ITIL® 4 Direct, Plan and Improve If you’ve achieved your ITIL® 4 Foundation certificate, you’re probably planning the next stage in your ITIL journey and which qualification to work towards. DPI provides essential knowledge and capabilities for service management professionals, supporting those involved in directing or planning based on strategy and continual improvement – a must-have skillset practitioners should seek beyond Foundation level. DPI is the only one of the ITIL 4 advanced level courses that leads to both Managing Professional (MP) and Strategic Leader (SL) status. The module is aimed at managers and aspiring managers at all levels, providing them with the practical skills needed to improve themselves and their organisation by way of effective strategic direction and delivering continual improvement. An excellent supplement to any training course ITIL® 4 Direct, Plan and Improve (DPI) – Your companion to the ITIL 4 Managing Professional and Strategic Leader DPI certification is a study guide designed to help students pass the ITIL® 4 Direct, Plan and Improve module. The majority of this book is based on the AXELOS ITIL® 4: Direct, Plan and Improve publication and the associated DPI Strategist syllabus. It provides students with the information they need to pass the DPI exam, and help them become a successful practitioner. Suitable for existing ITIL v3 experts, ITIL 4 Managing Professional (MP) students, ITIL 4 Strategic Leader (SL) students, ITSM (IT service management) practitioners who are adopting ITIL 4, approved training organisations, IT service managers, IT managers and those in IT support roles, the book covers: Key concepts; Scope, key principles and methods; The role of governance, risk and compliance; Continual improvement; Organisational change management; Measurement and reporting; Value streams and practices; and Exam preparation. A useful tool throughout your career In addition to being an essential study aid, the author — a seasoned ITSM professional — also provides additional guidance throughout the book which you can lean on once your training and exam are over. The book includes her own practical experience from which she gives advice and points to think about along the way so that you can refer back to this book for years to come – long after you’ve passed your exam. The essential link between your ITIL qualification and the real world – buy this book today! ITIL® is a registered trade mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved. This book is an official AXELOS licensed product. About the author Claire Agutter is a service management trainer, consultant and author. In 2020, she was one of Computer Weekly’s Top 50 Most Influential Women in Tech. In 2018 and 2019 she was recognised as an HDI Top 25 Thought Leader and was part of the team that won itSMF UK’s 2017 Thought Leadership Award. Claire provides regular, free content to the ITSM community as the host of the popular ITSM Crowd hangouts, and is the chief architect for VeriSM™, the service management approach for the digital age. She is the director of ITSM Zone, which provides online ITSM training, and Scopism, a content and consulting organisation and the publisher of the SIAM Body of Knowledge. ITIL® is a registered trade mark of the PeopleCert group. Used under licence from PeopleCert. All rights reserved.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Foreword
• About the Author
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Introduction
  • How to use this book
• Chapter 1: Direct, plan and improve key concepts
  • Direction
  • Planning
  • Improvement
  • Operating model
  • Methods
  • Risks
  • Controls
  • Scope of control
  • Vision and mission
  • Strategy, tactics and operations
  • Governance, compliance and management
  • Policies, controls and guidelines
  • Value, outcomes, costs and risks
• Chapter 2: DPI scope, key principles and methods
  • Cascading objectives
  • Cascading requirements
  • Decision-making
  • Defining effective policies, controls and guidelines
• Chapter 3: The role of governance, risk and compliance
  • Risks and controls
  • Risk and direction
  • Risk and improvement
  • DPI and governance
  • Governance structures
  • Governance of the service provider
  • Placing decision-making at the right level
  • Ensuring controls are sufficient but not excessive
• Chapter 4: Focus on improvement
  • Creating a continual improvement culture
  • Continual improvement of the service value chain and practices
  • Continual improvement in organisations
  • The continual improvement model
  • Assessments
  • Building a business case
  • Improvement reviews
  • Analysis of lessons learned
  • Embedding an improvement culture
• Chapter 5: Focus on organisational change management
  • The nature of OCM
  • OCM and DPI
  • The purpose of OCM
  • OCM key terms and concepts
  • Emotional, social and system intelligence
  • Values-based organisational change
  • Organisational change principles
  • The scope of OCM
  • OCM practice success factors
  • Key metrics
  • OCM and communication
  • Stakeholder identification and management
  • Stakeholder communication
  • Communication is a two-way process
  • The message is the medium
  • Communication methods and media
  • Defining and establishing feedback channels
  • OCM throughout the service value chain
  • Interfaces across the value chain
• Chapter 6: DPI, measurement and reporting
  • Measurement and reporting basics
  • Reasons for measuring
  • Types of measurements
  • Measurement and behaviour
  • Measurement cascades and hierarchies
  • Success factors and KPIs
  • SMART
• Chapter 7: DPI, value streams and practices
  • Value streams and processes in the Service Value System
  • Value streams and practices
  • Value streams and processes
  • Measurement and the four dimensions
  • Ensuring and using feedback
  • Value stream mapping
  • Workflow optimisation
  • Considerations for efficient design
  • Theory of constraints
  • Kanban
• Chapter 8: Exam preparation
• Appendix: Banksbest case study
  • Company overview
  • Company structure
  • Future plans
  • IT services
  • IT department
  • IT service management
  • Sample employee biographies
• Further reading