Information Technology and Management Science

doi: 10.1515/itms-2014-0021
2014 / 17 ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

ITIL Self-assessment Approach for Small

and Medium Digital Agencies
Zigurds Binders 1, Andrejs Romanovs 2, 1, 2 Riga Technical University

Abstract – In a growing world of Information Technology, II. ITIL SERVICE MANAGEMENT MODEL
entrepreneurs, start-ups and SMEs (small and medium-sized
enterprises) require a good mechanism of delivering a good
ITIL is a number of best practices that can be applied to
service. Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is managing and delivering IT service management (ITSM). It
identified to be the best and most popular “best practices” focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of business.
framework. However, implementing ITIL not only is very ITIL provides a practical framework for identifying, planning,
difficult but there are also no best practices for implementing it. delivering and supporting IT services to the business. ITIL can
As a result, ITIL implementations are usually long, expensive be described as the mixture of many concepts and frameworks
and risky. This paper proposes an approach to identify and to produce a roadmap [3]. In implementing ITIL, it is crucial
assess small business specific ITIL implementation and provide a to understand the differences among the concepts and the
roadmap for improvement based on the assessment results, frameworks [4]. The processes, procedures, tasks and
business needs and guidelines. The proposed guidelines were used
practically to assess and implement ITIL processes in a real-
checklists described by ITIL are used by an enormous number
world digital agency. of organizations to establish the integration with their strategy,
value delivery and maintaining their competency level. ITIL
Keywords – Digital agencies, IT service management (ITSM), can be a solid backing for organizations that want to improve
ITIL, maturity model, self-assessment, service lifecycle, SMT. their IT services, reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction
and enhance productivity. ITIL also helps the IT service
I. INTRODUCTION providers to identify the effective approach for specifying
In today’s IT world, businesses rely on IT to enable them to metrics and measuring the outcomes.
achieve their companies’ vision, goals and business strategy. ITIL approaches service management from the lifecycle
Organizations use the IT for various reasons but mainly to: aspect of a service. The service lifecycle is an organizational
model that provides insights into:
 Revolutionize the way they operate, communicate  The way service management is structured;
and do business;  The way various lifecycle components are linked to
 Develop and innovate, gain market advantage and each other;
differentiate themselves to their end customers;  The impact that changes in one component will have
 Drive increased productivity and efficiency, improve on other component and on the entire lifecycle
business processes, make cost savings, and increase system [5].
sales and growth;
The ITIL service lifecycle consists of five phases (shown in
 Communicate with larger, more global marketplace
Fig. 1):
[1].
1. Service Strategy;
All of the above-mentioned reasons fully correspond to the 2. Service Design;
main use of IT by the digital agency, where its quality of IT is 3. Service Transition;
reflected in its reputation and brand, and has direct impact 4. Service Operation;
upon sales and revenue. In order to achieve benefits from the 5. Continual Service Improvement.
IT investment, the resulting IT service must be well planned, Each stage of the lifecycle also consists of a defined set of
designed, managed and delivered. This is the key of a good IT processes that have their own purpose (concept), activities and
service management. inputs/outputs. In total, there are 26 processes that are spread
IT service management has many definitions, but the one across the lifecycle and can be implemented separately from
that is more specific is the following. each other.
IT service management is the implementation and Service strategy delivers guidance with designing,
management of quality IT services that meet the needs of the developing and implementing service management as a
business. IT service management is performed by IT service strategic asset [5]. It describes principles underpinning the
providers through an appropriate mix of people, processes and practice of service management, which are useful for
information management [2]. developing service management policies, guidelines and
Providing a good IT service management is essential to gain processes across the ITIL service lifecycle. Two aspects of
business benefits through IT at an agreed and controlled cost. strategy are covered in the ITIL service strategy:

