ITIL 4 Digital and IT Strategy (DITS): Your companion to the ITIL 4 Strategic Leader DITS certification

INTRODUCTION

How to use this book

As you read the book, assume that all the content is related to the syllabus unless it is highlighted in one of two ways:

Something for you: a small exercise for you to complete to apply the ITIL® 4 concepts in your own role, or a point for you to think about. This content is not examinable.

Practical experiences: any content marked out with this image is based on my own experience and is not examinable.

The content highlighted as something for you to think about or practical experience might also refer to the Banksbest case study you can find in Appendix A. I’ll use the case study to give an example of how something would work in the real world, or to help you apply what you’re reading about. Case studies can really help to bring abstract concepts to life. The case study is not examinable but using it will help you get a deeper understanding of the ITIL® 4: Digital and IT Strategy concepts. Let’s start with something for you now:

Why not read the case study and make a note of your first impressions of the Banksbest organisation and its plans before you start to study the ITIL® 4: Digital and IT Strategy content in this book? Is the strategy clear? Does it seem achievable?

Unless stated otherwise, all quotations are from the ITIL® 4: Digital and IT Strategy 2022 publication and the ITIL® 4 Practice Guides published by AXELOS in 2020. Copyright © PeopleCert 2020 and 2022. Reproduced under licence from PeopleCert. All rights reserved.

ITIL® is a registered trade mark of the PeopleCert group. Used under licence from PeopleCert. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL AND IT STRATEGY

In this chapter, we introduce Digital and IT Strategy and related key concepts. The topics in this chapter include:

•The target audience;

•Key learning outcomes;

•What’s driving change?; and

•ITIL ® 4: Digital and IT Strategy and the ITIL guiding principles.

The target audience

The target audience for the ITIL® 4: Digital and IT Strategy training and associated certification is a little different to some of the other ITIL training courses. The material is specifically aimed at:

•IT and business directors;

•Department heads;

•C-suite professionals;

•Leaders who are involved in digital change; and

•Consultants who are working with organisations that are digitally transforming.

So, if you’re not in a senior role, does that mean this content isn’t for you? Absolutely not! Perhaps you aspire to a more senior role in the future, in which case you’ll gain valuable knowledge. And even if you don’t aspire to a seat in the boardroom, an understanding of strategic concepts will absolutely help you perform any service management role.

Next time you find yourself thinking ‘why on earth are the management team insisting on this?’, you may have the answer from your new ability to link organisational decisions to strategic drivers.

In my experience, it can be really challenging to get senior people to attend training courses, particularly if there’s an examination at the end. Senior people often have very little time in their calendars, so a generic training course that’s not directly linked to their own organisation and its objectives may not seem to be worth the effort. Some years ago, I taught an ITIL® Foundation class to a group from an organisation, with roles from service desk analyst through to service manager on the course. On the first day, the CIO popped his head round the door. I want you to listen to this stuff, he said. It’s important. And we never saw him again!

If you’re trying to create change in your organisation and you’re not in a senior role, you may need to explain important concepts to your potential sponsors to try to win their support. Focus on the value you want to deliver and the outcomes you’re trying to achieve, NOT on the fact that you’re ‘doing ITIL’. That way, you’ll be much more likely to succeed. Bear that in mind as you read the rest of this book – there is a lot of focus on outcomes and value, just as there should be.

ITIL ® 4: Digital and IT Strategy outcomes

The material that you study as part of this training and certification will give you the tools to:

•Develop a cross-organisational digital strategy;

•Create a digital vision;

•Drive operational excellence;

•Respond effectively to digital disruption;

•Enable a sustainable business;

•Manage risk strategically; and

•Develop other digital leaders for the future.

Of course, as with any training, the real gains come from when and how you apply your knowledge. As you study, think about what opportunities you have in your current role to apply what you have learned.

It’s important to remember that strategic planning is more art than science. The table below shows a summary of what ITIL® 4: Digital and IT Strategy is, and more importantly, what it isn’t.

Table 1: What ITIL ® 4: Digital and IT Strategy is, and what it isn’t

Think about some examples of how technology has disrupted industries. You might think about Uber and the taxi industry, or Airbnb and the hotel industry. You might have started to use artificial intelligence (AI) in your day-to-day work such as ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot. Nearly every daily activity has been touched by technology, from making a payment to booking an appointment. For some industries, technology offers small, operational improvements. For others, it’s a radical transformation.

