Questions about ITIL V4 and gaining certification

ianantwalks

Hello Everyone.

I am new to the forum and signed up because I need some advice regarding the ITIL Foundation certification.

I'm an IT professional and my work has decided to offer me a new role and part of the role means getting ITIL certified.

My first task is to work out the best training course on offer to help me achieve certification.  I have zero experience of ITIL.

Can anyone help recommend a course for becoming ITIL Foundation certified that will also help me meet the job role outcomes specified by my work below?

• Track and, work with the Development and Delivery group, ensure SLAs are maintained.
• Analyse change, incident and problem records, highlighting trends to assist in the determination of underlying causes
  
• Maintain a schedule of activity to ensure periodic review of IT Service requirements: internal / external capacity requirements, IS penetration testing, etc.
• Develop and maintain service assurance plans by identifying critical control points and preventive measures; establishing critical limits, monitoring procedures, and defining corrective actions and verification procedures
• Define and maintain an on-going roadmap of Continuous Service Improvement, including: business case development, impact analysis, stakeholder approval, through to delivery via a structured methodology and benefit realisation

I am looking at enrolling in the ITIL 4 Foundation Certifcation Training Course from Simplilearn and purchasing the ITIL Foundation Exam Study Guide by Liz Gallacher & Helen Morris.

Based on the above information, can I learn the mentioned ITIL skills from the Foundation exam by Simplilearn, or do some of the other outcomes above require a more advanced ITIL course?

Many thanks for your time.

Claire Agutter

Hi ianantwalks, congratulations on the new role! I would suggest that the ITIL v3 Foundation will equip you better for your new job than ITIL 4, as it goes into more detail around things like changes, incidents and problems. There are some elements that it won't cover (e.g. details of pen testing, control points), but it will give you a good grounding in service management that you can then build from. Looking at the outcomes an important place to start will be establishing your business partner's requirements and priorities so that you can put appropriate improvement plans in place, so you might also consider some BRM training (the BRM Institute is a good place to start). There's quite a heavy focus on CSI so the CSI Lifecycle course could be a good next step for you after Foundation. Any questions, let me know, Claire

ianantwalks

Hi Claire.

Thanks very much for taking the time to reply.  If I go for the ITIL V3 qualification, won't it be immediately outdated?  Having looked at some information it's all a little overwhelming really!

I don't have the new role officially yet.  The first step is for me to create a training plan so that I enrol for the right courses/certifications to match what my company expects from someone in this position, called IT Service Manager.

Based on the expected outcomes of my work already given, what certification course and books would you recommend I take from your professional opinion?

Thanks.
Ian

Claire Agutter

Hi Ian, the ITIL v3 and ITIL 4 certifications are going to run in parallel for a good few months yet, and in your situation it's more important to focus on the learning outcomes rather than the details on the certificate. ITIL Foundations don't expire, so someone who has ITIL v1 or 2 can still say they are ITIL Foundation certified :-)

The ITIL certification world is a bit confusing at the moment but I would recommend you go for v3, it has much more detail that will support you in your role. It would also give you the prerequisite for the CSI Lifecycle course which I'd recommend based on your role description. I would also recommend you look at the BRM Professional certification in working with stakeholders and benefit realisation.

Why not take a look at the free resources section we have on our site (https://itsm.zone/training-resources/free/) which includes quite a lot of 'training course on a page' documents. You'll see a bit more what's covered in some different certifications and that might help as well. Happy to provide more detail if you've got other questions, Claire

paul78

@Claire Agutter - I was wondering if you could comment on adoption of ITILv4. Do you think that many orgs would be migrating to ITILv4?

Claire Agutter

Hi paul78 that's an interesting question that's quite challenging to answer! There are some concepts in ITIL 4 (value streams, focus on value) that exist as part of other methodologies like Lean IT so some orgs will be doing them already and others would benefit from considering them. The processes that exist in ITIL v3 still exist in ITIL 4 but have a wider scope (as 'practices') which might encourage some orgs to look at how they are working and think beyond processes and get better results. Whether orgs will adopt the Service Value System remains to be seen, and I think we will have to wait until the details come out in the higher level ITIL 4 books before we can judge. 

What do you think based on what you've seen so far? Claire

paul78

Claire Agutter said:

What do you think based on what you've seen so far? Claire

Hi Claire - Thanks for your insight. I don't really work in this area so I was mostly curious if you or others have seen any adoption. I had previously asked a few colleagues that work in ITIL based orgs and none of them seemed interested that ITILv4 was coming out.