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 Defining strategy whereby a service provider will The service design phase in the lifecycle begins with the
deliver service services to meet a customer’s demand for new or changed requirements from the customer.
business outcomes; Good preparation and an effective and efficient infusion of
 Defining a strategy for how to manage those people, processes, products (services, technology and tools)
services [10]. and partners (suppliers, manufacturers and vendors) – ITIL’s
four P’s – are necessary if the design, plans and projects are to
succeed [11].
The processes specifically addressed in the service design
are the following:
 Design coordination;
 Service catalogue management;
 Service level management;
 Availability management;
 Capacity management;
 IT service continuity management;
 Information security management;
 Supplier management [11].
Service transition consists of the management and
coordination of the processes, systems and functions required
for the building, testing and deployment of new and changed
services [5]. It provides guidelines for the development and
improvement of capabilities for transitioning new and changed
services into the supported environment, including release
Fig. 1. The service lifecycle [6].
planning, building, testing, evaluation and deployment.
Service transition establishes the service as specified in the
Service strategy is critical in the context of all processes
design phase, based on the customer and stakeholder
along the ITIL service lifecycle. The purpose of the service
requirements. The purpose of service transition stage of the
strategy phase is to define the perspective, position, plans and
service lifecycle is to ensure that new, modified or retired
patterns that a service provider needs to be able to execute to
services meet the expectations of the business as documented
meet an organization’s business outcomes. Service strategy is
in the service strategy and service design stages of the
located at the center of the service lifecycle, where the value
lifecycle [12].
creation begins with understanding organizational objectives
Service transition also introduces the service knowledge
and customer needs. The development and application of
management system, which can support organizational
service strategy requires constant revision, just as in all other
learning and help to improve the overall efficiency and
components of the cycle.
effectiveness of all stages of the service lifecycle. This will
ITIL service strategy is aimed mainly at executives and
help people to benefit from the knowledge and experience of
managers, who are responsible for defining the strategy of a
others, support informed decision-making and improve the
service provider.
management of services.
The processes specifically addressed in the service strategy
The processes specifically addressed in the service
are the following:
transition are the following:
 Strategy management for IT services;
 Transition planning and support;
 Service portfolio management;
 Change management;
 Financial management for IT services;
 Service asset and configuration management;
 Demand management;
 Release and deployment management;
 Business relationship management [10].
 Service validation and testing;
ITIL service design provides guidance for the service
design stage of the ITIL service lifecycle. It deals with the  Change evaluation;
design and development of services and their related processes  Knowledge management [12].
[5]. The purpose of the service design stage of the lifecycle is Service operation involves coordination and carrying out
to design IT services, together with governing IT practices, activities and processes required to provide and manage
processes and policies, to implement the service providers services for business users and customers within a specified
strategy and to facilitate the introduction of the service into agreed service level [5]. Service operation is also responsible
supported environments ensuring quality service delivery, for management of the technology required to provide and
customer satisfaction and cost-effective service provision. support the services.
Design encompasses the whole IT organization, for it is the Service operation is a critical stage of the service lifecycle.
organization as a whole that delivers and supports the services. Well-planned and well-implemented processes will be of no
Service design is the stage in the lifecycle that turns a service avail if the day-to-day operation of those processes is not
strategy into a plan for delivering the business objectives. properly conducted, controlled and managed. Nor will service
improvements be possible if day-to-day activities to monitor

