The future of ITIL certification : NO more ITIL V2 exams October 16, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: certification, exam, EXIN, IT Service Management, itil, ITIL V3, itsm, the art of service
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I am packing up as my stay in Cairns has finished. The last 2 days were very good – I was invited to attend the EXIN partner event to hear about the direction EXIN is going to take in the future.
As always the presentations are mostly marketing and sales from EXIN to the training providers, but I did learn a few things that may be of interest to non-trainers as well:
1) Of all exams taken, approx. 40% are still ITIL V2 exams.
I was quite amazed at this number as my assumption was a lot lower percentage. We still have clients, in Europe and the Middle East mainly, who prefer ITIL ITIL “>V2 to ITIL V3 but I was not aware that this number is this high.
2) APMG / OGC are alledgedly taking the V2 exams out of production
The current understanding is that the ITIL ITIL “>V2 Foundation exam will no longer be available after June 2010 and that the ITIL V2 Practitioner exams and ITIL V2 Manager exams will be phased out between June and December 2010. There will still be the option for resits until somewhere in early 2011 but no new exams will be issued.
So when I take both of these together, that means that 40% of the market must change certification strategies.. OR we are going to lose that part of the market because these companies take an “ITIL V2 of nothing” approach.
Comment on Tweet from Majid Iqbal [ @majidiqbal ] September 24, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: the art of service, itil, value, IT Service Management, business, certification, ITIL V3, EXIN
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Majid wrote the following tweet on the 17th of September:
Call for re-write is for benefit of ITIL training industry; not necessarily for advancement of current best practice. Tails wagging dogs.
This may be so for a few influential players who will be involved with the re-write but most training organisations out there will be disadvantaged (yet again) by this update. It will most likely mean that the training provider has to update course materials, review practice exam questions and spend time understanding what these changes mean in the context of the entire framework.
It means another investment into the knowledge of the ITIL trainers, who will need non-billable time to digest the changes and update their materials.
It also means that the market has to deal with another level of confusion: when you did your Foundation exam for ITIL V3, does this mean you will need to do an update session to the new-ish version before you commence your Intermediate programs?
It also means that the exams will have to be updated, with all quality learning curve issues that appears to be the standard (if history repeats itself)…
So with all due respect – I don’t think that there are many training providers out there who are very happy with this result.
As an ITSM Professional I think that this review is a good thing for the advancement of current best practice – we all know that it could do with a few improvements! But as training provider I cringe at the additional workload that’s coming our way… again.
The ITIL pyramid scheme September 20, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: the art of service, value, exam, certification, ITIL V3, EXIN
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One of the entries in our ITIL Experience Book talks about the “Pyramid Scheme” for the ITIL V3 Certifications.
He probably referred to the way the certification scheme is illustrated
the official qualification scheme
APMG probably didn’t mean to have people talk about this qualification scheme as a ‘pyramid scheme’ but a lot of discussion is happening in offices around the world about the investment required to do the certification Programs.
This has been one of the drivers for The Art of Service to develop the entire qualification pathway as eLearning Programs. You go through fully accredited course materials, supported by ITIL Expert Trainers, at a fraction of the classroom price.
You can achieve your entire ITIL Expert qualification through our eLearning programs, which are accredited by EXIN.
Be Part of the Crowdsourced ITIL Experience Book – in just 10 Minutes of your time! September 12, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: author, book, business, certification, elearning, experience, itil, itsm, management, unique
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To join this project, register yourself as one of the authors.
As ITIL users most of us have the following question going through our mind: “What do other people do with this ITIL Framework?”
We at The Art of Service see thousands of clients go through our eLearning programs, use our products and speak with most of you on an individual level.
These conversations got us thinking: Wouldn’t it be cool if we can bundle all these experiences together into a book to learn from and share it with others out there to help them grow?
We don’t need long case studies – but it would be great if you share some of your experiences with the training, the ITIL Framework and the difference it has made for you.
You can share whatever you want: text or images. Just make sure it is original content and you own the right to any photos or images you wish to use.
What’s in it for you?
Cool stuff:
- As a reward, we’ll include you as a co-author in the Book, which will be distributed globally on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and many others.
- And…we’ll send you a copy of the book to show (off) to your Mum and Dad
!
Your input into the ITIL Experience Book:
1. The learning experience
I enrolled in a course because
I completed the following program…
Did you sit for the certification exam (and did you pass)?
