Over the last decade, the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) framework has developed into the standard for service management organisations worldwide. It consists of a set of best practises for IT Service Management produced by the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom. These best practises provide a method for constantly verifying and improving quality of your organisation's services.

IPW and ISM are extensions of ITIL that have evolved to address complexities not initially included in ITIL. Characteristics of all three frameworks are shown in the diagram below.

The process model from Quint Wellington Redwood and KPN Telecom, in which the most important ITIL-processes are included.
When using ITIL in practice, a crucial element is missing: the process model in which the different processes are considered in their entirety. In the IPW methodology, which has been adopted by Gartner as the standard for the set-up of customer and process-oriented IT organizations, this process model has been defined.

On the basis of IPW and extensive experience, the IPW stages model has subsequently been developed. This model specifically deals with the growth curve experienced by IT organisations. A detailed analysis is provided of the different phases an organisation goes through on the way to a mature level of IT service provision. The various steps which have to be taken are analysed down to the process level. Documentation about the IPW stages model can be found in the Guide to IT Service Management Volume I.

Key factors:

• Extension of ITIL developed by KPN Datacenter and Quint Wellington Redwood
• Defines both operational and strategic processes.
• Provides a closer alignment of ICT services and business needs.
• Proactive infrastructure improvement instead of purely reactive problem-solving
• Management of tasks that cannot be categorized as an incident, problem, or change such as system maintenace, questions, or standard service requests.
• Helps organisations become service-oriented instead of activity-based.