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performance, assess metrics and gather operational data are Regardless of how big the organization is, whichever
not systematically conducted during service operation. industry it belongs to or how many layers of management it
The processes specifically addressed in the service consists of, there is always a space for improvement from
operation are the following: ITIL.
 Event management;
 Incident management; III. FITSM – STANDARD TO LIGHTWEIGHT IT SERVICE
 Request fulfillment; MANAGEMENT
 Problem management; In order to assess the level of ITIL maturity within the
 Access management [13]. organization, it is necessary to go through all 26 processes
IT departments must continually improve their services in described in ITIL. It would be very time consuming and
order to remain appealing to the business. This is placed useless to go through all of them as they might not be relevant
within a lifecycle phase of Continual Service Improvement at all or might not even exist within a small or medium
(CSI) [5]. organization.
The purpose of CSI stage of the lifecycle is to align IT FitSM is a standard family aimed to facilitate lightweight
services with changing business needs by identifying and service management implementation. FitSM is designed to be
implementing improvements to IT services that support compatible with the International Standard ISO/IEC 20000-1
business processes [14]. These improvement activities support (requirements for service management) and the ITIL [7].
the lifecycle approach though a service strategy, service FitSM introduces several documents, providing guidance
design, service transition and service operation. Feedback and input on ITIL, like overview and vocabulary,
from any stage of the service lifecycle can be used to identify requirements, objectives and activities, role model, maturity
improvement opportunities for any other stage of the lifecycle. and capability assessment schema etc. For the purpose of this
CSI is always seeking ways to improve service effectiveness, implementation, only three are going to be used – process
process effectiveness and cost effectiveness. specific requirements document, process definition template,
In order to identify improvement opportunities, the and maturity and capability assessment schema. The
measurement of current performance is an important factor. requirements document sets a minimum set of requirements
Despite the performance measurement, CSI also measures and for effective ITSM. This is intended to be achievable and
monitors the following matters: useful in a small digital agency that may have existing but not
 Process compliance; entirely defined or implemented ITIL processes. The process
 Quality; specific requirements document targets an overall ITIL
 Business value of a process [5]. maturity and is composed of 14 ITIL processes from across all
The processes/functions specifically addressed in the CSI five service lifecycles phases. The processes are the following:
are the following:  Service Strategy
 Seven-step improvement; o Service Portfolio Management
 Service reporting (function) [14]. o Business Relationship Management
ITIL is the world’s most widely accepted and adopted IT  Service Design
service management and delivery approach, where real o Service Level Management
organizations have benefited in a number of ways. o Service Availability & Continuity
From the business point of you, adoption of ITIL practices Management (FitSM describes
ensures many benefits, such as: Availability and IT Service Continuity
 IT services which align better with business Management as one process)
priorities and objectives, meaning that the business o Capacity Management
o Information Security Management
achieves more in terms of its strategic objectives;
o Supplier Management
 Known and manageable costs, ensuring the business  Service Transition
better plans its finance; o Service Asset and Configuration
 Increased business productivity, efficiency and Management
effectiveness, because IT services are more reliable o Change Management
and work better for the business users; o Release and Deployment Management
 Service Operation
 Financial savings from improved resource
o Incident Management
management and reduced rework; o Problem Management
 More effective change management, enabling the  Continual Service Improvement
business to keep pace with change and drive o Service Reporting (function)
business change to its advantage; o Seven-step Improvement.
 Improved user and customer satisfaction with IT; The process definition template will facilitate the
documentation and organization of ITIL processes. It will
 Improved end-customer perception and brand image
capture such relevant information as goals and objectives, role
[1]. model, activities, key performance indicators (KPI), potential
service management tools etc. These 14 documents will be