There are ethical, moral and legal questions that need to be considered as part of our strategic planning. A friend who works in voiceover for films and animations said that there are companies that are taking short recordings of voiceover work and using AI to create a digital artist who can provide a very similar product for a fraction of the price. Legal? Yes, currently. Ethical? If the original artist isn’t getting paid, probably not.

How an organisation responds to digital disruption has many facets. Not responding at all isn’t a serious option.

What’s driving change?

The concepts in the ITIL® 4: Digital and IT Strategy material are important because digital and information technology are changing the world. Business models are changing rapidly, putting pressure on business leaders, and the rate of innovation acceleration means that organisational change management has never been more critical.

Figure 1 shows the impact that digital advancements are having on every element of the organisation.¹

Figure 1: Governance and management shift from traditional to digital organizations

The pace of change has had an impact on the lifecycle of products and services, from development through to retirement. The figure below shows how the traditional innovation cycle (plan, build, run) has been replaced by a much more complex cycle that allows for iteration, experimentation and ongoing change.

Figure 2: Traditional vs continual innovation cycle²

Technology can help organisations adapt to the acceleration of innovation.

One area where technology is having a real impact is the rise of the ‘digital worker’. It’s a broadly accepted fact that organisations won’t invest in automation when human labour is cheaply available. As the price of human workers rises, organisations will invest in automation as the business case has changed. More and more countries now report a digital skills shortage, which is also driving the rise of the digital workforce.

But is this all bad? Are robots taking our jobs? Not necessarily.

In fact, the rise of digital workers means that many mundane, dull and repetitive tasks can now be carried out without human intervention. While this may mean some jobs disappear, it also means that human staff are freed up to do more interesting work that gives them satisfaction and delivers better value to their employer. A win-win.

Figure 3 shows what happens when innovation accelerates.³

Figure 3: What happens when innovation accelerates

The big capability gap that I see with the organisations that I’m working with is between ‘digital first’ organisations that have always worked with digital technologies and ‘legacy’ (I don’t love this phrase!) organisations that are having to adapt to the rise of technology.

Digital-first organisations may find it easier to adopt new ways of working and emerging technologies because they’ve always worked that way, whereas legacy organisations may have some cultural changes that need to take place. With these legacy organisations, I’m often asked to help them unite the old and the new ways of working; for example, ‘How do I get my Agile teams to follow the change management process?’. Clashes between old and new schools of thinking need to be understood and friction points need to be removed. Not everything ‘old’ is bad!

ITIL ® 4: Digital and IT Strategy and the ITIL guiding principles

As a reminder, the ITIL guiding principles are:

•Focus on value

•Start where you are

•Progress iteratively with feedback

•Collaborate and promote visibility

•Think and work holistically

•Keep it simple and practical

•Optimise and automate

From the ITIL® 4: Digital and IT Strategy perspective, we can apply the guiding principles to strategy development and strategic thinking. The guiding principles provide a start point or an example, and some organisations will have additional guiding principles that they apply for their own context and environment.

Having guiding principles that are clearly defined and shared at all levels of the organisation supports effective decision making. Whether a decision is required at the operational, tactical or strategic level, an organisation’s guiding principles will help the person making it decide effectively.

Here‘s an exercise for you. After reading the Banksbest case study, can you think of any additional guiding principles that they might develop for their organisation?

You can also do some research online to try to find other organisations that share their guiding principles (Zappos is an example to start with). Do you know your own organisation’s guiding principles? Or any organisation you have previously worked with?

Table 2 further explains the guiding principles.

Table 2: Description of seven guiding principles⁴

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¹ ITIL® 4: Digital and IT Strategy, Figure 1.2. ITIL® is a registered trade mark of the PeopleCert group. Used under licence from PeopleCert. All rights reserved.

² ITIL® 4: Digital and IT Strategy, Figure 1.3. ITIL® is a registered trade mark of the PeopleCert group. Used under licence from PeopleCert. All rights reserved.

³ ITIL® 4: Digital and IT Strategy, Figure 1.4. ITIL® is a registered trade mark of the PeopleCert group. Used under licence from