ITIL® Strategy Version 5

The ITIL® Strategy (Version 5) course equips professionals with the knowledge and strategic frameworks needed to align digital products, services, and technology investments with organizational goals and long-term business outcomes. In today's rapidly evolving digital and AI-driven environment, effective strategy is essential for ensuring that innovation, governance, and operational initiatives consistently deliver measurable value. ITIL Strategy provides a structured approach to strategic planning, decision-making, prioritization, and value realization across the enterprise.

Participants will learn how to develop and execute strategies that connect business objectives with product and service management practices, enabling organizations to respond effectively to changing market conditions, emerging technologies, and customer expectations. The course explores governance, portfolio management, value creation, strategic alignment, investment prioritization, and digital transformation, while incorporating modern concepts such as AI-enabled operations, Agile, and DevOps.

Designed for IT Leaders, Service Managers, Product Managers, Portfolio Managers, Digital Transformation Professionals, and business decision-makers, this course helps organizations build strategic capabilities that drive sustainable growth, improve business agility, and maximize the value of digital products and services. It also supports professionals pursuing advanced ITIL qualifications and leadership roles in modern, product-centric organizations.

Upon completing the course, participants should be able to:

• Recall core ITIL concepts: the Guiding Principles, Product and Service Lifecycle, Four Dimensions, and Value System, and see how they connect to strategy
• Describe key strategy concepts including digital strategy, vision, values, digital transformation, and what it means to lead in a VUCA environment
• Identify how strategy plays out across organisations and people, partners and suppliers, information and technology, and value streams and processes
• Explain the ITIL Strategy Management Model and confidently walk through both its lifecycles: strategy development and strategy implementation
• Understand how ITIL works hand-in-hand with DevOps and PRINCE2, so you can apply it in the real world, not just in the exam room

• IT Managers, Service Managers, and Team Leads who want to step up and own strategic direction
• IT Directors and Senior Practitioners looking to sharpen their formal strategy credentials
• Transformation, Change, and Strategy Professionals ready to lead complex initiatives with confidence
• Business Analysts and IT Consultants who want to bridge the gap between strategy and execution

• Any ITIL 4 certification or ITIL Foundation (Version 5) or ITIL Foundation Bridge (Version 5)

Module 1: ITIL Foundation Recap

• Key Concepts of ITIL
  • ITIL Guiding Principles
  • Key concepts of products, services, and product/service management
  • ITIL Product and Service Lifecycle
  • ITIL Four Dimensions of Product and Service Management
  • Components and purpose of the ITIL Value System

Module 2: Key Concepts of ITIL Strategy

• Key Concepts of ITIL Strategy
  • Strategy, digital strategy, vision, purpose, values, and digital transformation
  • Digital transformation and the role of digital strategy
  • Key characteristics of strategy
  • Strategy in a VUCA environment
  • Business and operating models and their relationship to strategy

Module 3: Strategy across the ITIL Four Dimensions of Product and Service Management

• Strategy Across the ITIL Four Dimensions
  • Strategic considerations for organisations and people
  • Strategic considerations for partners and suppliers
  • Strategic considerations for information and technology
  • Strategic considerations for value streams and processes

Module 4: The ITIL Strategy Management Model

• Introduction to the ITIL Strategy Management Model
  • Purpose of the ITIL Strategy Management Model
  • Structure of the model and its two lifecycles: strategy development and strategy implementation

Module 5: The ITIL Strategy Development Lifecycle

• Strategy Development
  • Purpose and key outputs of each activity: observe, orient, decide, plan
  • How the ITIL Guiding Principles support strategy development
  • PESTLE factors and how they shape strategy
  • Internal capabilities and resources and their impact on strategy
  • Applying each “observe”, “orient”, “decide”, “plan” step of the strategy development lifecycle

Module 6: The ITIL Strategy Implementation Lifecycle

• Strategy Implementation
  • Purpose and key outputs of each activity: plan, execute, synthesize, reflect
  • Translating strategic objectives into implementation initiatives
  • Selecting execution approaches for implementation initiatives
  • Balancing strategy implementation with effective day-to-day operations
  • Key functions of the synthesize activity: operational embedding, knowledge codification, benefits realisation
  • How the reflect activity works in practice
  • Fundamental considerations of strategy implementation
  • Applying the strategy implementation lifecycle to a real scenario

Module 7: Sustainable Strategy Management

• Sustainable Strategy Management
  • How to ensure sustainable strategy implementation
  • How to keep your strategy relevant and successful over time

Module 8: Strategic Capabilities

• Leadership
  • Communication
  • Innovation
  • AI governance
  • Organisational Change Management (OCM)
  • Digital ethics
  • Complexity thinking
  • Portfolio management
  • Risk management
  • Sustainability

Module 9: ITIL and Other Frameworks

• ITIL and DevOps
  • How ITIL and DevOps work together
  • How they complement each other across the product and service lifecycle
• ITIL and PRINCE2
  • Why project management matters in ITIL
  • How ITIL and PRINCE2 complement each other in managing the product and service lifecycle