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» Source of Best Practice
Currently, the source of "Best Practice" definition for IT Service
Management can be found in the ITIL publications from the Office of
Government Commerce [OGC (formerly known as CCTA)] and in several
publications from the British Standards Institution (BSi).
The core ITIL publications on Service Support & Delivery were
originally published in the late 1980s in 10 separate books
(at one point there were over 40 books in ITIL). In the 2000/1,
these core books were updated and concatenated into 2 volumes.
Further volumes are undergoing refreshment at present and will be
available in Q1/2 2002. The "new core" set will comprise the following:
- Planning to Implement Service Management
- Service Support
- Service Delivery
- The Business Perspective
- Applications Management
- ICT Infrastructure Management
- Security Management
BSi published the Code of Practice for IT Service Management in 1998
(PD0005) and subsequently the British Standard (BS15000) was launched
in November 2000. Both publications were based entirely on the refreshed
ITIL guidelines, particularly focusing on Service Support & Delivery.
The publications from both the BSI and OGC are complementary sets and
the two organisations work closely together and with itSMF to ensure
harmony and consistency between them.
This diagram illustrates how the various publications relate to each other.
BS15000 is the formal specification defining what organisations need to
achieve. The Code of Practice (PD0005) is effectively a high-level
management overview of the subject area, with the individual volumes of
ITIL containing detailed guidance on people and process issues. The
self-assessment workbooks are to assist organisations in understanding
where they currently stand.
A revised version on BS15000, incorporating Part 1, the Specification
and Part 2, the Code of Practice was released in Draft for Public Comment
in March 2002. The closing date for comments was the 30th April 2002.
The final definitive version is expected to be released in November 2002.
The intention is that BS15000 will ultimately become an ISO standard. A
formal certification scheme, with itSMF as the scheme owner, is under
development (expected live March 2003) and there will be a number of
supplementary publications for auditors and those preparing for an audit.
The aim of BS15000 is to "provide a common reference standard for any
enterprise offering services to internal or external customers". Such a
common language permits easy understanding of suppliers and products.
More information about ITIL can be found on the OGC web-site at
www.itil.co.uk and about the
British standard at www.bsi.org.uk/disc.
itSMF sells all of the ITIL and BSi publications (and more), offering
significant discounts to members.
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