GLOSSARY
Glossary
Personally answerable for an activity. Accountability cannot be delegated, unlike responsibility.
A system in which the behaviour of agents changes and they self-organize in response to events.
A system, either manual or automated, used to notify workers and other parts of an organization of quality or process issues. The Andon system originated in manufacturing, but is now widely used in IT.
Highly advanced automation that demonstrates capabilities of general reasoning, learning, and human-like intelligence; a branch of computer science and engineering focused on simulating intelligent behaviour in computer systems.
The use of very large volumes of structured and unstructured data from a variety of sources to gain new insights.
An open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way.
A justification for the expenditure of organizational resources, providing information about costs, benefits, options, risks, and issues.
The discipline of experimenting on a system in order to build confidence in the system’s capability to withstand turbulent conditions in production.
A tool that tests the resilience of IT systems by intentionally disabling components in production to test how remaining systems respond to the outage.
Working with others to achieve common shared goals.
A system in which agents’ interactions are dynamic and often unpredictable.
A systems thinking approach based on the recognition and understanding of the various levels of complexity inherent in the systems and the context in which they operate.
Both the act and result of ensuring that a standard or set of guidelines is followed, or that proper, consistent accounting or other practices are being employed.
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.
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.
An approach to integrating, building, and testing code within the software development environment.
The means of managing a risk, ensuring that a business objective is achieved, or that a process is followed.
Working with others to achieve your own goals.
The ability of an employee or a team to work comfortably in an environment that corresponds with their own beliefs, values, and needs.
The sum of functional and emotional interactions with a service and service provider as perceived by a customer.
The complete end-to-end experience that service customers have with one or more service providers and/or their products through touchpoints and service interactions.
An approach to sales and customer relations in which staff focus on helping customers to meet their long-term needs and wants.
The amount of time required to complete a discrete unit of work, converting inputs into outputs.
Information that has been translated into a form that is efficient for movement or processing.
A branch of data science focused on analysing raw data in order to draw conclusions about it, using highly automated techniques.
A practical and human-centred approach used by product and service designers to solve complex problems and find practical and creative solutions that meet the needs of an organization and its customers.
The use of digital technology to enable a significant improvement in the realization of an organization’s objectives that could not feasibly have been achieved by non-digital means.
A period of time associated with the release of service components to users, when additional resources are allocated to user support and service operations. Early-life support can also be applied to the onboarding or offboarding of users from a service.
The ability to understand the way people feel and react, and to use this skill to make good judgements and to avoid or solve conflicts.
A high-level definition of a requirement that has not yet been sufficiently refined or understood. Eventually an epic will be refined or broken down into several user stories and requirements.
An activity that compares two sets of data and identifies the differences; for example, comparing a set of requirements with the actual delivery, or the current state of an organization with a target future state.
The means by which an organization is directed and controlled.
The value chain activity that ensures continual improvement of products, services, and practices across all value chain activities and the four dimensions of service management.
A deliberately introduced change that results in increased value for one or more stakeholders.
A metric that is used to assess and manage something.
The construct of information, related to the taxonomy and relationships of data to other data, required to present and share content in a meaningful and representative way.
Having a task that is prone to fraud or error performed by one person because other controls have been applied. This serves as an alternative to separation (or segregation) of duties.
Deliberately disobeying or disregarding rules in order to avoid a dangerous situation, or ‘doing the right thing’.
ITIL continual improvement model
A model which provides organizations with a structured approach to implementing improvements.
Recommendations that can guide an organization in all circumstances, regardless of changes in its goals, strategies, type of work, or management structure.
An operating model for service providers that covers all the key activities required to effectively manage products and services.
ITIL service value chain activity
A step of the value chain that an organization takes in the creation of value.
A method for visualizing work, identifying potential blockages and resource conflicts, and managing work in progress.
The time taken to complete the execution of a process, usually measured from a specific perspective (e.g. that of the customer).
A work environment where trust, respect, curiosity, enquiry, playfulness, and intensity all co-exist to support learning and discovery.
An applied form of artificial intelligence, based on the principle of systems responding to data, and adapting their actions and outputs as they are continually exposed to more of it.
A means of decreasing uncertainty based on one or more observations that are expressed in quantifiable units.
A measurement or calculation that is monitored or reported for management and improvement.
The use of multiple service providers offering similar (if not the same) services, balancing the risks of relying on a single provider with the overhead of managing work across multiple providers.
