ITIL v3 Foundation in 20 Quids

This is strictly for those people who are on a tight budget, to let them know that it is possible to get a v3 Foundation in that much. Obviously that doesn't include the 100+ quids exams fee.

There is enough free information and sample tests out there that you can actually do it for free. But I did decided to invest in at least one official OGC publication to give myself the added assurance that I am covering everything I should be.

Suitable for people who -
- can do self study
- can be disciplined
- not exactly in a rush to get it in like 3 days.
- have some (if not a lot) knowledge of the IT Service Industry

I am not saying this is better than the various online/classroom courses or that you should not do it that way. All I am saying is, if you don't want/can't, then you don't necessarily have to go through them.

This is how I went about it.

I bought the book -
APMG-Business Books ~ Passing Your ITIL Foundation Exam

which is supposedly now dis-continued as they have come out with the 2nd Edition. But it is still available to be bought cheap online for around 15 quids. And I passed my test using this not too long ago so I guess it should serve the purpose.

The new 2nd Edition of the same book is below (20 quids and seems to be better as it explains everything using a Case Study which makes it easier to understand)-
APMG-Business Books ~ Passing your ITIL Foundation Exam - 2nd Edition

My Preparation –

I bought the book (1st Edition) and read it end to end couple of times, did mock exams and worked on weak areas along with the mock exams.

Blog/Website about ITIL v3 foundation exams
Pass the ITIL V3 Foundation exam in six easy and (almost) free steps | The IT Skeptic

Mock Exams
ITIL Version 3 certification: eight sources of free ITIL V3 Foundation practice exams, and some ITIL Version 2 sources too! | The IT Skeptic

I did only the Datajar sample exams which is more than sufficient.

Datajars sample exams (doing this is more than sufficient)
itilcampus: ITIL
Scroll down in the above link. There is a course (ITIL v3 Foundations certification exam preparation - Free ITIL v3 Foundations Mock Exams). You will need to register which is free. Very good and more than sufficient.

The evening before the day of exam, I took 3 mock test including the official ITIL sample tests (available at Datajar above), and strangely I scored 85% in all 3. And guess how much I scored in the actual test? Yup! 85%.

So I guess they are pretty good indicators of your preparation level.

Good Luck!

Nadz

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Comments

newmove

Nice one Nadz. I used Art of Service,its pretty easy to read too.

Nadz

Thanks newmove. I have heard good reviews about 'Art of Services' from other users. I am assuming you used them for the Foundation. How much did it cost you? And any idea how their Intermediate courses are? I am in the process of evaluating the various courses.
Nadz

newmove

I didn't buy the book,I actually got it off a friend. I'm quite interested in Service transition module and I have been reading about it off and on. Moreso, I have limited budget as regards the cost of required official training,other things being equal, I should attempt the ST before the end year.
What's your typical day like being a release manager? Sorry for poking my nose:)

BW81

Nadz wrote: »

Thanks newmove. I have heard good reviews about 'Art of Services' from other users. I am assuming you used them for the Foundation. How much did it cost you? And any idea how their Intermediate courses are? I am in the process of evaluating the various courses.
Nadz

I used Art of service for my intermediates, would definitely recommend them.

Nadz

BW81 wrote: »

I used Art of service for my intermediates, would definitely recommend them.

Thanks BW81.

Nadz

newmove wrote: »

What's your typical day like being a release manager? Sorry for poking my nose:)

No problem mate.

Typical day is - Reach office, get a cuppa, open the mail box and then it's a ....BLUR.........until suddenly you feel yourself slowing down, yawning and stretching..... you lift your head and see the office is almost empty.....check the phone and see couple of missed calls from the wife...you realise its very late in the evening. Most days, you bring things to a logical closure, plan for the next day and call it a day..other days, well....u know.

What happens during the Blur? Not sure if you really wanna know the details. But if you want to would be happy to let you know. But it's pretty much like any other job in the IT Service industry Busy. Chaotic. Hectic but in the end very rewarding. Depends on each Organisations but in my case the role is quite powerful.

newmove

Nadz wrote: »

No problem mate.