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kept as a source of truth and reference during the assessment well as facilitating the maturity of service management within
process. In capability assessment schema it is considered that the organization.
there are 6 capability levels (0 to 5) as described in ISO/IEC The analysis of both process maturity and service
15504 standard but only levels 0-4 will be described. This is management tool assessment will allow identifying if there is
done as only levels 0-3 are considered in the implementation a mismatch between ITSM process and the technology used to
scenarios FitSM addresses. Level 4 is included in the facilitate it and produce a more accurate process assessment.
assessment schema largely to show the difference from level The overall ITIL process assessment plan is the following:
3. Within the scheme we have two kinds of requirement:  Get the organization acquainted with the service
Tasks/activities are things that are done while management processes that are going to be assessed
output/achievement are things, which are produced. and the methods used;
 Perform the assessment of a target level of each
IV. EXPERIMENTS
process maturity using the workshop approach;
ITIL self-assessment within a small or medium-sized digital
 Perform assessment using the TIPA approach and
agency requires a new, efficient, easy-to-use and lightweight
approach. The purpose of this study is to describe and apply FitSM process maturity model and predefined
the approach to a live digital agency. criteria;
The approach to ITIL process self-assessment usually  Perform SMT assessment using FedSM tool maturity
covers three key areas on which ITSM is implemented, baseline assessment framework;
namely: people, processes and technology [9].
 Analyze both assessment results to identify processes
In this study, the main focus will be on processes and
technology. that need to be improved/implemented;
The ITIL processes will be assessed using the approach  Define the improvement plan based on the analysis
introduced by Tudor IT Process Assessment (TIPA) results.
framework [8]. The framework describes how to document the The organization will be introduced to the ITSM and the
assessment that includes individual process SWOT analysis, processes being assessed via a handout that will contain the
analyze the results and produce a road map for ITIL process description of each process and the overall approach to the
adoption and next steps. The maturity level will be defined assessment. The process description will contain the
using the FitSM approach of a standard ISO/IEC 15504 scale following:
and process criteria against a reference model that is defined  Introduction and overview;
in terms of purpose, expected results, base practices, inputs  Goals and objectives;
and outputs. To identify the extent to which the process is  Inputs/Outputs;
performed, achieves its purpose and produces its outcomes, a  Activities;
workshop will be conducted to go through each process  Key performance indicators.
assessment criteria. All of the above-mentioned activities will The next step is to have a workshop and perform the
help to facilitate the assessment and have a documented result assessment of a target maturity level of each process that will
of each assessed process and see where its strengths, help to identify the processes that require improvement or
weaknesses, opportunities and threats are. need to be implemented later on. Following the description of
While carrying out the ITIL process maturity assessment, it each level of process maturity, the target level will be
is also important to look at the process assessment from a identified and recorded as described in Table I below, showing
technological point of view. the target level for two service strategy processes.
Carrying out each management process in scope of ITSM FitSM describes maturity level criteria for all 14 processes
may require the concurrence of appropriate service that will be used during the assessment. To identify to which
management tools (SMT), which can range from extent a particular level has been achieved, the process will be
documentation describing the process till sophisticated rated using a scale shown below:
software that assists the service provider. [9] The lack of these  “Fully” achieved: Achieved between 86 % and 100 %
tools may limit the value of maturity of ITSM or even make it  “Largely” achieved: Achieved between 51 % and 85 %
not possible. The assessment process will follow the  “Partially” achieved: Achieved between 16 % and 50 %
framework introduced by FedSM organization. The idea is to  “Not” achieved: Achieved between 0 % and 15 %
assess the identified 14 service management processes by The percentage will be calculated based on the process
appointing them to one of three levels: criteria. The representation of the assessment results will be
 Level 0: No tools; captured in a table. See Table II as an example.
 Level 1: General tools; The table presents assessed processes horizontally, levels and
 Level 2: Specific tools [9]. attributes vertically.
All three levels have different criteria for every process that The results of the assessment will be shown in a spider
needs to be assessed. Levels that are defined in this way are diagram (Fig. 2). The example diagram shows the result of
helpful for the organizations that provide service to make a only 5 processes out of 14.
decision to improve the tool support in case it is needed as

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TABLE I
TARGET LEVEL ASSESSMENT

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4

Ad-hoc/Initial Repeatable/Partial Defined/Complete Managed/Aligned

Service Portfolio Management Target F F

Business Relationship Management Target F F F

TABLE II
PROCESS PROFILE
Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4
Ad-hoc/Initial Repeatable/Partial Defined/Complete Managed/Aligned

Service Portfolio Management Assessed Largely Largely Partially Not

Business Relationship Management Assessed Fully Largely Partially Not

Fig. 3. Results of SMT assessment.

The implementation/improvement of a particular process

needs to realize the following steps:
Fig. 2. Results of maturity assessment.  To review process objectives/outcomes;
 To write process policy;
Each radial arm of the web represents a service management
 To define process triggers;
process. The diagram shows strengths in some areas and
 To define process KPIs;
weaknesses in other as well as the comparison between the
assessed and target level.  To defining process roles and responsibilities;
Similar approach will be taken to perform SMT assessment,  To designing process flow;
but without assessing target levels. Assessing SMT and  To write process procedures;
producing a spider graph will help to identify processes with a  To define SMTs (Service Management Tools).
good and poor set of SMTs to perform the process phases
(Fig. 3). V. CONCLUSION
Analysis of both assessments will cover the explanation of The described approach will be implemented in a real life
maturity and SMT level achieved, process inputs and outputs, small digital agency. While conducting the assessment, all the
process SWOT analysis, recommendations and expected necessary documentation and notes will be taken for post-
outcomes. assessment analysis, to identify if the approach needs
The final step of the assessment approach is to define the improvement.
improvement or implementation plan. Based on the results of The results of this approach will allow the organization to
the assessment, the organization (together with all those identify the service management processes that need to be
involved) has to prioritize the order in which processes will be improved or implemented and the method of how to actually
improved or implemented and put in place a high-level plan accomplish that. The approach itself can be used by any small
(which usually is a typical project plan). IT organization (SME) that would like to improve or
implement ITIL service management and benefit from it. The

