ITIL 4 Foundation Glossary

Agile

An umbrella term for a collection of frameworks and techniques that together enable teams and
individuals to work in a way that is typified by collaboration, prioritization, iterative and
incremental delivery, and timeboxing. There are several specific methods (or frameworks) that
are classed as Agile, such as Scrum, Lean, and Kanban.

Architecture Management Practice

The practice of providing an understanding of all the different elements that make up an
organization and how those elements relate to one another.

Availability

The ability of an IT service or other configuration item to perform its agreed function when
required.

Availability Management Practice

The practice of ensuring that services deliver agreed levels of availability to meet the needs of
customers and users.

Best Practice

A way of working that has been proven to be successful by multiple organizations.

Business Analysis Practice

The practice of analyzing a business or some element of a business, defining its needs and
recommending solutions to address these needs and/or solve a business problem, and create
value for stakeholders.

Business Case

A justification for expenditure of organizational resources, providing information about costs,

benefits, options, risks, and issues.
Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

A key activity in the practice of service continuity management that identifies vital business
functions (VBFs) and their dependencies. These dependencies may include suppliers, people,
other business processes, and IT services. BIA defines the recovery requirements for IT
services. These requirements include RTOs, RPOs, and minimum target service levels for each
IT service.

Capacity and Performance Management

The practice of ensuring that services achieve agreed and expected performance levels,
satisfying current and future demand in a cost-effective way.

Capacity Planning

The activity of creating a plan that manages resources to meet demand for services.

Change

The addition, modification, or removal of anything that could have a direct or indirect effect on
services.

Change Authority

A person or group responsible for authorizing a change.

Change Enablement Practice

The practice of ensuring that risks are properly assessed, authorizing changes to proceed and
managing a change schedule in order to maximize the number of successful service and
product changes.

Change Manager

A person responsible for choreographing changes to systems and services with the least
disruption to business.

Change Model

A repeatable approach to the management of a particular type of change.

Change Schedule

A calendar that shows planned and historical changes.

Configuration Item

Any component that needs to be managed in order to deliver an IT service.

Continual Improvement

A recurring organizational activity performed at all levels to ensure that an organization’s

performance continually meets stakeholders’ expectations.

Continual Improvement Register (CIR)

Continual improvement records improvement opportunities in the CIR.

Continual Improvement Practice

The practice of aligning an organization’s practices and services with changing business needs
through the ongoing identification and improvement of all elements involved in the effective
management of products and services.

Continuous Delivery

An approach to software development in which software can be released to production at any

time. Frequent deployments are possible, but deployment decisions are taken case by case,
usually because organizations prefer a slower rate of deployment.

Continuous Deployment

An approach to software development in which changes go through the pipeline and are
automatically put into the production environment, enabling multiple production deployments per
day. Continuous deployment relies on continuous delivery.

Continuous Integration

An approach to integrating, building, and testing code within the software development
environment.

Critical Success Factor (CSF)

A necessary precondition for the achievement of intended results.

Cybersecurity Risk

Risks of exposure or loss for an organization resulting from a cyber-attack or a data breach.
Demand

The need or want for goods and services from internal and external customers.

Design Thinking

A practical and human-centered approach that accelerates innovation. It is used by product and
service designers as well as organizations to solve complex problems and find practical,
creative solutions that meet the needs of the organization and its customers.

DevOps

An organizational culture that aims to improve the flow of value to customers. DevOps focuses
on culture, automation, Lean, measurement, and sharing (CALMS).

Disaster

A sudden unplanned event that causes great damage or serious loss to an organization. A
disaster results in an organization failing to provide critical business functions for some
predetermined minimum period of time.

Disaster Recovery Plans

A set of clearly defined plans related to how an organization will recover from a disaster as well
as return to a pre-disaster condition, considering the four dimensions of service management.

Discovery

The location and identification of IT assets that may exist in the organization, particularly those
that may not have been recorded in the IT asset register.

Disruption Risk

Risks that can disrupt the organization’s operating or business model.

Emergency Change

A change that must be introduced as soon as possible.

