The State Of ITIL Training In 2020

The state of ITIL training in 2020

I doubt that there is anyone who hasn’t heard of ITIL4 by now, but if you are one of the few people who haven’t, then it is the latest release of ITIL the Service Management best practice framework and set of accredited certifications.

ITIL has been around in various guises for the best part of 30 years now and ITIL4 was announced in November 2017, the course and certification scheme being announced during 2018/2019.

The first ITIL4 course to come to market was ITIL® 4 Foundation in February 2019 followed by the ITIL® 4 Managing Professional Transition Module - MPT in October 2019 (allowing an easy conversion from ITIL V3 Manager to ITIL4 Managing Professional).

So now we’re in 2020 what is the state of the ITIL training and certification market?

Firstly, it’s worth saying that all the ITIL V3 training courses are still available throughout 2020 in classroom and on-line.AXELOS who own ITIL have promised 12 months’ notice of withdrawal of course certifications and as we have not heard anything so far so it’s safe to assume that ITIL V3 training is still alive and kicking. We will be running as many as we can subject to sufficient bums on seats to make them viable.

So which scheme / course should you go for?

Let’s have a quick look at the differences between ITIL V3 and ITIL4.You are probably wondering why it’s not ITIL V4.That’s because ITIL4 is named after the 4^th Industrial revolution which we are currently living in the middle of…

The ITIL V3 Training scheme

ITIL V3 courses are based on the Service Lifecycle.Looking at best practice during service strategy, service design, service transition, service operation and continual service improvement lifecycle phases.The 5 service lifecycle courses are each focused the techniques and concepts around that phase of the service lifecycle and on the appropriate underpinning processes and procedures within each lifecycle phase.

ITIL® V3 Foundation – This course covers the basic principles of Service Management and the 5 lifecycle phases and 19 of the 26 ITIL V3 processes (Note we no longer run this as a public scheduled course, but it can be run on-site and is still available on-line.

ITIL® Service Strategy – This course focuses on the business fundamentals to drive the need for IT services. This three-day course will take you through an explanation of these fundamentals and show how they drive the need for IT services and provide justification for investments. It will cover how to design, develop, and implement service management - not only as an organisational capability but also as a strategic asset.

(Click this link if you want to learn about our monitoring and event management training).

Service Design - The course focuses on the design of the IT services, including all the relevant aspects - architectures, processes and policies, and documentation. These need to be aligned to meet the needs of the business, both now, and in the future.

ITIL® Service Transition – This course focuses on managing transitions of services and processes to ensure that the maximum benefits are delivered to the target organisations. This three-day course will help you to understand the issues around controlling the building, testing and implementation of changes to services – and why it is important to do so.

ITIL® Service Operation - This course will help you to understand the IT Service Management (ITSM) processes and functions needed to keep IT services up and running in the most efficient and effective manner, including Incident, Problem, Access and Event Management plus Request Fulfilment process, plus the Service Desk. The training course will also explain how IT operations staff should be involved in processes which have their home in other parts of the ITSM Lifecycle, such as Change Management in Service Transition, and Service Level Management in Service Design

(Click here if you might be interested in our incident management qualification).

ITIL® Continual Service Improvement – This course covers the management and control of the activities and techniques within the CSI stage of the ITIL® Service Lifecycle, but not the detail of each of the supporting processes. This course is the ideal starter to set up a Continual Improvement program.

The ITIL V3 courses will be available throughout 2020 in classroom and on-line format.

The ITIL4 Training scheme

NOTE: there are not equivalent courses in the ITIL4 training scheme. It’s not a direct mapping from ITILV3 to ITIL4 training courses. Also note a lot of the process detail covered in ITIL V3 training is omitted in ITIL4 courses so ITIL V3 is still useful.AXELOS have certainly not thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

In comparison to ITIL V3, ITIL4 is based on a Service Value System, the value chain and value streams, guiding principles plus the 4 Dimensions and is less focused on the details of processes and various process activities than ITIL V3.Although there are 34 ‘practices’ only some are covered in each ITIL4 course, although practice guides are being developed and will be accessed via a subscription based ‘My ITIL’ account managed by AXELOS.

It’s expected that for the next 12 months both ITIL V3 and ITIL4 sets courses will be available. The new ITIL4 courses are:

ITIL® 4 Foundation – (has been running since February 2019) This course is a pre-requisite for attending the higher-level courses listed below. It covers the basic concepts of Service Management and introduces the Service Value System, value chains and value streams alongside the underpinning Practices (people, process & technology)

ITIL® 4 Specialist Create, Deliver & Support - CDS – (available from February 2020) This course is loosely based on the old V3 Design, Transition and Operations lifecycle phases, processes and activities, although looking at it from a value chain perspective rather than just a service lifecycle. You will learn how to plan and build a service value stream to create, deliver and support services, know how relevant ITIL practices contribute to creation, delivery and support across the SVS and value streams and know how to create, deliver and support services.

ITIL® 4 Strategist Direct, Plan & Improve - DPI - (available from February 2020) This course covers the Key Concepts of Direct, Plan & Improve including the role of GRC and know how to integrate the principles and methods into the service value system.You will be able to identify the scope of what is to be directed and/or planned, and know how to use key principles and methods of direction and planning in that context and learn how to use the key principles and methods of continual improvement for all types of improvements including value streams and practices.The course also covers how to use the key principles and methods of Communication and Organizational Change Management to direction, planning and improvement, and how to use the key principles and methods of measurement and reporting in direction, planning and improvement.

ITIL® 4 Specialist Drive Stakeholder Value - DSV – (available from February 2020) This course covers what was Business relationship Management, Service Level Management. It explains how to how to manage your customer journey, identify and how to foster stakeholder relationships.You’ll also learn how to shape demand and define service offerings whilst aligning expectations and agreeing details of services and provisioning service including on-boarding and off-boarding customers.

ITIL® 4 Specialist High Velocity IT - HVIT – (available from March 2020) This course is effectively Service Management on steroids.It explains how to effectively run Service Management is an Agile / LEAN / DevOps environment, and understand concepts regarding the high-velocity nature of the digital enterprise, including the demand it places on IT.It covers the digital product lifecycle in terms of the ITIL ‘operating model’, and how to contribute to achieving value with digital products.You will also cover the importance of the ITIL Guiding Principles and other fundamental concepts for delivering high velocity IT.

The last course in the new ITIL4 scheme training course scheme is…

ITIL® 4 Leader Digital & IT Strategy - DITS - (available from July? 2020). This course module will focus on the alignment of digital business strategy with IT strategy. The module also covers how disruption from new technologies are impacting organizations in every industry and how business leaders are responding. PLEASE NOTE: This course is still in development and details are still limited.

So, the choice is yours depending on whether you organisation is still struggling with ITIL V3 processes and the service lifecycle or wants to refocus on ITIL4 value streams and chains… or a mixture of both.

If still in doubt feel free to call us for an informal chat about the options available on 01539 736828 or email [email protected]

And before you leave our site, why not take a look at this post looking at the ITIL RACI matrix?