ITIL Practices
A practice is a set of organizational resources designed for performing work or accomplishing an objective. ITIL 4 defines 34 management practices, grouped into general management practices, service management practices, and technical management practices. Practices supply the capabilities and resources that the service value chain activities draw upon, so they support the value chain rather than replacing it. A subset of these practices is emphasized at the Foundation level, and several must be understood in more detail.
Incident and Problem Management
Incident management and problem management are two closely related but distinct practices. An incident is an unplanned interruption to a service, or a reduction in the quality of a service. The purpose of incident management is to minimize the negative impact of incidents by restoring normal service operation as quickly as possible. Speed of restoration is the priority, so incident management often relies on documented workarounds and known errors to get the service working again even before the underlying cause is fixed. Incidents should be logged, prioritized according to their impact and urgency, and resolved within target times, and major incidents may need special handling and a dedicated team. Effective incident management depends on good information, appropriate tools, and collaboration, and it draws heavily on the service desk. Problem management addresses the causes behind incidents. A problem is a cause, or potential cause, of one or more incidents. The purpose of problem management is to reduce the likelihood and impact of incidents by identifying actual and potential causes of incidents and by managing workarounds and known errors. Problem management has three phases: problem identification, in which problems are detected and logged; problem control, in which problems are analyzed and prioritized and workarounds are documented; and error control, in which known errors are managed and potential permanent resolutions are considered. A known error is a problem that has been analyzed but has not been resolved, and a workaround is a solution that reduces or eliminates the impact of an incident or problem for which a full resolution is not yet available. The relationship between the two practices is important. Incident management focuses on restoring service quickly for a specific unplanned interruption, while problem management focuses on understanding and removing the underlying causes so that fewer incidents occur and those that do occur have less impact. A workaround identified during problem management can be used by incident management to restore service faster. Together, the two practices reduce both the frequency and the effect of service disruptions, and both contribute strongly to the deliver and support activity of the service value chain.
Change Enablement
Change enablement is the practice concerned with controlling changes to services and other configuration items so that beneficial changes can be made with the least possible disruption. A change is defined as the addition, modification, or removal of anything that could have a direct or indirect effect on services. The purpose of change enablement 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 practice deliberately balances two competing needs: the need to make changes that deliver value, respond to demand, and fix problems, and the need to protect stakeholders from the disruption that poorly managed change can cause. ITIL 4 identifies three types of change, and distinguishing them is a common Foundation exam point. A standard change is a low-risk, pre-authorized change that is well understood and fully documented, and can be implemented without additional authorization each time, often following a defined procedure; requests for a new laptop or a routine password reset are typical examples. A normal change is a change that must be assessed, authorized, and scheduled following a standard process, with the level of authorization depending on the type and risk of the change; some normal changes are minor and others are major, and they may pass through a change authority for approval. An emergency change is a change that must be implemented as soon as possible, for example to resolve a major incident or apply a critical security patch; emergency changes follow an expedited assessment and authorization process, and some steps such as documentation may be completed after the change rather than before. A key concept in change enablement is the change authority, the person or group responsible for authorizing a change. ITIL 4 recommends decentralizing change authorization where possible so that decisions are made close to the work, which speeds up low-risk changes while keeping higher-risk ones under appropriate control. Change enablement also manages the change schedule, which helps plan changes, avoid conflicts, and communicate timing. It is important to distinguish change enablement, which concerns controlled changes to services, from organizational change management, which concerns the people side of change; the two are different, though related. Change enablement contributes across the value chain but is especially associated with design and transition.