A metric used to measure customer loyalty; often used as a proxy to measure customer satisfaction.
A conceptual and/or visual representation of how an organization co-creates value with its customers and other stakeholders, as well as how the organization runs itself.
The routine running and management of an activity, product, service, or other configuration item.
A person or a group of people that has its own functions with responsibilities, authorities, and relationships to achieve its objectives.
pattern of business activity (PBA)
A workload profile of one or more business activities. PBAs are used to help the service provider understand and support different levels of service consumer activity.
The value chain activity that ensures a shared understanding of the vision, current status, and improvement direction for all four dimensions and all products and services across an organization.
An action of selecting tasks to work on first when it is impossible to assign resources to all tasks in the backlog.
A role in a Scrum team that is responsible for: defining user stories and acceptance criteria; prioritizing user stories in a backlog; clarifying requirements and answering questions from the development team; and assisting with demonstrations to customers.
A model used to help define roles and responsibilities. RACI stands for responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed.
A detailed communication of information or knowledge about a topic or event.
Used to describe the individual who has the authority and is expected to deliver a task or activity; responsibility can be delegated.
Data that is accurate, precise, and subjected to rigorous quality control.
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.
A role is a set of responsibilities, activities, and authorizations granted to a person or team in a specific context.
An iterative, timeboxed approach to product delivery that is described as ‘a framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value’ (The Scrum Guide by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, updated 2017).
Leadership that is focused on the explicit support of people in their roles.
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 integration and management
The coordination and orchestration of work across all suppliers involved in the development and delivery of products and services.
One or more metrics that define expected or achieved service quality.
A documented agreement between a service provider and a customer that identifies both the services required and the expected level of service.
A set of specialized organizational capabilities for enabling value for customers in the form of services.
An important component of the organizational culture that defines an organization’s behaviour in service relationships. A service mindset includes the shared values and guiding principles adopted and followed by an organization.
The totality of a service’s characteristics that are relevant to its ability to satisfy stated and implied needs.
A request from a user or a user’s authorized representative that initiates a service action which has been agreed as a normal part of service delivery.
A model representing how all the components and activities of an organization work together to facilitate value creation.
A mental model of an (economic) exchange in which organizations co-create value by applying their competencies and other resources for the benefit of each other.
An approach to managing work that focuses on moving activities closer to the source of the work, in order to avoid potentially expensive delays or escalations. In a software development context, a shift-left approach might be characterized by moving testing activities closer to (or integrated with) development activities. In a support context, a shift-left approach might be characterized by providing self-help tools to end-users.
site reliability engineering (SRE)
A discipline that incorporates aspects of software engineering and applies them to infrastructure and operations problems with the goal of creating ultra-scalable and highly reliable software systems.
A person or organization that has an interest or involvement in an organization, product, service, practice, or other entity.
A broad approach or course of action defined by an organization for achieving its objectives.
The total rework backlog accumulated by choosing workarounds instead of system solutions that would take longer.
The sum of the functional and emotional interactions with a service and service provider as perceived by a user.
A technique in Agile software development that uses natural language to describe desired outcomes and benefits from the point of view of a specific persona (typically the end-user), usually in the form of ‘who, what, and why’.
The functionality offered by a product or service to meet a particular need. Utility can be summarized as ‘what the service does’ and can be used to determine whether a service is ‘fit for purpose’. To have utility, a service must either support the performance of the consumer or remove constraints from the consumer. Many services do both.
The perceived benefits, usefulness, and importance of something.
A series of steps an organization undertakes to create and deliver products and services to consumers.
A visual representation of a service value stream which shows the flow of work, information, and resources.
A Lean management technique to visualize the steps needed to convert demand into value, used to identify opportunities to improve.
The administrative management of sources and artefacts of information systems, products, and services.
A defined aspiration of what an organization would like to become in the future.
Assurance that a product or service will meet agreed requirements. Warranty can be summarized as ‘how the service performs’ and can be used to determine whether a service is ‘fit for use’. Warranty often relates to service levels aligned with the needs of service consumers. This may be based on a formal agreement, or it may be a marketing message or brand image. Warranty typically addresses such areas as the availability of the service, its capacity, levels of security, and continuity. A service may be said to provide acceptable assurance, or ‘warranty’, if all defined and agreed conditions are met.