The bedrock of ITIL v3 is comprised of five publications, which together are referred to as the ITIL Core books or publications. The five titles are:
- Service Strategy
A view of ITIL that aligns business and IT so that each brings out the best in the other. It ensures that every element of the Service Lifecycle is focused on customer outcomes and relates to all the companion process elements that follow. The other titles in the core set will link deliverables to meeting the business goals, requirements and service management principles described in this publication.
- Service Design
In order to meet the current and future business requirements, Service Design provides guidance on the production and maintenance of IT policies, architectures, and documents for the design of appropriate and innovative IT infrastructure service solutions and processes.
- Service Transition
Service Transition provides guidance and process activities for the transition of services in the operational business environment. It covers the broader, long-term change management role, release and deployment practices, so that risks, benefits, delivery mechanisms and the support of ongoing operational services are considered.
- Service Operation
Service Operation introduces, explains and details delivery and control activities to achieve operational excellence on a day-to-day basis. Readers will find many of the familiar processes from the former service support and Service Delivery books, which have been updated where necessary.
- Continual Service Improvement
Alongside the delivery of consistent, repeatable process activities as part of service quality, ITIL has always emphasized the importance of continual improvements. Focusing on the process elements involved in identifying and introducing service management improvements, this publication also deals with issues surrounding service retirement.
Further information regarding the ITIL Core books can be found by clicking on the relevant entry on the menu column that is located on the left-hand side of the ITILnews.com home page.