ITIL 4 SCM cheat sheet

A value stream is a combination of the organization's value chain activities and practices that produces a specific outcome for a defined consumer; value streams are mapped per service or product, not per department.

Value stream mapping steps: define the trigger and outcome, identify the activities and practices used, record handoffs and queues, measure lead time and touch time, then redesign to remove waste and constraints.

Lead time = total elapsed time from trigger to outcome; touch time = time work is actively progressed; flow efficiency = touch time / lead time, expressed as a percentage.

Waste categories to eliminate in value streams: handoffs, waiting/queues, rework, over-processing (approval layers), unnecessary control steps, and duplicate data capture.

Value stream design decision rule: if a step does not change the state of the work item or add consumer-perceived value, classify it as waste and challenge its retention.

The service value chain has six activities: Plan, Improve, Engage, Design and Transition, Obtain/Build, and Deliver and Support; a value stream shows which activities and practices are combined, in what order, for one outcome.

Build vs buy decision inputs: strategic differentiation value, total cost of ownership, time to market, capability maturity, risk and compliance obligations, and exit/portability risk.

Minimum viable service design: define the value proposition and consumer outcomes first, then the utility (fit for purpose) and warranty (fit for use) attributes, then the value stream and practices needed.

Practices are sets of organizational resources designed for performing work or accomplishing an objective; 34 practices are grouped into general management, service management, and technical management practices.

Incident management: restore normal service as quickly as possible; major incidents get a separate escalation path, dedicated team, and stakeholder communication cadence.

Problem management has three phases: problem identification, problem control (analysis and workarounds), and error control (managing known errors to permanent resolution).

Change enablement decision rule: changes are classified by risk and impact, not by size alone; standard changes are pre-authorized, normal changes follow an assessment and authorization model, emergency changes use an expedited path.

Service desk is the single point of contact for users; it owns incident logging, communication, and user satisfaction, while resolution may sit in other practices.

Service level management negotiates and monitors service level agreements and ensures that services and their performance are measured against consumer expectations; it feeds continual improvement.

Continual improvement uses the improvement register and the ITIL continual improvement model (what is the vision, where are we now, where do we want to be, how do we get there, take action, did we get there, keep momentum).

Knowledge management decision rule: capture knowledge at the point of use and in the workflow; unvalidated knowledge must be flagged and reviewed before reuse.

Value stream for a new service: Engage (demand) → Plan → Design and Transition → Obtain/Build → Deliver and Support, with Improve running in parallel at every stage.

Release vs deployment: a release makes a service or component available for use; deployment moves it into the live environment; a release may be deployed to a subset of users (canary or phased).

Deployment patterns: big bang, phased/pilot, continuous delivery, and blue-green; selection depends on risk tolerance, rollback capability, and consumer impact.

Shift-left principle: move work such as testing, security checks, and known-error resolution as early as possible in the value stream to reduce cost of correction.

Service catalogue types: business service catalogue (consumer view of services and outcomes) and technical service catalogue (supporting components and dependencies); both must stay consistent with the CMDB.

Service request management decision rule: pre-defined, low-risk, repeatable requests are fulfilled through automated workflows; requests that change the state of the environment route to change enablement.

Prioritization rule for incidents and work: impact × urgency determines priority; priority determines response and resolution targets, not the reverse.

Definition of done for a service: consumer outcomes met, warranty attributes verified, monitoring and support model in place, knowledge and documentation published, and support staff trained.

Information and technology is one of the four dimensions of service management; the others are organizations and people, partners and suppliers, and value streams and processes.

Automation decision rule: automate high-volume, rule-based, low-judgment tasks first; keep human judgment for exceptions, risk acceptance, and consumer-facing negotiation.

Tooling categories: workflow and ITSM platforms, monitoring and observability, configuration management and CMDB, knowledge bases, collaboration, automation/AIOps, and reporting and analytics.

CMDB integrity depends on defined configuration item scope, ownership, automated discovery where possible, and reconciliation rules; an unmaintained CMDB is a liability, not an asset.

Artificial intelligence in service management: use for classification, triage suggestion, and pattern detection; require human validation, bias checks, and auditability of outputs.

Information security management applies confidentiality, integrity, and availability; controls must be proportionate to risk and applied across the whole value stream, including supplier components.

Integration principle: data should be captured once at source and shared through interfaces; duplicate manual entry is waste and a defect source.

Measurement rule: define critical success factors and key performance indicators before tooling selection, so tooling supports decisions rather than producing unused reports.

The four dimensions must be balanced: organizations and people, information and technology, partners and suppliers, and value streams and processes; weakness in one dimension limits the whole SVS.

Capacity and performance management: forecast demand from historical and business data, define capacity thresholds, and act before thresholds are breached; capacity is a resource, performance is an outcome.

Supplier management decision rule: classify suppliers by value and risk; strategic suppliers get joint governance and shared roadmaps, commodity suppliers get standardized contracts and performance reviews.

Service financial management covers budgeting, accounting, and charging; it links cost to services so investment and retirement decisions are evidence-based.

Workforce planning: match competences and capacity to the value streams; identify single points of failure and cross-train to remove key-person dependency.

Risk management: record risks with likelihood, impact, and owner; treat, tolerate, transfer, or terminate; review at defined intervals and after major changes.

Continual improvement register: every improvement is recorded with owner, expected benefit, and status; unowned improvements are deprioritized or closed.

Resource constraint rule: when demand exceeds capacity, use prioritization based on business impact and defer or decline low-value work explicitly rather than silently absorbing it.

Each value chain activity draws on specific practices; Plan relies on strategy, portfolio, architecture, and risk management; Engage relies on relationship and service desk practices.

Design and Transition relies on change enablement, service design, release, deployment, validation and testing, and project management practices.

Obtain/Build relies on supplier management, deployment management, and technical practices such as infrastructure and platform management and software development.

Deliver and Support relies on incident, problem, service request, service desk, and availability and capacity practices.

Improve relies on continual improvement and measurement and reporting; improvement opportunities can arise in any value chain activity and must feed the improvement register.

Practice value is demonstrated through outcomes and consumer satisfaction, not activity volume; measure cycle time, first-contact resolution, change success rate, and restoration time.

Value chain activities are not a fixed sequence; they are combined in different orders and combinations to form value streams tailored to each service.

Practices interact: incident management feeds problem management; problem management feeds change enablement; change enablement feeds knowledge management; knowledge management reduces future incidents.