The Benefits of Cloud Migration in 2025
Discover the benefits, risks, and best practices of cloud migration, plus trends shaping cloud adoption in 2025.
Purely theoretically, ITIL and Agile seem to be advocating conflicting values.
ITIL is known in the ITSM industry for its structured approach, thorough documentation, and focus on reliability. However, it also faces criticism for being rigid and requiring too much documentation.
On the flip side, Agile is a framework that enables implementing changes at any stage of development to create value for the customer.
Isn’t it time to replace the heavyweight ITIL with the nice and new Agile?
This article will discuss whether ITIL and Agile can coexist, and how to leverage the best of both.
What is ITIL?
ITIL, short for “Information Technology Infrastructure Library,” is a comprehensive framework comprising guidelines, best practices, and recommendations for optimizing the delivery of IT services within an organization.
These principles are articulated through various publications produced by Axelos, the organization responsible for managing ITIL. Axelos also oversees the certification process for IT professionals.
Alloy Software’s ITSM and ITAM solutions are fully ITIL-compliant. This means that ITIL workflows in our products, such as incident management, problem management, and change management, are pre-configured and easy to integrate. Connect with our sales team to learn more.
What is Agile?
Agile is an approach to project management and software development that prioritizes flexibility, team collaboration, and instant learning from customer feedback. Agile methodology emerged as a response to the limitations of traditional, sequential project management approaches.
One of these traditional approaches is the Waterfall method. In this approach, the team gathers and documents requirements upfront. Development proceeds based on these initial requirements. However, life is life, and various factors, such as customer expectations and team capabilities, can change as projects evolve. Accommodating these changes in the Waterfall model can be challenging and costly due to its lack of formal mechanisms for that.
Unlike the waterfall method, Agile allows for collaboration and frequent feedback loops throughout development. It empowers teams to adapt to changing requirements. As the project is broken down into smaller iterations, project milestones become manageable and easier to accomplish.
The iterative approach of Agile allows teams to deliver valuable, viable output, and meet deadlines.
ITIL vs Agile
At first glance, ITIL is the opposite of Agile. This “conflict” is especially evident in the previous edition of ITIL, ITIL v3 (more on the versions later in this article.)
An article by Eko Suwono gives a detailed head-to-head comparison of the two frameworks:
- ITIL focuses on stability and consistency in IT service delivery.
- While ITIL aims to minimize deviations from established processes, Agile welcomes changes even in the late phases of development.,
- In ITIL, there are strict roles, each with well-defined responsibilities. Agile team members share responsibility for project success regardless of their formal position.
As you see, Agile celebrates flexibility and being open to change. In the meantime, ITIL’s objectives are predictability and reliability.
Read our other articles on the difference between ITIL and ITSM, and the limitations of ITIL.
The idea behind ITIL is that thanks to mandatory procedures for each group of events (incident, problem, or change), the results are predictable, consistent, and reliable. Whatever the changing requirements (a new support agent, more incidents than usual), the incident will be resolved in a predictable amount of time. Otherwise, the SLA is violated, and sanctions apply.
The problem with this approach is that formal milestone completion doesn’t always mean achieving the needed results.
Imagine a group of students working on a group project for their history class. They decide to follow a formal milestone completion process: research, outline creation, writing, editing, and presentation.
As they progress through the project, they diligently complete each milestone according to the established procedure. However, during the research phase, they realize the topic is too broad. They just won’t be able to find relevant information within the given timeframe.
Was the phase of the project completed in time and correctly? Yes. But did it bring the desired result? No! They’re now faced with the challenge of either sticking to the original plan and potentially producing a subpar project or deviating from the plan to adjust their topic and research strategy.
That is the point at which IT pros clash in debates over the benefits of Agile and ITIL.
ITIL vs Agile: real-world implications
However, the practical evidence makes us look at the theory from a different angle.
- ITIL and Agile have different application areas. ITIL’s key application field is IT service delivery, while Agile targets software development projects or any projects more broadly. ITIL is a de-facto industry standard for IT service management projects, and you can hardly avoid it. On the other hand, in projects aimed at new product development and innovation, ITIL might not even be needed.
