Currently, the source of "Best Practice" definition for IT Service Management can be found in the ITIL publications from the Office of Government Commerce [OGC (formerly known as CCTA)] and in several publications from the British Standards Institution (BSi).

The core ITIL publications on Service Support & Delivery were originally published in the late 1980s in 10 separate books (at one point there were over 40 books in ITIL). In the 2000/1, these core books were updated and concatenated into 2 volumes. The "new core" set will comprise the following:

• Planning to Implement Service Management
• Service Support
• Service Delivery
• The Business Perspective
• Applications Management
• ICT Infrastructure Management
• Security Management

BSi published the Code of Practice for IT Service Management in 1998 (PD0005) and subsequently the British Standard (BS15000) was launched in November 2000. Both publications were based entirely on the refreshed ITIL guidelines, particularly focusing on Service Support & Delivery.

As a result of feedback from some early adopters, BS 15000 was rewritten and relaunched in 2002. The new version consists of 2 parts: Part 1 being the Specification for ITSM (the requirements) and Part 2 a Code of Practice (supporting guidance about the specification). A self-assessment workbook (PD0015) is designed to assist organisations assess how close they are to the requirements and PD0005 has been republished as ITSM: A Manager's Guide.

The publications from both the BSI and OGC are complementary sets and the two organisations work closely together and with itSMF to ensure harmony and consistency between them.

This diagram illustrates how the various publications relate to each other.

The intention is that BS 15000 will ultimately become an ISO standard. A formal certification scheme, owned and managed by itSMF, enables independent audit against the standard (see http://www.bs15000certification.com/). The aim of BS15000 is to "provide a common reference standard for any enterprise offering services to internal or external customers". Such a common language permits easy understanding of suppliers and products. More information about ITIL can be found on the OGC web-site at (http://www.itil.co.uk/) and about the British standard at (http://www.bsi-global.com/)

itSMF sells all of the ITIL and BSi publications (and more), offering significant discounts to members.