ITIL Foundations, a cert everyone should have?

Well not exactly everyone, but am I wrong for thinking we can all benefit in some way, regardless of role from the knowledge gained through this certification?

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jonny72

A lot of people shy away from ITIL, they think it's over complicated, expensive to implement, unnecessary, of little use and so on.

They are wrong. Even if you work somewhere that isn't an ITIL site, you will still learn and gain from it.

Slowhand

As I mentioned in my passing thread, I don't think that studying ITIL is for everyone. Someone starting out in IT would probably be better off using their precious free time to begin building up technical knowledge, getting those entry-level skills that are going to eventually become the cornerstone(s) of their experience and expertise.

The ITIL is complementary to IT, something that isn't precisely going to get a server up and running, a routing loop broken, or even an end-user back online. It's a set of guidelines and best-practices to help technical folks, (like myself,) get more out of our skillsets. In many ways, a management-focused certification track like this one is similar to another specialty field in IT: security. Without the proper background in "general" IT, without a strong set of skills and lots of hands-on experience, the specialty does little but teach you some buzz-terms and give you a 10,000-foot view of what you're trying to learn without really giving you an in-depth picture of how to actually accomplish those goals.

The bottom line: for someone with experience, the ITIL is a great thing to study and pursue certs on. If you're just starting out, though, technical skills trump it hands-down. Going back to the security comparison, if you can't administrate the network you can't secure the network and if you can't administrate the network you can't manage the network.

blargoe

I agree with the sentiments above. It's on my bucket list.

jonny72

Slowhand wrote: »

Someone starting out in IT would probably be better off using their precious free time to begin building up technical knowledge, getting those entry-level skills that are going to eventually become the cornerstone(s) of their experience and expertise.

The biggest problem I see with people starting out in IT support, especially those just out of school or college, is that they don't get that they are delivering a service to customers and that the customer has certain expectations of that service that need to be met (and nothing more). The ITIL foundation helps you to understand the service side of the business and lay the foundations for improving your non-technical abilities.

Personally I think ITIL is one of the first certs people should get and it's a pity it's not worked in to IT education in schools and colleges.

N2IT

It's not a must have but it can be a solid certification to have if you understand what it really is talking about. Personally if you are "technical" I would focus on those certifications first and foremost. ***Networking Engineer CCNA > ITIL etc

I personally believe ITSM IT service management should be a focus not just ITIL. ITIL is one framework in the ITSM world.

Swift6

Guys just starting out in IT can struggle to pick ITIL up as it's so dry. By that I mean, when you start in IT you want to get hands on doing practical stuff. As you go along, you learn many ways of performing the same tasks which are not all good. Plus you pick up practices from more experienced folk.
After you have built some experience, ITIL comes along to show you best practices of handling what you do.

N2IT

Agree with Swift! Well said!

MrXpert

ITIL is the most boring over inflated thing I have ever read.It is all about memorisation and really does nothing in my opinion other than give trainers and management types the chance to have a piece of the IT pie.
I only did the course because it was a requirement for certain things.

pumbaa_g

ITIL is boring and dry until you see it working in your day to day life, most of the people who do ITIL too early make the mistake of mugging it up and don't understand the real value of it. Once you have some work experience then ITIL can help you in your career as well as improve how you deliver a service.
I believe having ITIL Foundation as a requirement for entry level just ensures that people do it to get the job (some by other means like Brain ****).
The real value of ITIL is that it understands that the primary role of IT is to facilitate the Business Outcomes and not the other way around, in today's world if IT is not showing value that business can see or understand then the next obvious knee jerk reaction is Cost Reduction or Outsourcing.
I will be happy to discuss how much of ITIL is relevant for Technical Roles or Entry level roles if anyone has queries but in the end its just a collection of best practices that you can learn from