The four dimensions
Every service must be considered through four dimensions: organisations and people, information and technology, partners and suppliers, and value streams and processes. All four apply to the whole service value system, not to a stage of it.
Why it is like this
They are the four places a service can fail that are invisible from the other three. Making them a required lens turns a recurring omission into a checklist.
Not to be confused with
A maturity model or an ordering. They are perspectives applied simultaneously, and under-serving any one of them degrades the service — ITIL says so explicitly.
In practice
A flawless technical rollout that nobody was trained for failed on organisations and people, not on information and technology.
Source: ITIL 4 Foundation (AXELOS / PeopleCert), 2019 edition — §3 — the four dimensions. Read on .
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Say it back Check yourself
Name the four dimensions of service management.
Answer out loud or in writing first, then open the points below.
The points a good answer makes
- Organisations and people
- Information and technology
- Partners and suppliers
- Value streams and processes
Partners and suppliers is the one most often dropped, which is also where most unmanaged risk accumulates.