Typical day is - Reach office, get a cuppa, open the mail box and then it's a ....BLUR.........until suddenly you feel yourself slowing down, yawning and stretching..... you lift your head and see the office is almost empty.....check the phone and see couple of missed calls from the wife...you realise its very late in the evening. Most days, you bring things to a logical closure, plan for the next day and call it a day..other days, well....u know.

What happens during the Blur? Not sure if you really wanna know the details. But if you want to would be happy to let you know. But it's pretty much like any other job in the IT Service industry Busy. Chaotic. Hectic but in the end very rewarding. Depends on each Organisations but in my case the role is quite powerful.

Lol, Thanks I hope to get one of those roles one day.

Nadz

newmove, meant to ask you about the sec+ cert. Whats your view?

newmove

Nadz wrote: »

newmove, meant to ask you about the sec+ cert. Whats your view?

That cert opened my eyes to the importance of security based on the fact that I have infinitessimal technical experience. I had fun studying for it cos I could easily apply what I studied to real life scenarios. It's not a bad entry level cert to have under one's belt. It also helped while studying for ISO/IEC 27002. In short, try and get the DG book on kindle and you only need max 2 weeks to get it over with.

Nadz

Thanks mate. Any suggestion on where to start? Any specific website, blog etc

newmove

I got every information from here(there are loads) and the kindle book for £7.50 on Amazon. I had to quickly do it in December to get the lifetime cert.

Nadz

Cheers Mate. Ta.

desert_fox

Hello there, sorry to ask you this but Can you please suggest me if I should go for ITIL v3 Foundation certification or not? Currently I'm working as a Software analyst and would like to further my career in to Business Analyst and Project management. Do you think having a cert on ITIL v3 F and probably doing further certs on this and Project management would help my career? I was thinking PMP or Prince2 for Project management certs. Please advise. I would be really grateful.

ChooseLife

desert_fox wrote: »

Can you please suggest me if I should go for ITIL v3 Foundation certification or not? Currently I'm working as a Software analyst and would like to further my career in to Business Analyst and Project management. Do you think having a cert on ITIL v3 F and probably doing further certs on this and Project management would help my career? I was thinking PMP or Prince2 for Project management certs. Please advise. I would be really grateful.

ITIL Foundation and PMP are on two different scales in terms of required efforts. Studying for ITIL would take a couple of weekends and cost you nothing but the exam fee, so I'd say getting the cert cannot hurt (if you think this cert is good for BA, which I cannot tell as I am from the sysadmin side of the house).

lordy

I think you just cannot compare the ITIL Foundation cert to PMP. These are at least two different leagues maybe not even the same sport.

From my point of view the ITIL cert has a good return-on-invest. It's not (yet) a must-have but nice to pick up along the way. The PMP is a beast that needs to be sleighed but once you do this, there is great reward waiting for you. Long story short: If you can get to PMP, do it!

desert_fox

thank you both very much for your kind reply. This is a great help for me. Cheers!

eMeS

desert_fox wrote: »

Hello there, sorry to ask you this but Can you please suggest me if I should go for ITIL v3 Foundation certification or not? Currently I'm working as a Software analyst and would like to further my career in to Business Analyst and Project management. Do you think having a cert on ITIL v3 F and probably doing further certs on this and Project management would help my career? I was thinking PMP or Prince2 for Project management certs. Please advise. I would be really grateful.

ITIL certifications and the PMP are two completely different things that cover completely different subject areas. There's much confusion, and that confusion is often sown by people with limited or no knowledge of either.

As mentioned, the ITIL v3 Foundation certification is easy to obtain. Many people self-study and take the exam within a relatively brief period of time. The foundation cert basically introduces you to ITIL terminology. It's very high-level in its focus.

