ISO/IEC 20000 was adopted as an International standard from the original British Standard (BS 15000). There were minor changes during the internationalisation, mainly to do with formatting and clarity. There were few substantive changes to requirements.

The edition of BS15000 (BS 15000-1: & BS 15000-2:) that was submitted to ISO was actually the second edition and replaced an earlier version released in called BS15000:. The second edition came about as a result of experience and feedback from early adopters of the edition.

The original standard was based on a Code of Practice for IT Service Management - DISC PD 0005:1998.

The technical panel which produced BS15000 included representation from the British Computer Society (BCS), the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) and the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF) as well as from IT organisations and technical experts.

BS 15000 was aligned with ITIL, best practice guidance and advice first published by the UK government in the 1980s. Today, ITIL is the globally accepted -de facto- standard for best practice processes in ITSM.

ITIL was a major contributor to the development of ISO/IEC 20000, in that its major processes have been adopted entirely, and augmented by a few key management processes.

Click here to see an explanation of the development of ITIL and BS15000 and the relationship between the two.