ITIL Continual Improvement

Continual Improvement is a key component of the ITIL Service Value System (SVS).  It is a recurring activity performed at all levels of an organization ensuring performance continually meets stakeholders’ expectations even as outcome needs evolve and change facilitating value creation.

Continual Improvement applies not only to the Service Value System as a whole, but also an organization’s products, services, people, relationships, and practices.  Continual Improvement is the responsibility of everyone at all levels of an organization.

Continual Improvement exists in ITIL 4 throughout the Service Value System in the form of:

• The Improve activity in the Service Value Chain (SVC)
• The Continual Improvement Practice
• The Continual Improvement Model

A reimagining of the 7 Step Improvement Process from ITIL 3, the Continual Improvement Model in ITIL 4 consists of the following 7 steps:

• What is the vision? – Where do we want to be? What is the Organization’s mission, goals, and objectives?
• Where are we now? – What is our starting point? Use baseline assessments to determine where we are today.
• Where do we want to be? – What measurable targets will tell us if we’ve achieved our goals?
• How do we get there? – What is our improvement plan?
• Take action. – Execute the improvement plan actions.
• Did we get there? – Evaluate the metrics against targets to determine whether we succeeded in achieving our goals.
• How do we keep the momentum going? – This step ensures that value from the improvement activities is retained, and future improvement activities will be even more successful and valuable to the organization.

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