WIXLIB

ITIL and TOGAF 9.1: two frameworksTom van Sante and Jeroen Ermers, KPN IT SolutionsWhite PaperAugust 2013 The Stationery Office 2013

2ITIL and TOGAF 9.1: two frameworksContentsManagement summary31Introduction32Organizational development33History of ITIL44History of TOGAF55The framework dilemma66Where ITIL and TOGAF meet77Conclusions10Appendix10References and further reading11About the authors12Acknowledgements12Trade marks and statements12 The Stationery Office and TOGAF 2013

ITIL and TOGAF 9.1: two frameworksManagement summaryThis White Paper traces the development of The Open GroupArchitecture Framework (TOGAF ) and ITIL as a backgroundto discussions about the potential overlap in the processesthey both describe. It does not give an account of the modelsthemselves. Further details about these frameworks are given inthe References section at the end.The development of information systems in large organizations,and in multipart supply-and-demand chains, has becomecomplex and flexible. Increasingly, systems are being designedand managed using a structured approach. Best-practicemodels are based on the experience of day-to-day users andtherefore support users’ needs. The development of thesemodels follows the requirements of the organizations thatdeploy these models. In a way, they change from descriptionsof best practice to theoretical models of how processes shouldwork in practice.Both TOGAF and ITIL are frameworks that follow a processapproach. They are based upon best practice and are supportedby a large community of users. However, whereas TOGAFis focused on enterprise architecture, ITIL focuses on servicemanagement. During the years of development of theseframeworks, the domains they have described have changedfrom IT to business processes. In recent final versions, the twoframeworks appear to have entered into each other’s domains.In this White Paper we try to explain that although thesemodels describe similar processes, you do not have to choosebetween them. It is more important that the people whoare concerned with service management understand TOGAFand that enterprise architects understand ITIL – because inmost large companies both will be used in parallel. As most ITarchitects will probably have more knowledge of TOGAF thanITIL, and vice versa, this White Paper will help architects andservice managers to understand how these two frameworksare interrelated. Perhaps even more importantly they shouldunderstand how the ‘other’ framework can enhance the valueof their ‘own’ framework.3that their strength is in the common vocabulary they provide toprofessionals all over the world. However, do not assume that theyare meant to be followed blindly, as every organization will find itsown method of implementation in its day-to-day operations.Although ITIL and TOGAF describe areas of common interest, it isnot necessarily from the same perspective. ITIL was developed tosupport service management and TOGAF to support organizationsin the development of enterprise architecture. The focus of ITIL istherefore on services, whereas TOGAF is focused on architecture.However, since services have become an integral part of fastchanging organizations, predicting what will be needed tomorrowis of growing interest to the people who deliver these services.Conversely, architecture has changed from a rather static designdiscipline to one that encompasses the whole organization, andit is only useful if the whole organization is using it to enable alldevelopments to be aligned with each other.Service management has matured from a mere operational taskto one that can be practised at chief information officer level.Architecture has developed from a technical discipline to onefulfilling the role of trusted adviser to senior-level management.Therefore, the question of identifying where one ends and theother begins has changed over the years. A common way to lookat their domains of interest, and their role in the organization as awhole, is depicted in Figure 1.Figure 1 The domains and roles of ITIL and TOGAF withinan organizationSource: Radhakrishnan (2008).1IntroductionThe last major refreshes of ITIL and TOGAF were in 2007 (ITIL) and2009 (when TOGAF 9 succeeded TOGAF 8.1.1). Since then, bothframeworks have been updated; ITIL was updated in July 2011 andTOGAF 9.1 was released in December 2011. Both frameworks havelarge user groups and the continued progression of their contentshows that their development is ongoing.Because of these large user groups, the number of companiesthat work with both frameworks is growing. Questions ariseabout how to use these models side by side or choose betweenthem. In this White Paper these questions are answered byexplaining the background and history of the frameworks. Weneed to understand that they are both based on best practice and2Organizational developmentWe are living in a time when information is being spread withinand between organizations with hardly any restrictions. Newpossibilities will make this flow of information grow enormously.Information technology has become a complex matter in whichnot every individual will find their way. IT departments arebecoming increasingly complex and are having to control andmanage this complexity. Adjusting to rapid change has becomea dominant factor in controlling IT developments.This is especially true today, with organizations outsourcingmore and more functionality and bringing parts of their IT‘into the cloud’. Issues such as governance and security are The Stationery Office and TOGAF 2013

