The service value system
The service value system describes how all the components of an organisation work together to create value. Its parts are the guiding principles, governance, the service value chain, the practices, and continual improvement — with opportunity and demand as input and value as output.
Why it is like this
The point of the SVS is to prevent silos: it is an explicit statement that no practice produces value on its own, and that the connections are the thing being managed.
Not to be confused with
A process model or an org chart. It is a system description, and continual improvement is a component of it rather than a phase at the end.
In practice
Demand comes in at one side and value out at the other; everything between is the organisation's own arrangement of the five components.
Source: ITIL 4 Foundation (AXELOS / PeopleCert), 2019 edition — §4.1 — the service value system. Read on .
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Say it back Check yourself
Name the five components of the service value system, plus its input and output.
Answer out loud or in writing first, then open the points below.
The points a good answer makes
- Guiding principles
- Governance
- Service value chain
- Practices
- Continual improvement
- Input: opportunity and demand
- Output: value
Continual improvement is the one people list as a phase rather than a component — it sits alongside the value chain, not after it.