- ITIL and Agile are not inherently mutually exclusive. Even if you already have ITIL processes and are thinking about becoming more flexible, the dilemma “ITIL vs Agile” turns out to be “grammatically” incorrect. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. You can’t replace one with the other. ITIL builds resilient ITSM processes that help the business reach its goals. In contrast, Agile teaches how to achieve project goals optimally. You solve different problems with them!
To evaluate whether this or that framework is useful, you must understand where you will apply it. You can’t say that one is better than the other without considering the environment and the objectives (no matter what some Agile fans might say).
As Matt Williams puts it, “ITIL focuses on stability as a measure of success, while Agile focuses on new features. These are both good things. You can’t have only one to have a successful company.”
He also highlights that ITIL and Agile have much in common, including elaborate ceremonies—manifested in Agile through standups, retrospectives, and the like—and change documentation.
ITIL vs Agile: the benefits of each
We’re bringing here the benefits of each methodology to help you choose the optimal combination between stability and flexibility.
ITIL is best at:
Building a system for handling customer service in a stable business environment where the demand for IT services is repetitive and predictable, such as in a regulated industry.
- Large-scale changes, such as infrastructure upgrades or system migrations, which require comprehensive planning to identify dependencies, risks, and potential impacts on the overall system.
- Investigating and resolving the root causes of incidents or recurring problems in a systematic and analytical way.
Agile is best for:
- Software development projects where requirements are subject to change, and rapid delivery of working software is essential.
- Management of startups and entrepreneurial ventures, where speed is critical for survival and growth, while the lengthy implementation of ITIL just won’t pay back.
- Testing of MVPs, where progress in research and development is highly dependent on customer feedback.
ITIL’s way to flexibility
There is another thing that justifies ITIL despite all the criticism: it’s changing and adopting. The framework has been live since the 1980s, and its most recent update was released in 2019: ITILv4. The team at Axelos reacted to the newest trends in the IT industry, specifically to Agile, by making ITIL more flexible. Compared to the previous version ITILv3, ITILv4 introduced several things that go in line with Agile’s philosophy:
- Service Value System. “The ITIL service value system describes how all the components and activities of the organization work together as a system to enable value creation.” Doesn’t it remind you of the team collaboration principle from Agile?
- The 7 guiding principles are pretty much Agile-compatible: 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.
- ITIL4 emphasizes continual improvement even more, giving it a key role in service delivery.
The industry perceived the updated version of ITIL ambiguously. The contributors of this Reddit post articulated it quite clearly. The reactions vary from
“ITIL is still relevant, in places. ITIL 4 is a huge improvement on v3 because it introduces the ITSM community to agile and lean practices. It opens people’s eyes to an approach which is not so process focussed.”
And up to
“ITIL V3 was and is relevant because of the strict structure of ITSM processes it presented and detailed. V4—as far as I have seen—mainly builds on the fact that Agile methods are considered equally important, and the aim is to incorporate them into the ITIL library. Honestly, that is a shame. Bridging the two methodologies and highlighting their respective importance in relevant fields is important, but they should not be mixed. For me that deprecates the credibility of ITIL V4.”
Start your trial with Alloy Software today
Key takeaways
- As you can see, the relationship between the two IT frameworks is controversial. Many IT pros believe ITIL is rigid and outdated, while Agile gives teams the desired flexibility.
- ITIL and Agile are not interchangeable methodologies. They were conceived for different purposes and excel in distinct areas of business operations. ITIL focuses on establishing structured processes for IT service management, prioritizing stability and reliability. In contrast, Agile prioritizes adaptability, collaboration, and rapid value delivery to customers, particularly in dynamic project environments.
- Even in environments mixing IT service delivery and software development, you should remember that each framework shines when applied to specific business tasks. ITIL is indispensable for tasks such as managing IT service delivery and large-scale changes, whereas Agile excels in software development projects and situations requiring rapid adaptation to changing requirements.
- Both ITIL and Agile have evolved over time to address changing industry needs. ITIL’s latest iteration, ITILv4, emphasizes flexibility and continual improvement, aligning more closely with Agile principles.
- Rather than viewing ITIL and Agile as adversaries, organizations can benefit from integrating aspects of both methodologies where appropriate.
Read other articles like this:
Let’s Overcome Challenges Together
