The document discusses how ITIL 4 and SFIA 8 are complementary frameworks for managing IT services and skills. ITIL 4 provides best practices for managing IT services, while SFIA 8 defines skills and competencies for IT professionals. SFIA skills can be mapped to ITIL practices, and SFIA can be used to assess current skills and identify gaps to effectively implement ITIL processes. A 9-step process is outlined to align resources using SFIA for ITIL implementation.

1. ITIL4 AND SFIA 8
COMPLEMENTARY FRAMEWORKS

2. WHAT ARE ITIL 4 AND SFIA 8 ?
• ITIL 4 (LATEST RELEASE OF IT INFRASTRUCTURE LIBRARY BY AXELOS IN FEB’19) IS
KNOWN AS BEST PRACTICES FRAMEWORK FOR MANAGING SERVICES FOR AN IT
FUNCTION OR DEPARTMENT IN ANY ORGANIZATION (ITIL IS IN USE FOR 30 YEARS
FOR MANAGING IT SERVICES)
• SFIA 8 [HTTPS://WWW.SFIA-ONLINE.ORG/EN/FRAMEWORK/SFIA-8] (RELEASE FROM
SFIA FOUNDATION,UK IN MAR’18) IS GLOBAL STANDARD FOR HR COMPETENCY
ASSESSMENT FOR PEOPLE WHO MANAGE OR WORK, IN OR AROUND INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGIES, DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
THUS, SFIA HAS BECOME THE GLOBALLY ACCEPTED COMMON LANGUAGE (USED IN
MORE THAN 100 COUNTRIES) FOR THE SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES RELATED TO ICT
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3. MAPPING SFIA AND ITIL
• SFIA 8 FRAMEWORK HAS 2 AXES; ON ONE AXIS IT DEFINES LEVELS OF
RESPONSIBILITY (LEVELS 1 TO 7) E.G. APPLY, ENABLE, ENSURE, WHICH WILL BE
EQUIVALENT TO BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF COMPETENCE PROFILE IN ITIL 4 AND
OTHER AXIS DEFINES PROFESSIONAL SKILLS AVAILABLE IN SPECIFIC RANGE (OF
LEVELS 1 TO 7) ;TOTAL 121 SKILLS
• ITIL 4 DESCRIBES 34 PRACTICES. MOST OF THESE PRACTICES CAN BE MAPPED
DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY TO ONE OR MORE PROFESSIONAL SKILLS (OUT OF 102
SKILLS) DESCRIBED BY SFIA 8. (REFER TO TABLE BELOW WHERE ITIL 4 PRACTICES
ARE MAPPED TO SFIA 8 SKILLS)
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4. Sr.
No.
ITIL 4: Practices SFIA 8: Professional Skills
1 Continual Improvement Business process improvement
2
Enterprise Architecture
Management
Enterprise and business architecture
3 Information Security Management Information security
4 Knowledge Management Knowledge management
5 Measurement & Reporting Measurement
6
Organizational Change
Management
Organizational Change Management
7 Portfolio Management Portfolio management
8 Project Management Project management
9 Relationship Management
Stakeholder
Relationship management
10 Risk Management Risk management
11 Service Financial Management Financial management
12 Strategy Management Strategic planning
13 Supplier Management Supplier management
14 Workforce & Talent Management Resourcing
15 Availability Management Availability management
16 Business Analysis Business situation analysis
17 Capacity Management Capacity management
18 Change Control Organizational Change management
19 Incident Management Incident management
20 IT Asset Management Asset management
21 IT Service Continuity Management Continuity management
22 Monitoring & Event Management Methods and tools
23 Problem Management Problem management
24 Release Management Release and deployment
25 Service Request Management Application support
26 Service Catalogue Management Product management
27 Service Configuration Management Configuration management
28 Service Design Service Catalogue management
29 Service Desk Customer service support
30 Service Level Management Service level management
31 Service Validation & Testing Service acceptance
32 Deployment Management Release and deployment
33
Infrastructure & Platform
Management
IT infrastructure
34
Software Development &
Management
Programming/software development
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5. STEPS TO ALIGN RESOURCES FOR ADOPTING ITIL
PROCESS OF ALLOCATING RESOURCES USING SFIA FOR IMPLEMENTING ITIL WITH THE FOLLOWING STEPS.
