ITIL CSI - Continual Service Improvement
Objective: The Continual Service Improvement (CSI) process uses methods from quality management in order to learn from past successes and failures. The ITIL CSI lifecycle stage aims to continually improve the effectiveness and efficiency of IT processes and services, in line with the concept of continual improvement adopted in ISO 20000.
Part of: IT Service Management | ITIL processes
Processes: ITIL Continual Service Improvement
CSI continually improves the effectiveness and efficiency of services and processes.
ITIL V3 defines one process in the CSI stage of the service lifecycle: The "Seven-Step Improvement Process". These seven steps describe a generic approach to continual improvement that can be applied in many situations, rather than a process that organizations would implement in practice. Specific CSI methods and techniques are mostly discussed in other parts of the ITIL CSI publication.
Therefore, organizations seeking to introduce an ITIL-aligned Continual Service Improvement (CSI) process (see fig. "ITIL CSI") will typically define a set of service improvement processes to ensure that ideas for improvement are identified and implemented, as described below:
- Service Review
- Process Objective: To review business services and infrastructure services on a regular basis. The aim of this process is to improve service quality where necessary, and to identify more economical ways of providing a service where possible.
- Process Evaluation
- Process Objective: To evaluate processes on a regular basis. This includes identifying areas where the targeted process metrics are not reached, and holding regular benchmarkings, audits, maturity assessments and reviews.
- Definition of CSI Initiatives
- Process Objective: To define specific initiatives aimed at improving services and processes, based on the results of service reviews and process evaluations. The resulting initiatives are either internal initiatives pursued by the service provider on his own behalf, or initiatives which require the customer's cooperation.
- Monitoring of CSI Initiatives
- Process Objective: To verify if improvement initiatives are proceeding according to plan, and to introduce corrective measures where necessary.
ITIL 4 Continual Improvement
The CSI processes described here (fig. 1) follow the specifications of ITIL v3, where continual service improvement is defined as the 5th phase in the service lifecycle.
ITIL 4 no longer relates to disciplines and instead describes 34 'practices'. Many of the 26 processes specified in ITIL v3 can now be found as practices in ITIL 4.
ITIL 4 defines the discipline of continual service improvement as a general management practice and has renamed it to "Continual improvement". This continual improvement practice is very much in line with the activities of the CSI processes as described on this page.
KPIs | Templates | Roles
- KPIs for Continual Service Improvement (CSI)
- CSI templates and checklists
- ITIL roles within Continual Service Improvement (CSI)
Downloads
Use the following links to open the process overview of Continual Service Improvement (CSI) showing the most important interfaces:
Notes
By: Stefan Kempter 
, IT Process Maps.
Service Review › Process Evaluation › Definition of CSI Initiatives › CSI Monitoring
