ITIL Service Transition, Explained

Sophie Danby June 12, 2023 - 9 min read

ITIL Service transition is the third stage of the service lifecycle. It involves
transitioning the services that were created and developed
in strategy and design – first and second stage of the cycle – into the
production environment effectively, efficiently, and safely.

This stage deals with everything from preparing for change to documenting
the components of the asset that make up the service to
creating knowledge articles for support teams and end users.

Here, we will examine how ITIL defines service transition, the benefits of
managing this process effectively, the eight service transition processes,
and, finally, how to carry out the practicalities with some real-life examples.

Ready to learn more about service transition? Let's get started.

ITIL service transition definition

Service transition is the lifecycle stage that deals with transformation and
change. Its primary role is to transition services into the live environment,
move or change existing services and retire legacy services effectively,
efficiently, and safely.

The scope of this phase is developing and improving capabilities for

transitioning new and modified services into the appropriate environment
and retiring legacy services from the live environment. Change, Release,
Configuration, and Knowledge Management are key ITIL processes for
service transition.
ITIL v3 service transition

ITIL v3 defines and positions service transition as the third stage in the
service lifecycle. Its mission is to take the services defined in the strategy
and design phases and transition them into service.

ITIL 4 service transition

ITIL 4 has expanded the service lifecycle to the service value system, or
SVS. Service transition sits in the SVS within the Service Management
practices.

8 benefits of ITIL service transition

Effective service transition has the following benefits:

1. More effective Change Management leads to overall increased rates

of successful change activity.
2. Less delays caused by scheduling clashes and incomplete
dependencies due to Release and Configuration Management.
3. Reduced effort involved in managing test and pilot environments. This
is due to the service validation and testing practice.
4. Increased confidence that a new or modified service will be delivered
according to the specifications agreed with business stakeholders in
the previous stages of the lifecycle.
5. Assurance that the services which have been newly introduced or
modified are easy to maintain and cost-effective in the long term.
6. Improved control of the different service assets and configurations
through the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), making it
 easier to troubleshoot incidents and assess the impact of change
activities.
7. More effective knowledge sharing across support teams.

ITIL service transition principles

The fundamental principles in the service transition stage of the
lifecycle are:

• Defining a clear transition policy so that every transition activity is

clearly defined and follows organizational standards and governance.
• Ensuring services are transitioned with the appropriate utility and
warranty requirements in place.
• Adhering to the standardized approach so that all transition activities
are carried out consistently with the help of models and templates.
• Improving and optimizing processes and systems.
• Release planning to deploy the tested service in production.
• Monitoring and proactively taking measures to improve the service
during the release cycle.
• Capturing knowledge accurately and ensuring that it is easy to
access and use.

The 8 ITIL service transition processes

Service transition has eight processes spanning change and release
activity, Asset Management and Configuration Management, and sharing
knowledge for effective support models.
The service transition processes are:

1. Change Enablement/Management
2. Change Evaluation
3. Project Management (Transition Planning and Support)
4. Application Development
5. Release and Deployment Management
6. Service Validation and Testing
7. Service Asset and Configuration Management
8. Knowledge Management

Let's take a look at each process in a little more detail.

1. Change Enablement/Management

Change Enablement or Management (depending on which flavor of ITIL

you're currently working with) is the process that controls all change
activity. The primary objective of this process is to enable changes to be
made with minimum impact and disruption to IT services. In other words, it
is deploying changes successfully and safely and working with all
stakeholders to prevent or reduce the likelihood of incidents caused by
change.

KPIs associated with the Change Management practice include several

successful changes, the number of changes that have caused incidents,
and the number of emergency changes.

2. Change Evaluation
This practice is in place to assess significant changes, aka the serious stuff
that maybe only happens once or twice a quarter. Examples of this would
be introducing a key business service or a significant change to an existing
critical service. This process acts as a business case assessing the details
of the proposed change and ensuring that the benefits are worth the risk
before the change is allowed to progress to the next phase in its lifecycle.

KPIs associated with Change Evaluation include the number of changes

evaluated and progressed to the next stage.

3. Project Management (Transition Planning and Support)

Project Management aims to coordinate and plan the resources required

to deploy a major release within the agreed time, cost, and quality
estimates.

KPIs for this process include the number of releases that need this level of
coordination and their outcome.

4. Application Development

Application Development aims to create applications and systems that

provide the necessary functionality for IT services. This includes the
maintenance and development of custom applications and the
customization of products from software vendors.

KPIs for application development include the number of applications

managed under the process.

