ITIL v5 Glossary

A

Term	Definition
Acceptance criteria	Minimum requirements a service must meet for stakeholder approval
Alert	Notification requiring action, threshold breach, change, or failure
Architecture management	Practice providing organizational element understanding and relationships
Architecture principles	Norms and rules for resource and asset use across organizations
Asset register	Database listing assets with ownership and financial value attributes
Availability	IT service capability to perform agreed functions when needed
Availability management	Ensuring services meet customer availability needs

B

Term	Definition
Band of visibility	Mutual visibility aspects between service provider and consumer
Baseline	Starting metric for assessing progress or change
Best practice	Proven successful working approach across organizations
Big data	Large structured/unstructured data volumes yielding new insights
Business analysis	Analyzing business elements, defining needs, recommending solutions
Business case	Expenditure justification with costs, benefits, options, risks, issues
Business Impact Analysis (BIA)	Activity identifying vital business functions and dependencies
Business Relationship Manager (BRM)	Role maintaining customer relationships

C

Term	Definition
CAB	Change Advisory Board advising on changes
Capability	Organization/person/process ability to perform activities
Capacity and performance management	Ensuring services achieve agreed performance cost-effectively
Change	Addition, modification, or removal affecting products/services
Change authority	Person/group authorizing changes
Change enablement	Maximizing successful changes through assessment and risk management
Change model	Repeatable approach to managing particular change types
Change schedule	Calendar showing planned and historical changes
CI (Configuration Item)	Component managed for IT service delivery
CIR	Continual Improvement Register database
Cloud computing	On-demand shared computing resource access model
CMDB	Configuration Management Database storing configuration records
CMS	Configuration Management System for service management support
Compliance	Following standards or guidelines
Complexity thinking	Analysis approach recognizing system complexity levels
Confidentiality	Security objective preventing unauthorized information disclosure
Configuration	CI or resource arrangement delivering products/services
Configuration record	CI lifecycle detail documentation
Continual improvement	Recurring activity ensuring stakeholder expectation satisfaction
Continuous delivery	Techniques enabling production software deployment anytime
Continuous deployment	Automatic production deployment of passing automated tests
Continuous integration	Frequent code merge with automated builds/tests
Control	Risk management, objective achievement, or process compliance means
Core value stream	Consumer value delivery per operating model
Cost	Activity, resource, product, or service spending amount
Cost centre	Business unit/project with assigned costs
Critical Success Factor (CSF)	Intended result achievement precondition
Culture	Shared group values expressed through behavior, ideas, beliefs
Customer	Role defining requirements and service consumption outcomes
Customer Experience (CX)	Functional and emotional service/provider interaction sum
Cycle time	Value stream step completion time

D

Term	Definition
Dashboard	Real-time data graphical representation
Data governance	Rules, policies, standards, processes controlling data assets
Deployment	Service component movement into controlled environments
Design thinking	Human-centered complex problem-solving approach
Development environment	IT service/application creation or modification environment
DevOps	Developer/operations communication, collaboration, integration movement
Digital product	Resource combination offering consumer value
Digital product and service management	Digital product/service value enabling capabilities
Digital service	Fully/largely digital product-reliant service
Digital transformation	Strategic digital technology adoption across organizations
Disaster	Sudden unplanned damaging event
Disaster recovery plans	Pre-disaster condition recovery organization plans
Discover	First lifecycle stage exploring needs, opportunities, demand

E

Term	Definition
Effectiveness	Practice/service/activity objective achievement measure
Efficiency	Appropriate resource use by practice/service/activity
Emergency change	Immediate implementation required change
Enabling value stream	Internal support enabling core value stream delivery
Environment	Particular purpose IT infrastructure subset
Error	Flaw or vulnerability potentially causing incidents
Escalation	Work item awareness sharing or ownership transfer
Event	Service/CI management significant state change
Experience Level Agreement (XLA)	Experience outcomes focused agreement (new in ITIL v5)
External customer	Non-service provider organization customer

F

Term	Definition
Feedback	Stakeholder reactions/opinions providing basis for improvement
Feedback loop	Activity output portion used for new input
Flow efficiency	Value-added lead time percentage metric

G

Term	Definition
Goods	Service provider transferring tangible resources to consumers
Governance	Organization direction and control system
Governance of digital technology	Digital technology use directing human system
Guiding principles	Universal guidance recommendations regardless of circumstances