STEP 1. FOR EXAMPLE, DETERMINE SKILLS NEEDED FOR A PRACTICE IN ITIL IMPLEMENTATION; SAY ‘SERVICE LEVEL
MANAGEMENT’. THIS IS ONE OF THE KEY PRACTICES IN ITIL. IN ORDER TO IMPLEMENT THIS PRACTICE, SKILLS AND
COMPETENCIES NEEDED (AS PER SFIA 8) FOR TYPICAL RESOURCE ARE:
1. SERVICE LEVEL MANAGEMENT
2. STAKEHOLDER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
3. BUSINESS SITUATION ANALYSIS
4. SUPPLIER MANAGEMENT
THE ABOVE SKILLS ARE ALSO NEEDED FOR ITIL PRACTICE IMPLEMENTATION AS MANAGING RELATIONSHIPS WITH CUSTOMER,
ANALYZING BUSINESS NEED AND MANAGING SUPPLIER ARE IMPORTANT FOR MANAGING SERVICE LEVELS.
STEP 2. MAP SKILLS FROM SFIA TO SKILLS/COMPETENCIES IN AN ITIL PRACTICE (IN STEP 1). IF ONE REFERS TO SFIA 8
REFERENCE GUIDE, (S)HE WILL ABLE TO FIND SKILL DESCRIPTIONS FOR ALL FROM THE SKILLS LISTED. OUT OF THESE, ONE OF
THE SKILLS IS: SERVICE LEVEL MANAGEMENT.
STEP 3. CREATE SFIA PROFESSIONAL SKILLS REPOSITORY (SKILLS ASSESSED AND COMPILED BASED ON EACH AND
INDIVIDUAL RESOURCE INTERVIEW) OF CURRENT IT TEAM.
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6. CONTD…
STEP 4. FIND WHICH LEVELS OF SLMO ARE NEEDED FOR RESOURCES IN THE ORGANIZATION
E.G. 2 RESOURCES HAVING SLMO SKILL AT LEVEL 4, AND 1 RESOURCE AT LEVEL 5 . HOW
MANY RESOURCES ARE NEEDED AND AT WHAT LEVEL HAVING SLMO SFIA SKILL FOR
IMPLEMENTATION OF SERVICE LEVEL MANAGEMENT SHOULD BE DECIDED
STEP 5. ASSESS CURRENT IT TEAM FOR SFIA GENERIC SKILLS AND SPECIFIC SKILLS LIKE
SLMO AND LEVEL (ONE OF THE LEVELS FROM 1 TO 7)
STEP 6. RATE CURRENT IT TEAM FOR THEIR PROFESSIONAL SKILLS ON SCALE OF 1 TO 5
STEP 7. PERFORM RESOURCE SKILLS GAP ANALYSIS BASED ON SKILLS ACQUIRED VERSUS
SKILLS REQUIRED
STEP 8. IDENTIFY TRAINING NEEDS FOR RESOURCES TO ATTAIN SPECIFIC LEVEL OF
RESPONSIBILITY
STEP 9. IDENTIFY TEAM TO DEVELOP CHECKLIST/QUESTIONNAIRE FOR SLM
IMPLEMENTATION
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7. SFIA and ITIL - Steps to align/allocate resources
Step 1 Determine skills needed for a practice in ITIL implementation e.g. Service Level Management
Step 2 Map skills from SFIA to skills/competencies in an ITIL practice
Step 3 Create SFIA professional skills repository of current IT team
Step 4
Determine number of resources in organization based on skills required for improvement areas for
implementation of Service Level Management
Step 5
Assess current IT team for SFIA generic skills (Autonomy, Influence, Business Skills, Complexity
and Knowledge)
Step 6 Rate current IT team for their professional skills on scale of 1 to 5
Step 7 Perform resource skills gap analysis based on skills acquired versus skills required
Step 8 Identify training needs for resources to attain specific level of responsibility
Step 9 Identify team to develop checklist/questionnaire for SLM implementation
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