Engagement Risk

Risks that originate from an organization’s stakeholders, including its suppliers and partners,
consumers, and employees.
Environment

A subset of the IT infrastructure used for a particular purpose.

Event

Any change of state that has significance for the management of a service or other confirmation
item.

Governance

The means by which an organization is directed and controlled.

Guiding Principles

Recommendations that can guide an organization in all circumstances, regardless of changes in

its goals, strategies, type of work, or management structure.

Incident

An unplanned interruption to or reduction in the quality of a service.

Incident Management

The practice of minimizing the negative impact of incidents by restoring normal service
operation as quickly as possible.

Information Security Policy

The policy that governs an organization’s approach to information security management.

Information Security Management Practice

The practice of protecting an organization by understanding and managing risks to the

confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information.

Infrastructure

The hardware, software, networks, and facilities required to develop, test, deliver, monitor,
manage, and support IT services.

Innovation Risk

Risks introduced by the organization’s innovations.

Inventory

Data collection and clean-up performed to build or verify the IT asset register data.

ITIL

Best-practice guidance for IT service management.

IT Asset Assignment

The act of delegating responsibility for an IT asset to an IT asset consumer for the period of IT
asset consumption/use. For some types of IT assets, they can be combined with the relevant
install, move, add, change actions.

IT Asset Decommissioning

The act of retrieving/recovering IT assets from a consumer, particularly through uninstallation

(including deletion of data according to security policy) and deciding whether the IT assets
should be returned to stock or disposed of.

IT Asset Register

A collection of information about IT assets that includes their ownership, cost, and other key
characteristics. The IT asset register makes it possible to maintain the stock count of IT assets.

IT Asset Lifecycle

Various stages in the life of an IT asset from planning to disposal. The lifecycle consists of
stages represented by the statuses and the status transitions that are permitted, based on the
IT asset type.

IT Service

A service based on the use of information technology.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

An important metric used to evaluate the success in meeting an objective.

Knowledge Management Practice

The practice of maintaining and improving the effective, efficient, and convenient use of
information and knowledge across an organization.
Known Error

A problem that has been analyzed and has not been resolved.

Lean

An approach that focuses on improving workflows by maximizing value through the elimination
of waste.

Major Incident

An incident with significant business impact, requiring an immediate coordinated resolution.

Normal Change

Changes that need to be scheduled, assessed, and authorized following a process.

Operation

The routine of running and managing an activity, product, service, or other configuration item

Opportunity

Possible ways to improve the organization and add value for stakeholders.

Organization

Can be a sole trader, company, corporation, firm, enterprise, authority, partnership, charity or
institution, or any part or combination thereof, whether incorporated or not, and be either public
or private.

Partner

An organization that provides products and services to consumers and worlds closely with its
consumers to achieve common goals and objectives.

​Partner and Supplier

One of the four dimensions of service management. It encompasses the relationships an

organization has with other organizations that are involved in the design, development,
deployment, delivery, support, and/or continual improvement of services.
Performance

A measure of what is achieved or delivered by a system, person, team, practice, or service.

Portfolio Management

The practice of ensuring that an organization has the right mix of programs, projects, products,
and services to execute its strategy within its funding and resource constraints.

Practices

Sets of organizational resources designed for performing work or accomplishing an objective.

Problem

A cause, or potential cause, of one or more prior, current, or future incidents.

Problem Management

Reduce the likelihood and impact of incidents by identifying actual and potential causes of
incidents, and managing workarounds and known errors.

Process

A set of interrelated or interacting activities that transform inputs into outputs. Processes define
the sequence of activities and their dependencies.

Product

A configuration of an organization’s resources designed to offer value for a consumer.

​Project

A temporary structure that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more outputs (or
products) according to an agreed business case.

Program

A set of related projects and activities, and an organization structure created to direct and
oversee them.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

The point to which information used by an activity must be restored to enable the activity to
operate on resumption.