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future work will be focused purely on the [10] The Stationery Office, ITIL Service Strategy: 2011 Edition. Information
Technology Infrastructure Library 2011, Norwich, U.K.: The Stationery
implementation/improvement of the identified processes based
Office, 2011.
on the recognized obstacles to the target levels that [11] The Stationery Office, ITIL Service Design: 2011 Edition. Information
organization has indicated. The next challenge would be to Technology Infrastructure Library 2011, Norwich, U.K.: The Stationery
focus on the third area of ITSM – people. Dealing with people Office, 2011.
[12] The Stationery Office, ITIL Service Transition: 2011 Edition.
involves performing an organizational change, plan to involve
Information Technology Infrastructure Library 2011, Norwich, U.K.:
people and communicate effectively in order to finalize the The Stationery Office, 2011.
ITIL implementation. [13] The Stationery Office, ITIL Service Operation: 2011 Edition.
Information Technology Infrastructure Library 2011, Norwich, U.K.:
The Stationery Office, 2011.
REFERENCES [14] The Stationery Office, ITIL Continual Service Improvement: 2011
[1] M. Kneller, “Executive Briefing: The Benefits of ITIL,” The Stationery Edition. Information Technology Infrastructure Library 2011, Norwich,
Office ,U.K., 2010. U.K.: The Stationery Office, 2011.
[2] P. Farenden, ITIL for Dummies, England: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd,
2012. Zigurds Binders, B. sc. ing., is a Master Student at the Information
[3] H. Marquis, “ITIL: what it is and what it isn’t,” Business Technology Institute, Riga Technical University (Latvia). He received
Communication Review, vol. 36, no. 12, pp. 49–52, Dec. 2006. Bachelor degree in Information Technology from Riga Technical
[4] A. A. Latif, M. M. Din and R. Ismail, “Challenges in adopting and University in 2011. His research interests are the project and service
integrating and CMMI in ICT Division of a public utility company,” 2nd management and their governance, agile methodologies and web/software
International Conference on Computer Engineering and Application, development. Since 2013, he has been working as a Project Manager at
Mar. 19–21, pp. 81–86, 2010. “Zooey Consulting Limited” (United Kingdom). Before he worked at “Opus
http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ICCEA.2010.279 Capita” (Latvia) as a Change Manager/Developer.
[5] J. van. Bon, ITIL V3 A Pocket Guide, Van Haren Publishing, 2011. E-mail: zigurds.binders@rtu.lv
p. 164.
[6] R. Ryan, T. Raducha-Grace, The Business of IT: How to Improve Andrejs Romanovs, Dr. sc. ing., is an Associate Professor and Leading
Service and Lower Costs. U.S: International Business Machines Researcher at the Information Technology Institute, Riga Technical
Corporation, 2010. University. He has 25 years of professional experience teaching post-graduate
[7] The FitSM Standard Family: Standard for lightweight IT service courses at RTU and developing more than 50 industrial and management
management [Online]. Available: http://www.fedsm.eu/fitsm. Accessed: information systems. His professional interests include modeling and design
26.09.2014. of management information systems, IT governance, IT security and risk
[8] About TIPA: Assess And Improve Your IT Processes [Online]. management, integrated information technologies, as well as education in
Available: http://www.tipaonline.org/en/tipa, Accessed: 26.09.2014. these areas. A. Romanovs is a senior member of the IEEE, LSS; the author of
[9] T. Szepieniec, Service management tools implementation and maturity more than 50 papers in scientific journals and conference proceedings in the
baseline assessment framework: FedSM, 2013. field of Information Technology.
E-mail: andrejs.romanovs@rtu.lv

