How ITIL and DevOps Converge to Drive Digital Transformation

Conference Overview

At the 16th GOPS Global Operations Conference in Shenzhen on May 22, JKStack CTO Ge Dingjia explained how ITIL and DevOps converge to support digital transformation, emphasizing workflow applications in IT operations management.

DevOps Evolution

DevOps traces its roots to Lean Production, a management philosophy derived from the Toyota Production System that seeks to reduce cost and eliminate waste. The concept of a “value stream”—the end‑to‑end process from demand to value delivery—enables continuous improvement through PDCA cycles.

In the 1980s, Lean gave rise to value‑stream mapping for software, manufacturing, and professional services. The 2000s saw agile development address waterfall limitations, while the 2010s introduced virtualization, cloud computing, and containers, providing infrastructure‑as‑code that empowered DevOps.

ITIL Evolution

ITIL progressed from versioned releases (v1‑v3) to ITIL 4, which aligns with the fourth industrial revolution and integrates DevOps, agile, lean, TOGAF, and other practices. ITIL 4 treats value streams as the primary focus, covering product, resource access, and service behavior, and incorporates DevOps where software development is part of the value chain.

Relationship Between ITIL and DevOps

ITIL’s value streams represent the entire IT department’s output, while DevOps occupies a subset of those streams. Both aim to deliver value through products, resource access, and service behaviors.

Enterprise value streams combine multiple IT value streams, as illustrated in the value‑chain diagram.

Digital Transformation Logic

Digital transformation is driven by refining value streams, mapping them to digital twins, and continuously improving processes. It involves three dimensions—user, industry, and internal interconnections—and is supported by digital operations, digital twins, and employee empowerment.

Conclusion

Ultimately, digital transformation hinges on value‑stream refinement rooted in lean thinking; ITIL and DevOps provide best‑practice frameworks that organizations can apply to their core business value streams.