ITIL & ISO/IEC 20000

Ron Przywara ITIL Certified Consultant IT Service Management Veris Associates, Inc.

I recently received certification for ISO/IEC 20000 at the Foundations (introductory) level and the Professional level for the Management and Improvement of IT Service. My experiences in Service development and implementation for clients and the fun I’ve had teaching ITIL during the past 12 years gives me a great view of the benefits of both.

For example:
The common focus of “Change Management” in ISO 20K & ITIL. Both drive the focus on formal authorization of change based on an understanding of risk and resource scheduling. ISO 20K takes Change to another level. There are requirements for communications plans for the various audiences (which must be identified). Specific requirements for reporting the performance of the Change process. In ITIL, there are guidelines for these, yes, but ISO 20K “requires” these communications and proof they take place consistently.

ITIL & the ISO 20K designation can initially appear very similar – the IT Service Management focus, the core processes (Incident, Change, Problem, etc.), having roles and responsibilities laid out.

The first difference is ISO 20K requires your organization to clearly demonstrate not only a process exists, but it is being followed. That means evidence. The second difference is ISO 20000 includes governance and management requirements. The ITIL framework alludes to the need for the accountability and quality control components of governance and service management, particularly in the updated “ITIL v3” lifecycle approach.

Quick view: Start using the ITIL framework to create and implement how your IT organization develops and delivers IT Services. Once your teams are driving repeatable, measureable processes to provide services, look the ISO/IEC 20000 specification to fine-tune the quality and efficiencies of IT Service Management. It’s not a “one or the other” choice.

More to come…


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