PMP is for experienced project managers. Earning the PMP attests to a person's experience in real-world project management as well as knowledge of project management best practices as stated by PMI. The PMP gets a rap as being a tough exam, but I have to disagree...it was very easy. The most difficult part of the PMP is the experience documentation, and that really wasn't all that tough. The exam gets into very specific project management things, such as different formulae related to project management, etc...

Given that your location is London, you should probably be looking at the PRINCE2 certifications. PMP is generally the de facto project management cert in the North American market, whereas PRINCE2 is going to be more common UK countries. I've crossed paths with very few PRINCE2 people in the US; in fact, employers would generally be puzzled by it over here.

MS

desert_fox

eMeS wrote: »

ITIL certifications and the PMP are two completely different things that cover completely different subject areas. There's much confusion, and that confusion is often sown by people with limited or no knowledge of either.

As mentioned, the ITIL v3 Foundation certification is easy to obtain. Many people self-study and take the exam within a relatively brief period of time. The foundation cert basically introduces you to ITIL terminology. It's very high-level in its focus.

PMP is for experienced project managers. Earning the PMP attests to a person's experience in real-world project management as well as knowledge of project management best practices as stated by PMI. The PMP gets a rap as being a tough exam, but I have to disagree...it was very easy. The most difficult part of the PMP is the experience documentation, and that really wasn't all that tough. The exam gets into very specific project management things, such as different formulae related to project management, etc...

Given that your location is London, you should probably be looking at the PRINCE2 certifications. PMP is generally the de facto project management cert in the North American market, whereas PRINCE2 is going to be more common UK countries. I've crossed paths with very few PRINCE2 people in the US; in fact, employers would generally be puzzled by it over here.

MS

MS,

Many thanks for your reply. It clarifies a lot for me. Does it mean that if I decide to go for a PRINCE2 certification, then I should have quite a few years of experience under my belt? At the moment, I am working as an Analyst and want to further my career towards Business Process Analyst and Project Management. In that case should I go all the way with the ITIL v3 certifications including Intermediaries and Expert level or also consider other certifications? Please advise.

Many thanks!

eMeS

desert_fox wrote: »

MS,

Many thanks for your reply. It clarifies a lot for me. Does it mean that if I decide to go for a PRINCE2 certification, then I should have quite a few years of experience under my belt? At the moment, I am working as an Analyst and want to further my career towards Business Process Analyst and Project Management. In that case should I go all the way with the ITIL v3 certifications including Intermediaries and Expert level or also consider other certifications? Please advise.

Many thanks!

CR

As far as I know, PRINCE2 certifications have no formal experience or educational requirements. You can self-study and take the exams at open centres in the UK. See APMG-UK - PRINCE2® - PRojects IN Controlled Environments .

Whether or not ITIL will be useful to you depends on what you do/want to do. If you want to specialize in service management, which is what ITIL is about, then it might make sense for you. If you want to do business analysis, then there's a cert for that as well, it's called the CCBA or the CBAP. See International Institute of Business Analysis | IIBA Certification .

MS

lordy

@Nadz: Thank you for the book recommendation. I immediately ordered it on eBay and it should arrive this week.

I have decided to make ITIL Foundations the next cert on my list. Compared with RHCE and CCNP it's probably the one with the smallest effort so I want to get it done first. After that it's back to RHCE and then, hopefully, on to CCNP which I have been planning for years.

Nadz

lordy wrote: »

@Nadz: Thank you for the book recommendation. I immediately ordered it on eBay and it should arrive this week.

I have decided to make ITIL Foundations the next cert on my list. Compared with RHCE and CCNP it's probably the one with the smallest effort so I want to get it done first. After that it's back to RHCE and then, hopefully, on to CCNP which I have been planning for years.

You are welcome lordy. Recommended the same approach to couple of colleagues at work....and it worked quite well for them and they passed their ITILv3 Foundation.