2. The ITIL Framework
I choose to study/use the ITIL Framework because…
I have applied my knowledge of ITIL in my job since finishing the course in the following ways…
The ITIL Framework has made a difference in the following ways…
The biggest benefit I and my organization have seen from using the ITIL Framework is…
3. About Me
My name is…
I’m located in (City/Country)…
My job-title / role in the company is…
My background / experience is…
How to create your entry
Simply register yourself as an author and follow the prompts.
What happens Next
- When the book has over 30.000 words or more than 100 authors, we’ve got enough material to halt entries, and start the publishing process.
- Once the book is finished (in typically a few months) , we’ll contact you for your address details on where to send your copy.
Good luck and enjoy the process. I’m looking forward to read about your experiences.
To join this project, register yourself as one of the authors.
Kind Regards,
Ivanka Menken
ITIL V3 Certification Passrates close to 100% August 26, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: certification, exam, IT Service Management, ITIL expert, ITIL V3, success, the art of service
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Many people ask for passrates of our students, and to be quite honest there is no complete answer to this question. Reason being that most of our ITIL V3 Foundation students organise their exams independently via Prometric test centres. We don’t get the feedback on how they performed (apart from a select few who send us happy emails, flowers and boxes of chocolate to say thank you!)
But you ask, and we aim to please, so we provide the most up to date information we have in the form of a graph etc.
We are extremly happy and proud of the results (and feedback) with regards to all our programs – in particular the Intermediate programs which have been a resounding success, most course achieving close to 100% pass rates.
Managing Across the Lifecycle is quite a different exam from the rest of the Intermediate exams – there is a lot more practical work experience required to be successful in this exam! (don’t think lightly about this exam – even an 8 question exam can be very tricky and difficult!). Our trainers passed the exam in their first sitting, but that is only due to the fact that they have a lot of experience in this field, know the ITIL methodology inside out and listen to the examples from students every day of the week.
So when you’re getting ready for this exam: make sure you’re prepared!
The secret of ITIL (hint: it’s a virtue) August 25, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in Uncategorized.Tags: the art of service, IT Service Management, itsm, certification, ITIL V3, success
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Patience.
Google was a very good search engine for two years before you started using it.
I got my ITIL Managers Certification almost 20 years ago. Many IT Managers and Professionals tried similar routes but it didn’t work right away. So they gave up. Blackberry is the most popular “phone” in the world because they never gave up.
The irony of ITIL is that the tactics work really quickly. You write a call script for a Help Desk and within a day resolution times are shortened. Bang.
But the strategy still takes forever. The strategy is the hard part, not the tactics.
I discovered a lucky secret the hard way about 25 years ago: you can outlast the other guys if you try. If you stick at stuff that bores them, it accrues. Drip, drip, drip you win.
We’ve all heard about the runaway success of ideas that seem to spread almost overnight, but those events are rare. In reality, success comes more like it did for 90s pop band Pulp, which lead singer Jarvis Cocker once described as “an overnight success that took 16 years”.
It still takes at least ten years to become a success, whatever you do. The frustrating part is that you see your tactics fail right away. The good news is that over time, (no not days, weeks or months but years) you get the satisfaction of watching those tactics succeed right away.
The trap: Show up at a itSMF Meeting, invest two hours, be really aggressive with people, make some noise and then leave in disgust.
The trap: Use all your money to strengthen your personal network and leave no money or patience for ITIL Expert Certification you’ll need to do.
The trap: Read the blogs and fall in love with the quick wins and loose focus on the long-term investments that deliver real value.
The trap: Jump from framework to framework, without achieving anything for the long term.
People want overnight successes. It’s natural. Ignore them; ignore that voice in your head. Listen instead to your real customers, to your vision, and invest in your ITIL v3 Certification for the long haul. Because that’s how long it’s going to take.
Every time, you pick up your ITIL Book and log into eLearning in your hotel room, and work on IT Service Management Skills for an hour instead of zoning out watching Idols, is another right decision, another small step towards excellence, and success.
Patience is really just making the decision not to quit over and over and over again.
ITIL V3 Operational Support and Analysis (OSA) Full Certification
ITIL V3 Release, Control and Validation (RCV) Full Certification
ITIL v3 Service Offerings and Agreements (SOA)
ITIL V3 Planning, Protection and Optimization (PPO) Full Certification
ITIL V3 Intermediate Lifecycle program: Service Strategy SS
ITIL V3 MALC – Managing Across the Lifecycle Full Certification
ITIL v3 Service Operation (SO) Certification
ITIL v3 Service Transition (ST) Certification
ITIL v3 Intermediate:Continual Service Improvement Lifecycle Program
ITIL V3 Intermediate programs – so many choices… what is best? June 23, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: itil, IT Service Management, itsm, certification, ITIL expert, ITIL V3
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In generic terms we’ve always said that there is no right or wrong pathway – it all depends. (such a consultancy statement, isn’t it??)
