The Problem With Chasing the New

ITIL 4 was published in 2019. Since then, a significant portion of the ITSM industry's attention has shifted to the new framework — its Service Value System, its four dimensions, its guiding principles, its integration with Agile and DevOps. This is understandable. ITIL 4 represents genuine evolution and its ideas deserve serious engagement.

But there is a risk in that focus: organisations that are still struggling with the fundamentals of service management — consistent incident handling, effective change control, basic problem investigation — are being encouraged to adopt a framework designed for organisations that have already mastered those fundamentals.

What ITIL v3 Got Right

ITIL v3's service lifecycle model — Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, Continual Service Improvement — provided a clear, logical framework for thinking about IT services end-to-end. Its process definitions for Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management and the Service Desk remain practically useful descriptions of what these capabilities look like when done well.

The organisations that implemented ITIL v3 thoughtfully — not as a compliance exercise, but as a genuine framework for improving service delivery — built capabilities that are still standing. The framework was not the problem. The implementation approach was often the problem.

The Foundations That Still Matter

The capabilities that ITIL v3 described as foundational remain foundational in 2024. Consistent incident categorisation and ownership. Structured root cause analysis. A meaningful, owned service catalogue. Service level agreements anchored to business outcomes rather than technical metrics. Continual improvement as a genuine practice rather than a quarterly review.

These are not ITIL v3 concepts. They are enduring principles of good service management that ITIL v3 described well. They are just as relevant under ITIL 4 — the language has changed, the underlying principles have not.

"Most organisations don't have an ITIL 4 problem. They have an ITIL v3 basics problem. The new framework won't fix it."

A Sequencing Recommendation

Our consistent recommendation to organisations considering ITIL 4 adoption is to start with an honest assessment of where they are against the fundamentals. If Incident Management is inconsistent, if Problem Management is non-existent, if the service catalogue is incomplete or unowned — then ITIL 4 adoption should wait until those gaps are addressed.

The organisations that have successfully adopted ITIL 4 are almost universally those that had strong ITIL v3 foundations to build on. The framework evolution rewards the organisations that did the foundational work — not those that skipped it.

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