5. Release and Deployment Management

The primary purpose of Release and Deployment Management is to plan,

schedule, and control the releases to test and live environments. The
process goal is to ensure that the live environment is protected, and
additionally that the correct components are released (preferably from a
definitive media library or DML) per the release policy.

Release Management KPIs include the number of releases, successful

deployments, and releases that used the DML.
6. Service Validation and Testing
The goal of this process is to ensure that deployed releases and the
associated services meet customer expectations and verify that IT
operations can support the new service. To this end, test activities are
carried out in a V model and include prerelease testing as well as post-
implementation verification to ensure all agreed outcomes are met, and
everything works as it should from a technical and a customer experience
standpoint.

7. Service Asset and Configuration Management

This process is needed to maintain information about Configuration Items
(CIs) required to deliver an IT service, including their relationships and
dependencies. This information is stored in a CMDB or System (CMS).

KPIs associated with the Configuration Management process include the

number of CIs under the control of Configuration Management and the
number of CIs with accurate information.

8. Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management is the practice or process of gathering, analyzing,

sharing, and storing knowledge and information within an organization. The
goal of this practice is to improve efficiency by reducing the requirement
to rediscover knowledge. It is the process that owns and is responsible for
updating the Service Knowledge Management System (SKMS).

KPIs associated with this process include the number of knowledge articles
checked and verified for accuracy.
ITIL service transition plan
Implementing the transition activities will look different in every
organization. Every business is unique and has different environments,
requirements, and people involved. But no matter what the situation, here
is an implementation example with some common tasks that can help out
in different situations.

Service transition example

Say you're building a new HR system to manage annual leave bookings.
Annual leave affects everyone in the business, from the CEO to the intern,
so it's important to get it right.

Some transition activities that would be beneficial would include the

following:

• Creating knowledge articles for both technical teams and end-users

so that they can use and support the new system accordingly.
• Validating and testing to ensure that the service has been thoroughly
tested.
• Making use of Change Management practices to ensure that the
implementation has been assessed and scheduled appropriately.
• Implementing Release Management to ensure the deployment into
the live environment goes smoothly.
• Assuring Service Asset and Configuration Management to capture the
building blocks of the new service and identify any dependencies to
make ongoing support easier.
Service transition roles and responsibilities
The roles involved in this stage are:

Role Responsibilities

Manages the change process and chairs all CAB and ECAB
Change Manager
meetings.

Change Advisory Board (CAB) Assesses and authorizes changes that need CAB-level approval.

Assesses and authorizes changes that need emergency or

ECAB-level approval. ECABS are usually convened at short
Emergency Change Advisory Board
notice as part of the incident or major incident resolution
(ECAB)
activities and will work against a shortened process and
timings.

Is responsible for all aspects of the Release Management

Release Manager
process.

Ensures all appropriate testing during change and release

Test Manager
activity.

Is responsible for the entire Configuration Management

Configuration Manager
process and updating the CMDB.
 Is responsible for the Knowledge Management process and
Knowledge Manager
ensuring that the SKMS remains accurate and current.

Is responsible for all Project Management and coordination

Project Manager
activities.

Is responsible for the Application Development process and

Application Developer ensuring that the appropriate teams from operational support
are engaged as part of the build and transition process.

Service transition certification

The most relevant service transition qualification is the AXELOS
certification. The Service Transition (ST) module is one of the certifications
within the ITIL® v3 Service Lifecycle workstream. It focuses on the transition
of IT services and covers the models, processes, policies, and
documentation that will enable delegates to transition services into the
support model.

Ideal candidates for this include roles that work in the transition stage of
the lifecycle, for example, change, release, or configuration managers.

The bottom line

Service transition is the third stage in the ITIL service lifecycle. ITIL defines
its primary purpose as ensuring “that new, modified, or retired services
meet the expectations of the business as documented in the strategy and
design stages of the lifecycle.” Basically, it starts putting everything into
action.
Key processes of the service transition stage include Change Enablement
and Management, Release Management, Asset and Configuration
Management, and Knowledge Management. It’s important to pay special
attention to each stage and to make sure that everything is taken care of
before moving on to the next.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between IT service
transition and transformation?
IT service transition is about introducing new services, changing or
updating existing services, or restoring legacy services effectively,
efficiently, and safely. Transformation is the outcome - the new and
improved project. In real terms, you could say that transition is the journey
(all the hard work carried out by your organization to introduce new or
changed services and retire old ones); transformation is the end result, the
"ta-da!" moment, the actual outcome.

What is the next stage in the service lifecycle?

The next stage is service operation, which is all about IT services' day-to-
day management and support.