Passed ITIL Foundations

strauchr

Passed this exam with relative ease. 77%, 65% to pass. Very straight forward one line questions but you do have to know your stuff.

I think it will be a good addition to my cert list.

Ricka182

congrats!

Alien

Congratulations!

I believe it should give u an extra edge. Recently, i got a reply from a company that i had applied to and it was among the requirements. Apparently i had no clue . I quickly researched it on the net and thats when i came to appreciate its value. I've come accross several other job offers that requires it besides the normal Micrsoft, CompTIA and Cisco certs. I would appreciate if you would share your preparation resources.

Cheers

strauchr

More and more companies worldwide are starting to use ITIL and it is extremely helpful to know the processes involved as it applies to everything you do in IT.

My preparation was quite easy, read 1 book and know what you've read. The prac exams I had were of little to no use really.

The book was An Introduction to IT Service Management based on ITIL by Jan Van Bon. Book was hard to get hold of - had to order it in and it took 6 weeks! Its part of the itSMF library.

Its a good non-techical break from the other certs but it has a big value at any level of experience.

Webmaster

Congrats!

I prepared for this exam about 5 years ago. Everyone at the outsourcing company I worked for had to attain this cert, I quit my job before taking the exam. I found it to be nothing more than theoretic descriptions of IT processes that we implemented for years already before ITIL was created. I'm sure it will look good on your resume. ITIL is particularly known in the Netherlands and in the UK.

It suprises me that it's still hard to find good study material for it, as that was also the case back then.

strauchr

Luckily, Australia has a huge ITIL following too so will help me out a lot when I get back home.

Study material is very hard to find, this book was only released April this year. Otherwise you have to fork out for an expense training course or even and online course which is also very expensive.

And like I said before, more and more companies are asking for this cert or at least knowledge.

It is really only about processes but puts them together in a very logical way that makes more sense and also throws in some terminology too.

Honestly, the material was very hard to read, would always put me to sleep at night.

Webmaster

strauchr wrote:

Honestly, the material was very hard to read, would always put me to sleep at night.

I agree, I had a Dutch book and some course material (as the company I worked for provided those courses to IT departments) and it's pretty much the most boring IT-related topic I ever read.

The terminology was somewhat useful as it allowed us to attach a name to the things we already did, i.e. change management. ITIL is useful and can make things go more efficiently, but what bothered me most back then is that ITIL caused a lot of companies to do more talking about IT than actually 'doing IT'. It was sometimes also hard to convince an IT manager that ITIL processes should be looked at as best practices, while they rather implemented ITIL 'exactly' as in the books. Some of them actually appointed new job names based on ITIL.

Are you planning on going for the higher levels? There used to be good money in making IT departments/calldesks ITIL compliant.

strauchr

I don't know about the material when you studied but the new material very much focuses on business and aligning IT goals with the business goals. It also stresses that ITIL is just a framework, a bunch of processes to follow and does not require an organizational change. And having a standard name for the processes is great, meaning you can interchange between ITIL based companies and its all there in place and everything will make sense (theoretically).

I'm not sure about higher levels, if I came into a position where I could become management I couldn't imagine not knowing this stuff, especially if I want to become successful. It may boring but its useful.

As far as consulting as on ITIL processes that might not be a bad idea. I have though about it before but not confident I have the experience just yet. If the money was right I would do it.

And if it takes off to become more of a standard (which is starting to happen) it would be a great position to be in.

strauchr

In fact, I would like to promote ITIL a bit more. There should be a forum dedicated to ITIL related topics.

strauchr

Well maybe its not that popular. May be though in the near future!

D-boy

The company I work for just recently said they are planning to have ITIL in place within the next 3 years...

strauchr

I presume thats and American company? If so it is good. Its really only been popular in parts of Europe and Australia (to my knowledge) but is now going wide spread.

Good to hear about another American company doing it, trends tend to kick off after the States do stuff.

Better get out the match sticks to keep your eyes open if your going to study this stuff - it really is hard to pay attention to.