Zigurds Binders, Andrejs Romanovs. ITIL pašnovērtējuma pieeja mazām un vidējām digitālām aģentūrām
Informācijas tehnoloģiju pasaulē, jauniem uzņēmējiem un MVU (maziem un vidējiem uzņēmumiem) ir nepieciešams labs mehānisms, lai spētu nodrošināt labu
pakalpojuma piegādi. Uzņēmumiem, kas ignorēs IT pakalpojumu vadības principus, būs arvien grūtāk attaisnot ieguldījumus IT un konkurēt ar citiem tirgus
dalībniekiem. ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library jeb Informācijas tehnoloģiju infrastruktūras bibliotēka), tiek uzskatīta par vislabāko un
vispopulārāko “labo prakšu” kopu, ko var lietot IT pakalpojumu pārvaldības nodrošināšanai. Tas ir atvērts procedūru un ieteikumu apkopojums, kurā apkopotas
zināšanas un pieredze, kas uzkrāta gadu gaitā dažādu iestāžu un organizāciju iekšienē. ITIL ieviešana ir grūts un laikietilpīgs darbs, pie tam vēl neeksistē “labo
prakšu” ITIL ieviešanā. Tādējādi, ITIL ieviešanas process ir dārgs un riskants pasākums. Šajā rakstā tiek aprakstīta pieeja, ko var pielietot mazajos un vidējos
uzņēmumos, lai novērtētu ITIL brieduma līmeni un sniegtu ITIL procesu uzlabojumu un/vai ieviešanas plānu. Pieeja balstās uz divām no trim galvenajām IT
pakalpojumu pārvaldības jomām – procesiem un rīkiem. Ir novērtēti tikai 14 ITIL procesi, kurus apraksta FitSM un tika izmantota pieeja, ko apraksta TIPA un
FedSM, kas par pamatu izmanto ISO/IEC 15504 standartu, bet ar nelielām izmaiņām kritēriju un brieduma līmeņu aprakstā. Pakalpojumu pārvaldības rīku
novērtēšanā tiks pielietota līdzīga pieeja, kas par pamatu izmanto FedSM definētos kritērijus un līmeņus. Aprakstītā pieeja tiks pielietota reālā digitālā aģentūrā,
izvērtējot un īstenojot ITIL procesus. Turpmākais darbs būs identificēto ITIL procesu implementācija vai uzlabošana, kā arī aģentūras darbinieku kā
organizatorisko pārmaiņu elementu izpēte.

Зигурдс Биндерс, Андрей Романов. Подход самооценки ITIL для малых и средних цифровых агентств
В мире информационных технологий новым предпринимателям и малым и средним предприятиям необходим адекватный механизм для обеспечения
поставки услуг хорошего уровня. Предприятиям, которые будут игнорировать принципы управления ИТ услугами, будет все труднее оправдать
инвестиции в ИТ и конкурировать с другими участникам рынка. ITIL (Инфраструктурная библиотека информационных технологий) является
наилучшим и наиболее популярным подходом использования «лучших практик», который может быть применен для обеспечения управления ИТ
услугами. ITIL является открытым обобщением процедур и рекомендаций, в котором собраны знания и опыт, полученные за многие годы в
различных организациях и учреждениях. Внедрение ITIL является тяжелой и трудоемкой работой, к тому же еще не существует «лучших практик»
для внедрения ITIL. Следствием этого является высокая стоимость и риск всего процесса внедрения ITIL. В данной статье описан подход, который
может быть применен малыми и средними предприятиями для оценки уровня зрелости ITIL и для составления плана улучшения и/или внедрения
процессов ITIL. Подход основан на двух из трех главных областях управления ИТ услугами – на процессах и средствах. Оценены только 14 процессов
ITIL, которые описываются FitSM, и использован подход, описанный в TIPA и FedSM, который как основу использует стандарт ISO/IEC 15504 с
небольшими изменениями в описании критериев и уровня зрелости. В оценке средств управления услугам применяется похожий подход, за основу
принимающий критерии и уровни, заданные в FedSM. Описанный подход будет применен для оценки и реализации процессов ITIL в реальном
цифровом агентстве. Дальнейшая работа будет направлена на внедрение или улучшение идентифицированных процессов ITIL, а также на
исследование работников агентства как элементов организационных перемен.

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