Example metrics

Enabling and continually improving Quality of the information received via

VALUE STREAM CONTRIBUTION (Heat map)

● User query handling

User query handling Process

Service Desk optimization Process

Activity Responsible role Competence profile Specific skills

PROCESS: Service Desk optimization

Organizational structures and teams

1. Local service desk team

Automation and Tools

Partners and suppliers

Incident Management Practice

Definition: Incident model

Definition: Major incident

Major incidents are often associated with a higher level of complexity.

Definition: Technical debt

Activities related to the Incident Management Practice described in other Practice

Activity (other) Practice guide