But in reality there are some choices that are better then others:
1. Both the capability Modules and the Lifecycle modules cover the same theory, but from a different point of view and to various levels of detail. As a result of this, you want to check which book is covered in the Capability program. As an example: RCV (Release, Control and Validation) covers a large component of the Service Transition book, so it is best NOT to do the Service Transition Lifecycle program at the same time due to the extend of overlap between the two programs.
2. For ‘ action based’ people, or IT Professionals who want to know HOW the theory would work in a practical situation, the Capability modules would be more suitable. These programs are aimed at the process team member, the people in the field who get their hands dirty and now need to work out how their practical work fits in with the ITIL framework.
3. The umbrella program before reaching ‘ ITIL Expert’ status is the Managing Across the Lifecycle or MALC for short. This course and associated exam are quite theory based and of a more strategic level. A good preparation for this program would be to either attend the Service Strategy Lifecycle Module or the SOA (Service, Offerings and Agreements) Capability Module.
For more information on the ITIL V3 Intermediate programs, check this out… or get us to contact you to answer all your questions.
Didn’t pass your ITIL V3 Foundation exam?? Don’t despair.. you’re NOT alone! June 20, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: the art of service, itil, IT Service Management, itsm, exam, certification, ITIL V3, EXIN, Foundation, Foundation Bridge
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As I mentioned in an earlier blog – as of the 1st of May 2009 there is a new syllabus for the ITIL V3 Foundation and ITIL V3 Foundation Bridge exam. This new syllabus is a result of the global review and lots of feedback from many students, training providers and examination institutes.
The biggest comment was that the Foundation program was basically ‘too much information’ for a 3- day course and the regional representatives spent 2 days talking about a better way of teaching this Foundation level of the ITIL V3 Service Management program.
Based on this feedback and these discussions, APMG created a new syllabus for the Foundation and Foundation bridge exam and a completely new set of examination questions that are in line with the syllabus. The accredited training providers received the new syllabus and two sample exams to prepare their new course materials to be in line with the new formal exams.
Soooooo, as of the 1st of May all training providers are offering new materials based on the updated training and exam requirements.
A quick check with a number of providers shows that from the 1st of July the percentage of successful candidates has decreased quite dramatically for Foundation exam participants. Also – the average results has dropped from 85% -90% to as low as 70 percent.
Now – as training providers we do NOT have access to the real exam questions (and that’s a good thing, as it keeps the training separate from the exam. It ensures that your certification is independent from the training), the only thing we have to go on is the syllabus, exam requirements and the sample exam. This drop in number of successful candidates is something that is being investigated by a number of training providers.
IF you are one of the candidates that sat your Foundation exam AFTER the 1st of May 2009 and you feel that the exam was quite different from the course materials and the sample exam. In other words – you feel that the course and sample exam did not give you a true indication of what the real exam was like – contact your training provider and let them know!
Every 4 months there is a formal review of exam results to assess if the exam and/or syllabus needs to be updated.. all feedback is important, so speak up!
ITIL V3 Certification – are you confused?? You are NOT alone… June 17, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: the art of service, itil, IT Service Management, itsm, exam, certification, ITIL expert, ITIL V3, EXIN, capability, lifecycle
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For a scheme that has been around for approx. 2 years now, it is pretty sad that there is no increased clarity around the ITIL V3 certification scheme. Where a few years ago most clients would be confused because of the scheme it self, now it seems that training providers are able to do their own thing..
OK – so what are the confusions:
1. First confusion: From the start there was the confusion on naming of the toplevel program. Initially the top level was called ITIL Diploma but later on this was changed to ITIL Expert. Try do a google search on ITIL diploma though… I am sure you’ll come up with approx. 103,000 hits.
For the record – the top level is called ITIL Expert. the ITIL V3 Expert certificate is NOT achieved by attending the ITIL Expert course, as there is no such thing. The ITIL Expert certificate is earned by achieving a minimum of 22 credits though either the ITIL V2 + Manager Bridge programs or the ITIL V3 programs. I wrote about the different pathways in this post.
