Every service business, including information technology, needs high-quality services. IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and Six Sigma are two popular methodologies for ensuring high-quality service management. ITIL® is a framework for delivering quality IT services and creating business value. Six Sigma is also used by businesses to manage total production and process quality, resulting in increased customer value. Each has its own set of benefits. Most businesses, on the other hand, prefer to combine the two.
Despite the differences in these terms, they all have one thing in common: an emphasis on client happiness. Let's take a closer look at ITIL vs Six Sigma, what they individually are, what they have in common, and how they might work together.
The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a service management framework for delivering IT services that provides best practices. ITIL's systematic approach to IT service management (ITSM) can help companies mitigate risks, improve customer relationships, implement cost-effective methods, and create a stable IT framework that encourages development, growth, and transformation.
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library set of guidelines effectively standardizes the selection, scheduling, and delivery of IT services within a company, as well as the management of those services. The ITIL aims to increase efficiency and ensure consistent service delivery. The ITIL service lifecycle is divided into five stages:
- Service Strategy
- Service Design
- Service Transition
- Service Operation
- Continual Service Improvement
ITIL Benefits
- Taking your staff through an ITIL foundation certification training helps your company pursue and implement structural changes that are coordinated with the ITIL framework to improve efficiency and effectiveness. When considering why ITIL is significant, remember that the framework is developed to maximize overall organizational performance.
- Any organization with IT resources can benefit greatly from incorporating the ITIL framework. It enables businesses to get the most out of their IT investments, and its efficient and automated procedures result in significant cost savings.
- One of the ITIL advantages is the ability to quickly comprehend and apply ITSM software created specifically for transferring ITIL-aligned services and standardizing operations. Your organization can easily reduce IT expenditures, establish more open governance, minimize risk, acquire a competitive corporate edge through improved IT enablement, and eventually enhance customer satisfaction with the experience and understanding of ITIL and the support of robust ITSM.
- No firm, especially those in IT services, can operate in perfect conditions. Every day, the staff is entrusted with dealing with complaint requests that escalate into problems requiring multiple processes and activities throughout your firm. When a business uses the ITIL framework to manage issues, the focus is on the underlying cause of events, which decreases the horrible consequences of difficulties and incidents resulting from IT infrastructure failures. Implementing the framework provides the firms with an efficient prevention strategy, as it is meant to prevent recurring events caused by previously identified flaws.
- On a personal level, Individuals benefit from having a thorough understanding of the ITIL common language. Thousands of businesses worldwide have implemented ITIL, including NASA, HSBC, IBM, Sony Music, and Boeing, to mention a few. Obtaining an ITIL certification automatically enhances your status in the field you intend to operate in due to its global recognition by professionals. The best way to get this certification is through one of the many IT service management courses available. It signifies you're ready to face the obstacles that come with implementing IT for big organizational transformation and growth.
What is Six Sigma?
Six Sigma is a technological, data-driven, and statistical performance improvement approach that was originally developed for the manufacturing industry, but has since been adapted to other industries, along with the service sector. Six Sigma argues for quantitative rather than qualitative measures of success. Employees that use analytics, financial analysis, and project management to improve business functionality are the ones who are most involved with Six Sigma.
There are four levels of Six Sigma certification, based on experience in Six Sigma approaches: White Belt, Yellow Belt, Green Belt, Black Belt, and Master Black Belt. The white belt is the first level of six sigma certification, and it covers the fundamentals of Six Sigma.
6 Sigma Benefits
- Customer happiness, often known as customer loyalty, is one of the most important criteria in determining your company's success. By determining the root cause and correcting essential qualities of the customer's perception of satisfaction with their service / product, Six Sigma decreases the risk of having unhappy customers. Six Sigma training for your key staff will assist in smoothing out the kinks in your operations and restoring consumer confidence through improved quality and service.
- With Six Sigma methodology, companies can form an exclusive team of skilled individuals from various levels and types inside the firm. This group will then be tasked with identifying crucial elements that could have a negative influence on the project and cause it to run late. The project manager can appoint them to identify solutions to these possible pitfalls after identifying the source of the issues.