4ITIL and TOGAF 9.1: two frameworksbecoming more complex, and there is a growing interest amongorganizations in bringing processes to a higher maturity level inorder to control the risks involved.The early IT departments were typically extensions of theaccounting or, less commonly, the administrative departmentswithin organizations. They tended to operate in a stand-alonemode and were not connected with the primary businessprocesses. IT organizations were grouped in separate silos,and were described as the ‘network team’ or the ‘systemmanagement team’. It was in that era that standards for servicemanagement and architecture were first formulated. The speedof change in those times was a lot slower than it is today. Therewas enough time to plan and organize processes to last for along period.‘Quality’ was the magic word and this became the focusof many of the first improvements. A large number oforganizations concentrated on describing their activities inorder to make their outcomes predictable. However, that wasonly possible in times of relatively slow change, and theseactivities were geared more to the organizations themselvesthan to the customers involved. The improvements and actionswere activity-based. The next step in improving organizationstherefore focused on customer satisfaction, promoting thegeneral idea that services needed customers in order to have a‘raison d’être’.As business started to recognize the potential of IT forsupporting primary business functions, IT became increasinglyentangled in the business itself. Initially this occurred betweenthe financial and business functions; and then later between thebusiness functions, thereby increasing the added value of theproducts and services the business provided to its customers.Nowadays the information flow supported by IT has crossedboth geographical and organizational boundaries as bothsuppliers and customers have started to participate, thus furtherincreasing the added value. IT has also provided the means toenter markets that were hitherto inaccessible.A quick glance at the credit crisis of 2007 demonstrates howmuch organizations are affected by the problems of powerfuland dominant players in these information networks. Bothbetween and within organizations, departments have to rely oneach other. Organizations continuously make centralization anddecentralization efforts in order to maintain their competitiveadvantage. At the same time, outsourcing informationsystems that support core processes can cause difficulties foran organization in the development of its future informationsystems and service capability.The trend towards organizing work based on best-practicemodels is a result of this growing complexity. The possibilityof an international market supported by the internet has alsoforced organizations to improve their productivity. Althoughbest-practice models have been helpful, their use concealsa fundamental problem. The fragmented way in which ITservices are being built across different departments, or evenby external parties, makes the development and day-to-day The Stationery Office and TOGAF 2013management of these services even more complex. This explainsthe more holistic approach of existing models to keep a gripon all elements in the supply chain. All-encompassing modelstry to harness this development, but it will be impossible todirect all the players in the network. Therefore the ‘commonlanguage’ part of TOGAF and ITIL is more important than thecompleteness of the processes they describe.Today’s IT is often a combination of many components thatneed to be aligned seamlessly in order to be perceived as aservice to the end-user.3History of ITILITIL was first released to the public in the late 1980s by theCentral Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA),an office of the British government, and as such was and stillis vendor-neutral. ITIL V1 consisted of 42 separate books. Therationale behind ITIL was, of course, to describe best practicesconcerning the management of IT. Those best practiceswere mainly based on experience in data centres running bigmainframes; at this time the PC was just being introduced andwas not yet a common sight in the office or in everyday life.This first set of ITIL books was, as can be expected from a firstversion, somewhat ambiguous in its conception: the distinctionbetween processes, work activities and organizational units wasnot very clear. Some of the books (such as those on changemanagement and problem management) concentrated onprocesses; some focused on both process and organization (forexample, the helpdesk); while a third group described a set ofactivities that were related without actually being a process(for example, network management). As a general rule, the42 books of ITIL V1 can be characterized using terms such as‘data centre’, ‘internal IT perspective’ and ‘the focus on sets ofrelated activities’. In the early 1990s this first set of ITIL bookswas extended, three of which were written from an altogetherdifferent perspective, oriented towards the business. Knownas the business perspective set, these books were: In Times ofRadical Change; Understanding and Improving; and Surviving ITInfrastructure Transitions.In 2000, ITIL V2 was launched. Authors were sought from therapidly growing worldwide IT service management community. InITIL V2, related processes were bundled together, thus reducingthe number of books from 42 to eight. ITIL V2 distinguishes itselffrom its predecessor mainly by emphasizing the need for closerelationships with both the customer and the supplier, therebyadopting a more service-oriented approach. The core focus ofITIL V2 can be defined as truly process-oriented, but still froma mainly internal IT perspective. ITIL V2 helped organizations toimprove the quality of their services and became an importantaid in implementing formal quality systems such as ISO/IEC 9000and EFQM.