I

Term	Definition
Improvement	Stakeholder value increasing deliberately introduced change
Improvement register	Improvement initiative lifecycle recording/management database
Incident	Service unplanned interruption or quality reduction
Integrity	Authorized personnel-only accurate information assurance
IT asset	Organization operation/value co-creation contributing component

K

Term	Definition
Key Performance Indicator (KPI)	Important metric for evaluating success in meeting an objective
Knowledge asset	Important information resource for organization operations and value co-creation
Known error	Analyzed but unresolved problem

M

Term	Definition
Major incident	Highest business impact incident requiring separate management
Monitoring	System/practice/process/service recurring observation
MTBF	Mean Time Between Failures
MTBSI	Mean Time Between Service Incidents
MTRS	Mean Time to Restore Service

N

Term	Definition
Non-repudiation	Undeniable proof provision for alleged event/action
Normal change	Medium/high risk change requiring additional authorization

O

Term	Definition
OLA	Operational Level Agreement supporting service delivery
Omnichannel communications	Multiple channel unified communications sharing information seamlessly
Outcome	Stakeholder result enabled by one or more outputs
Output	Activity tangible or intangible deliverable

P

Term	Definition
Performance	System/person/team/practice/service achievement/delivery measure
PESTLE	Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental analysis
Practice	Organizational resources for performing work or accomplishing objectives
Prioritization	Task selection action when resource assignment to all tasks is impossible
Problem	Cause, or potential cause, of one or more incidents
Problem model	Repeatable approach to managing a particular type of problem
Product	Organizational resource configuration offering consumer value
Purpose	Organization existence reason or core business

R

Term	Definition
Release	Service/CI version or CI collection made available for use
Release model	Repeatable approach to managing particular release types
Request catalogue	Service catalogue view providing user request details
Request for Change (RFC)	Description of proposed change initiating change enablement
Risk	Possible event that could cause harm/loss or make objectives difficult to achieve
RPO	Recovery Point Objective: maximum acceptable data loss measured in time
RTO	Recovery Time Objective: maximum acceptable service restoration time

S

Term	Definition
Service	Means of enabling value co-creation by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve
Service action	Action performed by service provider or jointly by provider/consumer
Service continuity	Capability to continue service at acceptable levels following a disaster
Service continuity plans	Disaster recovery plans considering all four dimensions
Service desk	Practice capturing demand for incident resolution
Service empathy	Ability to recognize, understand, predict, and project the interests and needs of another party
Service Level Agreement (SLA)	Documented agreement identifying services and service level targets
Service level	Expected or achieved service quality metrics
Service offering	Formal service description addressing target consumer group needs
Service quality	Totality of characteristics satisfying stated and implied needs
Service relationship	Cooperation between service provider and consumer
Service request	User request initiating agreed normal part of service delivery
Service request model	Repeatable predefined approach to fulfilling a particular service request type
Service value	Perceived benefits, usefulness, importance of a service
Service Value Chain	Interconnected activities for creating, delivering, improving products/services
Sponsor	Role authorizing budget for service consumption
Stakeholder	Person/organization with interest or involvement in organization/product/service
Standard change	Well-understood, fully documented, pre-authorized low-risk change
Swarming	Multiple different-expertise people collaborating on a task

T

Term	Definition
Technical debt	Total rework backlog accumulated by choosing workarounds instead of systemic solutions
Threat	Potential negative impact event on an asset
Threat actor	Person or organization posing a threat
Threshold	Metric value triggering a pre-defined response

U

Term	Definition
UC	Underpinning Contract: external supplier contract
User	Role using a service
Utility	Product/service functionality meeting a particular need (fit for purpose)
Utilization	Extent to which a resource is used to generate useful output

V

Term	Definition
Value	Perceived benefits, usefulness, importance
Value co-creation	Joint value creation between provider and consumer
Value stream	Series of organizational steps creating/delivering products/services to consumers
Vision	Defined aspiration of what an organization would like to become
Vital Business Function (VBF)	Business process capability/function required to ensure business success
VUCA	Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity: modern environment characteristics
Vulnerability	Weakness in an asset or control exploitable by a threat

W

Term	Definition
Warranty	Assurance that a product/service will meet agreed requirements (fit for use)
Workaround	Solution reducing/eliminating incident/problem impact when full resolution is unavailable

X

Term	Definition
XLA	Experience Level Agreement: outcome-focused agreement (new in ITIL v5)

34 Practice Quick Reference ITIL Roles