What Are ITSM and ITIL? A Guide for Jira Teams
In short: ITSM (IT Service Management) is the practice of designing, delivering, and improving IT services for an organization. ITIL is the best-known framework for it, a collection of good practices. Jira Service Management supports ITSM processes such as incident, problem, and change management. Flower adds a BPMN layer for processes that span several teams, for example change enablement with approvals.
Last updated: October 2026
What Is ITSM?
ITSM (Information Technology Service Management) is the practice of managing and organizing the delivery and support of IT services. It covers the design, transition, delivery, and continual improvement of services so that they meet the needs of the organization and its customers. ITSM is typically based on a framework such as ITIL.
What Is ITIL?
ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is a framework of good practices for IT service management. The UK government developed it in the 1980s, and organizations around the world adopted it to standardize and improve their IT services.
ITIL 4
The current version is ITIL 4, published in 2019. It replaced the lifecycle model of earlier versions with a service value system:
- Four dimensions of service management: organizations and people, information and technology, partners and suppliers, and value streams and processes.
- Seven guiding principles: focus on value, start where you are, progress iteratively with feedback, collaborate and promote visibility, think and work holistically, keep it simple and practical, and optimize and automate.
- The service value chain with six activities: plan, improve, engage, design and transition, obtain and build, and deliver and support.
- 34 management practices, among them incident management, problem management, change enablement, and service request management.
- Continual improvement as part of every activity.
Earlier Versions
ITIL v3 (2007, updated 2011) organized service management into five lifecycle stages, each described in one core book:
| Stage | Focus |
|---|---|
| Service strategy | Overall strategy, service portfolio, and financial management |
| Service design | Design of new and changed services, including capacity, availability, and service level management |
| Service transition | Move new or changed services into production, including change, release, and configuration management |
| Service operation | Day-to-day delivery and support, including incident, problem, and event management |
| Continual service improvement | Review, measurement, and improvement of services |
Many organizations still use this terminology.
ITSM vs. ITIL
ITSM is the overall practice of managing and delivering IT services. ITIL is one framework that describes how to do it. ITIL is not the only framework. Others are ISO/IEC 20000 (an international standard for service management), COBIT (IT governance), and CMMI (process maturity).
ITSM and ITIL in Jira
Jira Service Management is built for ITSM. It provides a customer portal, request types, queues, SLAs, and ready-made processes for incidents, problems, and changes. Teams use it to run the day-to-day service desk.
Some ITIL processes, however, involve many teams and steps: a change, for example, needs an assessment, an approval by a change advisory board, scheduling, deployment, and a post-implementation review. Flower models such a process in BPMN and runs it in Jira:
- Log and review the request for change.
- Assess the change. A gateway chooses the path depending on the risk: low-risk changes are approved directly, others go to the change advisory board.
- Approve the change with a four-eyes approval.
- Schedule and deploy the change. Parallel branches let several teams work at the same time.
- Review the result and close the change.
Every step is a Jira work item with an assignee and a history, so changes are traceable. For more ITIL-style process examples, see The 25 Most Relevant Business Processes.
Related: Projects, Processes, and Setting Up Jira
ITIL processes repeat, so they are processes and not projects. The article Jira Project Management vs. Business Process Management explains the difference. The following images show a project lifecycle modeled as a process and how to create a Jira space (formerly called project).
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between ITSM and ITIL?
ITSM is the practice of managing IT services. ITIL is a framework with good practices for it.
Which ITIL version is current?
ITIL 4, published in 2019.
Can Jira be used for ITIL processes?
Yes. Jira Service Management supports incident, problem, and change management. Flower adds BPMN-based orchestration for processes that span several teams.
About Flower
Flower – Business Process & Workflow Automation (BPMN) for Jira is an app on the Atlassian Marketplace for Jira Cloud and Jira Data Center. It lets you model business processes in BPMN 2.0 and run them in Jira: for every activity of a process, Flower creates a Jira work item, assigns it through swimlanes, shows its status in the process diagram, and continues the process when the work item is resolved. Flower stores all process data in Jira, so your permissions, boards, and reports keep working. Flower is Cloud Fortified and has been on the Atlassian Marketplace for more than ten years.
Start a free 30-day trial on the Atlassian Marketplace or follow the Get Started guide.