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

The maximum acceptable period of time following a service disruption that can elapse before
the lack of business functionality severely impacts the organization. This represents the
maximum agreed time within which a product or an activity must be resumed, or resources must
be recovered.

Relationship Management

The practice of establishing and nurturing links between an organization and its stakeholders at
strategic and tactical levels.

Release

A version of a service or other configuration item, or a collection of configuration items, that is

made available for use.

Request Catalog

A view of the service catalog, providing details on service requests for existing and new
services, which is made available for the user.

Resource

The personnel, material, finance, or other entity that is required for the execution of an activity or
the achievement of an objective. Resources used by an organization may be owned by the
organization or used according to an agreement with the resource owner.

Risk

A possible event that could cause harm or loss, or make it more difficult to achieve objectives.
Can also be defined as uncertainty of outcome, and can be used in the context of measuring the
probability of positive outcomes as well as negative outcomes.

Risk-Based Testing

Testing (particularly exploratory testing) that is structured and driven by different types of
product risks relating to the features and product components that are being tested.
Service

A means of enabling value co-creation by facilitating outcomes that customers want to achieve,
without the customer having to manage specific costs and risks.

Service Catalog

Structured information about all the services and service offerings of a service provider, relevant
for a specific target audience.

Service Configuration Model

Identifies and documents the connections and relationships between configuration items.

Service Design Package

Service Design document(s) defining all aspects of an IT Service and its Requirements through
each stage of its lifecycle.

Service Empathy

The ability to recognize, understand, predict, and project the interests, needs, intentions, and
experiences of another party in order to establish, maintain, and improve the service
relationship.

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

A documented agreement between a service provider and a customer that identifies services
required and the expected level of service.

Service Management

A set of specialized organizational capabilities for enabling value for customers in the form of
services.

Service Offering

A formal description of one or more services, designed to address the needs of a target
consumer group. A service offering may include goods, access to resources, and service
actions.
Service Strategy Definition

Define the overall goals the service provider should pursue in its development, and to identify
what services will be offered to what customers or customer segments, based on the results of
the Strategic Service Assessment.

Service Strategy Execution

To define and plan strategic initiatives, and ensure the implementation of those initiatives.

Service Strategy Plan

Attempts to translate a big idea regarding customer needs into a distinctive and cost-effective
set of connected capabilities and resources to satisfy those needs.

Service Provider

A service-oriented role in an organization that provides services to consumers.

Service Value Chain

A set of interconnected activities that an organization performs to deliver a valuable product or

service to its consumers and to facilitate value realization.

Service Value System (SVS)

Shows how all the parts of an organization work to achieve value creation.

Stakeholder

A person or organization with an interest or participation (i.e. “stake”) in an organization,

product, service, or practice.

Standard Change

A low-risk, pre-authorized change that is well understood and fully documented, and which can
be implemented without needing additional authorization.

Strategic Action Plan

Sets out the steps required to implement the previously defined Service Strategy, defining
specific tasks and responsibilities.
Strategic Service Assessment

Attempts to assess the present situation of the service provider within its current market spaces
including an assessment of current service offerings, customer needs and competing offers from
other service providers.

Supplier

A stakeholder responsible for providing services that are used by an organization.

​Supplier Management

The practice of ensuring that an organization’s suppliers and their performance levels are
managed appropriately to support the provision of seamless quality products and services.

Test Strategy

Defines an overall approach to testing. Test strategies can apply to environments, platforms,
sets of services, or individual products or services. The product and service lifecycle stages that
are covered by testing may differ between products and services developed within the
organization and those obtained from a supplier.

Use Case

A technique using realistic practical scenarios to define functional requirements and to design
tests.

Value

The perceived benefits, usefulness, and importance of something.

Value Streams and Processes

One of the four dimensions of service management that defines the activities, workflows,
controls, and procedures needed to achieve the agreed objectives.

Verification

An activity that ensures that a new or changed IT service, process, plan, or other deliverable is
complete, accurate, reliable, and matches its design specification.
Workaround

A temporary fix, or a solution that reduces or eliminates the impact of an incident or problem for
which a full resolution is not yet available.