Nadz

desert_fox wrote: »

Hello there, sorry to ask you this but Can you please suggest me if I should go for ITIL v3 Foundation certification or not? Currently I'm working as a Software analyst and would like to further my career in to Business Analyst and Project management. Do you think having a cert on ITIL v3 F and probably doing further certs on this and Project management would help my career? I was thinking PMP or Prince2 for Project management certs. Please advise. I would be really grateful.

desert_fox you probably have already got the answers that you were looking for. But my 2 cents -

Think of it this way. ITIL is for 'Service' and PMP is for 'Projects'. 'Service' has much larger scope than a 'Project', hence ITIL addresses a much much larger area than PMP. Projects have much smaller scope and life span than Services. Most of the times 'Projects' form a part of Service Life Cycle in the sense that 'Project' are used for 'Creating and Delivering' some parts or aspects of the 'Service'.

Now talking about Projects You will hear various certifcations, methodolgies etc. As EmEs rightly pointed out, in UK and most parts of Europe Prince2 has more following/recognition and value. In US primarily it is PMP. In various other parts like Asia it depends on whether they are catering to the American or European market so its a mix of both. The way I understand the difference between PMP and Prince2 is, 'PMP' is to do with the 'Science' of Project Management, whereas 'Prince2' has more to do with the 'Process/Method' of Project Management. PMP addresses ALL aspects of Project Management while Prince2 focuses mainly on the core aspects of delivering i.e., 'inception thru to closure'. And then there are plenty other Project Management related certs, training for Agile (SCRUM, Lean, DSDM, RUP) methodologies...if you are interested in heading that way.

Now about your interest in being a Business Analyst... you may benefit from all 3, but you may want to focus on other aspects if you were to sell your self as a BA. Different companies define BA differently...there are technical BA's functional BA's..and other kind of BA's. And BA's could be involved in as small as Requirements capturing and documentation to...more wider scope including BPR, Business Architecture, Designing Solutions, Estimations, etc. You can be a choose a pure BA career path as well...and if you are keen on that you may look into aspects like TOGAF, RUP, Zachmans, etc...you will realise it's another different world.

Hope I have not overwhelmed you with the information overload

I know how you must feel. Been there....so Good Luck

Nadz

N2IT

Nadz wrote: »

desert_fox you probably have already got the answers that you were looking for. But my 2 cents -

Think of it this way. ITIL is for 'Service' and PMP is for 'Projects'. 'Service' has much larger scope than a 'Project', hence ITIL addresses a much much larger area than PMP. Projects have much smaller scope and life span than Services. Most of the times 'Projects' form a part of Service Life Cycle in the sense that 'Project' are used for 'Creating and Delivering' some parts or aspects of the 'Service'.

Now talking about Projects You will hear various certifcations, methodolgies etc. As EmEs rightly pointed out, in UK and most parts of Europe Prince2 has more following/recognition and value. In US primarily it is PMP. In various other parts like Asia it depends on whether they are catering to the American or European market so its a mix of both. The way I understand the difference between PMP and Prince2 is, 'PMP' is to do with the 'Science' of Project Management, whereas 'Prince2' has more to do with the 'Process/Method' of Project Management. PMP addresses ALL aspects of Project Management while Prince2 focuses mainly on the core aspects of delivering i.e., 'inception thru to closure'. And then there are plenty other Project Management related certs, training for Agile (SCRUM, Lean, DSDM, RUP) methodologies...if you are interested in heading that way.

Now about your interest in being a Business Analyst... you may benefit from all 3, but you may want to focus on other aspects if you were to sell your self as a BA. Different companies define BA differently...there are technical BA's functional BA's..and other kind of BA's. And BA's could be involved in as small as Requirements capturing and documentation to...more wider scope including BPR, Business Architecture, Designing Solutions, Estimations, etc. You can be a choose a pure BA career path as well...and if you are keen on that you may look into aspects like TOGAF, RUP, Zachmans, etc...you will realise it's another different world.

Hope I have not overwhelmed you with the information overload

I know how you must feel. Been there....so Good Luck

Nadz

Thanks for the great post!

Nadz

N2IT wrote: »

Thanks for the great post!

Thanks N2IT