ITIL (previously and also known as Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is a framework with a set of practices (previously processes) for IT activities such as IT service management (ITSM) and IT asset management (ITAM) that focus on aligning IT services with the needs of the business.
[1] ITIL describes best practices, including processes, procedures, tasks, and checklists which are neither organization-specific nor technology-specific.
It is designed to allow organizations to establish a baseline and can be used to demonstrate compliance and to measure improvements.
[2] Responding to growing dependence on IT, the UK Government's Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) in the 1980s developed a set of recommendations designed to standardize IT management practices across government functions, built around a process model-based view of controlling and managing operations often credited to W. Edwards Deming and his plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle.
Certification starts with ITIL 4 Foundation, followed by one of two branches:[11]