- Not only are the clients happy with Six Sigma, but so are the employees. In fact, a business's success depends on its employees' ability to act and respond appropriately - but people will only be required to do so if they are sufficiently motivated. Businesses that can appropriately engage their staff have consistently earned a 25–50 percent increase in productivity. Providing your staff with 6 Sigma training will enable them to learn new tools and approaches, allowing for their professional development and the creation of a positive work environment.
- Businesses that use the Lean Six Sigma technique will be able to assist their employees in effectively managing their time, resulting in more efficient operations and more productive staff than ever before. Employees are requested to develop SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, result-oriented, and time-bound) goals, which can then be used to apply Six Sigma data concepts.
- Defective processes, in general, cost a fortune in any organization. One of the most effective strategies to cut costs is to gain a thorough grasp of an organization's operations with the goal of improving them. Improvement of processes is the central goal of the Six Sigma technique, which comprises DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Implement and Control). The Six Sigma process, in statistical terms, decreases problems to 3.4 faults per million opportunities.
The Key Differences Between ITIL and Six Sigma
ITIL | SIX SIGMA |
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a comprehensive collection of IT industry best practices and principles. | Six Sigma is a data-driven methodology for reducing faults in all processes, from production to transactional, as well as from goods to service. |
The approach and principles put in place to identify the 'what' of the processes are more important in ITIL. | It primarily focuses on "how" to increase quality |
A company can determine what needs to be done to develop processes and areas by using ITIL procedures. | Six Sigma, on the other hand, can help a company figure out what the source of an issue is or where a process error is, and then figure out how to fix it. |
ITIL is more about methodology and guidelines | Six Sigma is mostly concerned with calculations, formulas, and the analysis of business forms in order to improve them. It focuses on the most competent way for enhancing applications. |
ITIL has a limited scope of application and is primarily intended for the IT industry. | Six Sigma is a generally applicable methodology that can be used across all areas and businesses. |
The Similarities of ITIL and Six Sigma
Both ITIL and Six Sigma have the same goal in mind: process improvement. ITIL, on one hand, is tailored to the IT industry, whereas Six Sigma is industry-agnostic. Although Six Sigma originated in the manufacturing business, it has been effectively deployed across a variety of service industries. As a result, Six Sigma has a lot of applications in the IT business. A professional in the IT business with knowledge in both ITIL and Six Sigma can use the best practices of both approaches in their work environment.
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Combining the Approaches
Six Sigma defines the "how" of quality improvement, while ITIL describes the "what" of service management. They're a fantastic match for boosting the quality of information technology service delivery and support when they work together.
When these two approaches are combined, they provide numerous advantages. ITIL describes what should be done in the industry, but not how it should be done. As a result, the organization's IT specialists must identify the process flow and create specific job instructions on their own. Sig Sigma also explains how to identify the source of errors and how to address them. The two approaches work together to improve the standard of IT service support and delivery once the "what" and "how" of quality improvement have been decided.
Six Sigma can be used to upgrade existing operations that are already using the ITIL framework or are in the process of converting to it. If the company is in the process of migrating, it can apply the technique of identifying the risk, determining what needs to be changed to make the processes ITIL-compliant, and then defining how it will transfer to an ITIL-compliant state using a business case. Six Sigma can be applied to a firm's existing processes if it already follows the ITIL framework. It can also be used in a company that is transitioning to the ITIL framework.
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Conclusion
Both ITIL and Six Sigma techniques are crucial to a company's success because they are accountable for customer satisfaction. Individuals will benefit greatly from taking ITIL and Six Sigma courses.
With Knowledgehut’s ITIL Foundation Certification Training you can excel as an ITSM professional in industry 4.0 by equipping yourself with the abilities to deal with the latest innovations in service management. ITIL® 4 Foundation is the first step on the ITIL certification path, and it will help to demonstrate the ability to use ITIL tools and practices to improve business value.
