ISO 20000
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ITIL provides guidance on what should be done in order to offer users adequate IT Services to support their business processes. ITIL qualifications are available for individuals but until recently there was no way for an IT organization to prove that it is working along the ITIL recommendations.
The ISO/IEC 20000:2005 standard (abbreviated to ISO 20000 in this wiki) was conceived to fill this gap. Initiated by the two organizations itSMF and BSI (British Standards Institution), it is modeled upon the principles of ITIL and allows IT organizations to have their IT Service Management certified.
In contrast to the ITIL books, ISO 20000 does not offer specific advice on how to design your processes. It is rather a set of requirements which must be met in order to qualify for ISO 20000 certification.
Central Requirements from ISO 20000
ISO 20000 promotes the “adoption of an integrated process approach to effectively deliver managed services to meet the business and customer requirements”.
ISO 20000 does not prescribe that its requirements must be met by following the ITIL recommendations, so there are many possible ways to achieve compliance. Introducing ITIL, however, is the most widely used approach for obtaining an ISO 20000 certificate.
It is also important to prove that IT processes are documented, actively managed, and continually improved.
The new Edition ISO/IEC 20000:2011
A new version of ISO/IEC 20000 Part 1: Service management system requirements (abbreviated to ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011) was published in April 2011.
The authors of the new version describe the main differences to the earlier edition (ISO/IEC 20000-1:2005) as follows:
- Closer alignment to both ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 27001
- Clarification of existing definitions and addition of new definitions
- Introduction of the term "Service Management System" (SMS) and aligning the standard with the concept of a SMS
- Clarification of the requirements for the governance of processes operated by other parties
- Addition of requirements for the design and transition of new or changed services
The basic principles behind ITIL V3 and ISO 20000 are very much in line (see also: "Alignment White Paper: ITIL V3 and ISO/IEC 20000", Jenny Dugmore & Sharon Taylor, March 2008). The key differences are:
- ITIL certifications are available for individuals only, whereas ISO 20000 is a certification scheme for organizations.
- ITIL is a rather detailed collection of best practices, while ISO 20000 is an international standard that sets out Service Management requirements for IT organizations.
- When organizations say they are compliant to ITIL, very often this statement is not verifiable; a certification according to the ISO 20000 standard means there has been an objective assessment.
Frequently, a certification according to ISO 20000 is sought after introducing ITIL, because it allows an IT organization to actually prove that it is a customer-oriented, efficient and effective supplier of IT services. A certification can thus be used for marketing purposes, or to gain access to customers and markets which require their service suppliers to be ISO 20000 certified.
ITIL V3 was explicitly written to be aligned with ISO 20000, as the following table exemplifies: for every section in ISO/IEC 20000:2005, Part 1 (Mandatory Requirements) there are one or several related ITIL processes.
| ISO 20000 Sections | Related ITIL Processes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Ch. | Title | Remark | |
| 3 | Requirements for a management system | ||
| 3.1 | Management responsibility | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL process "Service Portfolio Management" | |
| 3.2 | Documentation requirements | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL process "Service Level Management" | |
| 3.3 | Competence, awareness and training | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL processes "Service Portfolio Management" and "Process Evaluation" | |
| 4 | Planning and implementing service management | ||
| 4.1 | Plan service management (Plan) | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL processes "Service Strategy" and "Continual Service Improvement" | |
| 4.2 | Implement service management and provide the services (Do) | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL process "Service Strategy" | |
| 4.3 | Monitoring, measuring and reviewing (Check) | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL process "Process Evaluation" | |
| 4.4 | Continual improvement (Act) | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL process "Continual Service Improvement" | |
| 5 | Planning and Implementing New or Changed Services | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL processes "Service Strategy" and "Service Level Management" | |
| 6 | Service Delivery | ||
| 6.1 | Service Level Management | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL process "Service Level Management" | |
| 6.2 | Service Reporting | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL process "Service Level Management" | |
| 6.3 | Service Continuity and Availability Management | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL processes "IT Service Continuity Management" and "Availability Management" | |
| 6.4 | Budgeting and Accounting for IT Services | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL process "Financial Management"
(optional, i.e. non-obligatory component of the standard) | |
| 6.5 | Capacity Management | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL process "Capacity Management" | |
| 6.6 | Information Security Management | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL process "Information Security Management" | |
| 7 | Relationship Processes | ||
| 7.2 | Business Relationship Management | Requirements are fulfilled by various ITIL processes: "Service Portfolio Management", "Service Level Management" and "Continual Service Improvement" | |
| 7.3 | Supplier Management | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL process "Supplier Management" | |
| 8 | Resolution | ||
| 8.2 | Incident Management | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL process "Incident Management" | |
| 8.3 | Problem Management | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL process "Problem Management" | |
| 9 | Control | ||
| 9.1 | Configuration Management | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL process "Service Asset and Configuration Management" | |
| 9.2 | Change Management | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL process "Change Management" | |
| 10 | Release | ||
| 10.1 | Release Management | Requirements are fulfilled by the ITIL process "Release and Deployment Management" | |