2. The second confusion developed around the 1st of May 2009. From this day onwards, APMG released their new ITIL V3 Foundation and ITIL V3 Foundation bridge syllabus and exams. This means that from this day onwards ALL training providers have to adhere to the new syllabus with the amended timelines for Foundation and Foundation Bridge. The biggest change is in the ITIL V3 Foundation Bridge program, as the number of contact hours has increased to 9.5 hours.
This means that the Foundation Bridge program is now a 2-day classroom program (as I can’t imagine people wanting to do this in 1 day… just imagine: 9.5 contact hours + 30 minutes for coffee break in the morning + 30 minuted for coffee break in the afternoon + 1 hour for lunch + 30 minutes for the exam + some setup time for the exam… a minimum of 12 hours are required for this course! As an educator, teacher and trainer I know from experience that after 8 hours in the classroom people simply don’t absorb any more information…. your guess is as good as mine when you try to think about the effects on the passrates for the ITIL V3 Foundation Bridge exam.)
3. Third confusion is on naming conventions again. The courses that follow the ITIL V3 Foundation program are called “the Intermediate Programs”. Within the Intermediate programs there are 2 type of modules: Capability Modules and Lifecycle Modules. This is the naming convention that APMG described in their certification scheme and the associated documentation and illustrations. However, there are a number of course providers who have created their own petnames for these programs. Probably seemed a good idea when the marketing department came up with it… but what it does is completely confuse and frustrate the clients out there.
Example – earlier this week we received an enquiry to do the ITIL Expert pathway and this person was convinced that this was a 4 day bootcamp. When we viewed the link with the course information we could see where the confusion came from.
“ITIL Expert Certificate: Service Operation”- 4 day bootcamp….
This is NOT the ITIL Expert certificate.. this is a 4 day classroom program around Service Operation which will gain you 3 points towards the 22 needed for ITIL Expert certificate.
4. Fourth confusion is on the difference between ITIL V2 qualification and ITIL V3 qualification. This comes down to naming convention again:
ITIL V2 qualification is build up as follows: Foundation certificate, Practitioner certificates (x4), Manager Certificate
ITIL V3 qualification is build up as follows: Foundation certificate, Intermediate certificate (x9), Managing Across the Lifecycle certificate, ITIL Expert.
As both these qualification pathways co-exist, we as training providers have an obligation to separate to two pathways as much as possible to make it easy for our clients to know which type of program they have signed up for.
The whole certification and qualification thing is confusing enough as it is… let’s work together as training providers to shine a clear light so our clients don’t trip along the way.
Can I do ITIL V3 Intermediate as self study, or do I have to attend a class? May 5, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: certification, elearning, exam, EXIN, IT Service Management, itil, ITIL expert, ITIL V3, itsm
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Can I prepare for my ITIL V3 Intermediate exam through self study?
I receive this question in my inbox a lot of the time and it seems that there might be some confusion on the exam requirements. The short answer is NO, you can not prepare for your ITIL V3 Intermediate exam by doing self study. The exam requirement is that you have been part of an accredited course, delivered by an accredited ATO.
Does this mean I have to attend a classroom program?
Again, the answer is NO – it is not compulsory to attend a classroom / instructor led program. The Art of Service offers all ITIL V3 Intermediate programs as accredited eLearning courses. The eLearning is still instructor facilitated, but as you can imagine – the instructor is at a distance and facilitation is via email, voice and video conferencing. The difference between classroom and eLearning is that you have your instructor all to yourself! You can ask all questions directly and are guaranteed an answer within 24 hours (but usually much quicker)
But what if my training provider says that I can’t attend eLearning courses, that this is not possible?
I don’t want to talk on behalf of other training providers, but what they probably mean is that they don’t offer elearning courses. Most organisations will have the ITIL V3 Intermediate programs as classroom option only. The Art of Service has chosen for a dual approach: we offer all ITIL programs as classroom option as well as eLearning program. The only exception to this is the ITIL V2 Service Manager program, as this program can not be delivered online and must be delivered as a classroom course.
If I choose to do eLearning, what is my chance of passing the exam?
In the past 5 years of offering ITIL education programs as eLearning as well as classroom option, we have learnt that the passrate for both delivery methods is comparable. If anything, we noticed that due to the highly personalized nature of elearning and the fact that you have the opportunity to restudy the same material when the subject is not quite clear, our online students might actually perform slightly better during exams.
Also, we have developed a number of additional educational tools and instructional material to help you make the best of your exams. These are the exam preparation programs; specialised elearning programs that focus on exam preparation. It’s like you do the last day of the course again and again until you’re confident and ready to sit your exam!