Service Request and Service Desk
Service request management and the service desk are two practices that shape how users experience the service provider day to day. A service request is a request from a user or a user's authorized representative that initiates a service action which has been agreed as a normal part of service delivery. The key point is that service requests are predefined and pre-agreed; they are normal, expected parts of delivering the service and are not failures. Examples include requesting information or advice, requesting access to a resource, requesting the provision of a resource such as a new device, or providing feedback, compliments, or complaints. The purpose of service request management is to support the agreed quality of a service by handling all predefined, user-initiated service requests in an effective and user-friendly manner. Because service requests are predefined and repeatable, they are well suited to standardization and automation, and many can be fulfilled through self-service, which improves speed and consistency. It is important to distinguish a service request from an incident: an incident is an unplanned interruption or reduction in service quality, whereas a service request is a normal, planned part of service delivery. The service desk is the practice that provides the single point of contact between the service provider and its users. Its purpose is to capture demand for incident resolution and service requests, and it also serves as the entry point and single point of contact for users to report issues, make requests, place orders, and raise queries. Beyond logging and routing work, the service desk provides a clear path for communication and has a major influence on user experience and on how the service provider is perceived; a helpful, empathetic, and responsive service desk builds trust, while a poor one damages the relationship regardless of how good the underlying technology is. Modern service desks use many channels, including phone, chat, portals, and email, and increasingly rely on automation and self-service for straightforward matters so that human agents can concentrate on situations that need understanding, judgement, and empathy. The service desk works closely with incident management and service request management and is central to the deliver and support activity of the value chain.
Service Level Management
Service level management is a general practice that ensures the organization understands what its services should achieve and can tell whether they are achieving it. Its purpose is to set clear business-based targets for service performance so that the delivery of a service can be properly assessed, monitored, and managed against these targets. Without agreed, business-relevant targets, it is impossible to say objectively whether a service is meeting expectations, and disputes about performance become a matter of opinion. Service level management provides the framework for defining, agreeing, and reviewing those targets. The practice depends on ongoing engagement with customers to understand and document their real needs, rather than on the provider assuming what matters. A central artifact is the service level agreement, or SLA, which is a documented agreement between a service provider and a customer that identifies both the services required and the expected level of service. ITIL emphasizes several qualities of a good SLA. Targets should relate to defined outcomes and reflect the customer's actual experience of the service, not just isolated technical measurements. Relying on a single operational metric can be misleading, because a service can hit a technical target while the customer's experience is poor; the so-called watermelon effect describes a service that looks green on the outside but is red on the inside. To avoid this, service level management encourages a balanced set of measures that together reflect genuine service quality from the customer's point of view, and it treats SLAs as living agreements to be reviewed regularly as needs change. The practice also involves gathering and analyzing information about service performance, engaging with customers to gather feedback, and reporting against agreed targets so that everyone shares a clear, evidence-based view of how services are performing. Service level management connects strongly to the guiding principle of focusing on value, because it keeps attention on the outcomes and experience that matter to the customer. It works alongside other practices such as the service desk, incident management, and continual improvement, and it supports several value chain activities, especially engage, deliver and support, and improve, by providing the shared targets against which service performance is understood and managed.
Continual Improvement
Continual improvement is both a component of the service value system and one of ITIL's most important practices, and it is a general management practice that applies everywhere in the organization. Its purpose is to align the organization's practices and services with changing business needs through the ongoing identification and improvement of services, service components, practices, or any element involved in the efficient and effective management of products and services. Continual improvement is not a one-off project but a recurring activity that takes place at all levels, and everyone in the organization is expected to contribute to it. A well-known enabler is the continual improvement register, a database or structured document used to track and manage improvement ideas from identification through to action, so that good ideas are captured and prioritized rather than lost. To provide a structured, repeatable approach, ITIL 4 offers the continual improvement model, a seven-step model that can be applied to any improvement, large or small. The steps are expressed as questions. What is the vision? This step defines the overall vision and objectives and links the improvement to the organization's goals. Where are we now? This step assesses the current state honestly, using measurement and direct observation, reflecting the guiding principle of starting where you are. Where do we want to be? This step sets clear, measurable targets for the desired future state. How do we get there? This step plans the actions needed to close the gap between the current and desired states. Take action. This step carries out the plan, which may be done iteratively. Did we get there? This step checks whether the improvement achieved its objectives, using the measures defined earlier. How do we keep the momentum going? This final step embeds the improvement and sustains the effort so that gains are not lost and the cycle continues. The model reflects several guiding principles, particularly progress iteratively with feedback and focus on value, and it runs throughout the entire service value system and every value chain activity, most directly through the improve activity. For the Foundation exam, the essential points are the purpose of continual improvement, the role of the continual improvement register, and the seven steps of the continual improvement model in order.
Practice stays free. The full ITIL 4 Foundation study guide is the material itself, taught start to finish — a downloadable PDF + EPUB you keep.