About ITIL

IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a best practice approach for IT Service Management (ITSM) developed by the UK's Office of Government Commerce (OGC) and supported by publications, qualifications and an international user group. ITIL is intended to assist organisations to develop a framework for IT Service Management. Worldwide, ITIL is the most widely used best practice for IT Service Management.

IT Service Management is a top-down, business driven approach to the management of IT that specifically addresses the strategic business value generated by the IT organisation and the need to deliver a high quality IT service. IT Service Management is designed to focus on the people, processes and technology issues that IT organisations face. In this sense, process review is an integral part of the ITIL philosophy.

Whilst the approach has been developed in the UK it has been adopted by organisations around the globe, indeed it is the most widely used IT Service Management approach in the world. ITIL covers the people, processes and technology issues - the main focuses of an IT Service Management approach. Using an ITIL approach can result not only in a reduction in costs but improvements in IT services, customer satisfaction, productivity and a better use of skills and experience.

The widespread adoption of ITIL has encouraged members of the user community to 'develop supporting products as part of a shared ITIL Philosophy'. There is a substantial collection of materials on ITIL and IT Service Management on the internet:

The OGC's own web site gives a comprehensive introduction to the approach and includes a number of links to sources of further reading - http://www.ogc.gov.uk/guidance_itil.asp.