Friday, July 3, 2009

ITIL Training - Are We Ready for V3

By William A Edwards MBCS, BA(Hons)

It is now two years since the OGC launched ITIL (R) version 3; its best practice guidance for IT Service Management. Since the launch, the administrators of the examination scheme (APMG) have been busy getting the new qualifications scheme, leading to the ITIL Expert qualification, into shape.

But the whole thing could be dead in the water before it has even got going properly according to the most recently published figures for ITIL training. It seems that whilst the foundation course is popular for version 3, the more advanced training courses have been rather slow to take-off.

The large number of courses now required to be completed and corresponding examinations to be passed in order to obtain the expert qualification may, to a large extent, be responsible for the low demand at the intermediate level. The older V2 Service Sanager certificate could be completed, start to finish, in only 13 days whereas the new ITIL Expert qualification would now take up to 27 days to finish.

The version 3 scheme has 3 levels and an additional 4th level is planned. Is all this training really what people actually want and need or could it be just another money-spinner for the scheme administrators and the training providers? The answer from the market seems to be that the new courses are not wanted -at least for the present.

While the V2 Service Manager qualification scheme remains open, it presents a more direct route to the V3 qualification; and that, I believe, is an important reason the V3 scheme is not yet working properly. Given a straight choice, people would rather pay less, take less examinations and get the qualification quicker after all.

It is, in my opinion, time for APMG to be decisive and act immediately to support the V3 qualifications scheme. It is finally time to axe the old V2 qualifications and really get behind the new scheme.

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