ITIL Education

The ITIL certification scheme enables an individual to gain credits for ITIL® courses. There are four levels within the scheme: Foundation, Intermediate,  Expert and Master. The Foundation level is the entry level qualification which offers candidates a general awareness of the key elements, concepts and terminology used in the ITIL® Service Lifecycle, including the linkages between Lifecycle stages, the processes used and their contribution to Service Management practices.

 

In ITIL Intermediate level, has a modular structure with each module holding a different focus. Candidates can take as few or as many Intermediate qualifications as they require, and to suit their needs. The Intermediate modules go into more detail than the Foundation level and is an industry-recognized qualification.
 

The ITIL Expert level of qualification is aimed at those individuals who are interested in demonstrating a superior level of knowledge of the ITIL® Scheme in its entirety. Achieving this level of ITIL® qualification will benefit a candidate in both their personal and professional development, by aiding career advancement and progression within the IT Service Management field. Candidates who achieve ITIL® Expert level will also satisfy the prerequisite entry criteria for the ITIL® Master Level; the highest level qualification within the ITIL scheme. 

Source: http://www.benchmarklearning.com/COMMUNITIES/ITIL/ITIL/training.aspx

Should Lean replace ITIL as the guiding force for business technology?

With service desks desperate for more time to focus on challenges such as supporting user devices and delivering mobile centric services, James West questions whether the vastly expanding ITIL body of knowledge has made itself irrelevant and that perhaps Lean now offers much clearer guidance for IT.

As part of its Lean qualification announcement, APMG emphasises how Lean is designed to complement, rather than replace popular IT frameworks such as ITIL.  However, with reception to ITIL 2011 being at best lukewarm, is there a case for stating that Lean is now a better fit for IT departments trying to meet the current (and future) raft of challenges?

The idea may not be as outlandish as it first appears when viewed in the context of IT and the modern business world.  It is well documented that IT, and the way that businesses and their staff use technology, is changing at a faster rate than any time in history, with user devices, social media, cloud and mobility being the most visible agents of change.

No one can legitimately claim to have a perfect plan for dealing with these issues, because they have helped create an inherently unstable and undefined technology landscape.  In the absence of a proven rule book or template, the only logical certainty is that IT must now be more ready to adapt than it has in the past.

Following this line of thinking, desirable traits IT needs to demonstrate include speed, agility and clean simplicity, and these are all areas that Lean purports to help deliver.  In contrast, look at the latest version of ITIL, which attempts to add clarity by massively expanding an already daunting body of text.  The point is that at a time when IT desperately needs to unshackle itself from conventions and long established working practices, when IT needs to be clearly defined and uncluttered to stand a chance of remaining relevant, the response from ITIL is to add more words.

Lean can’t possibly offer all the answers and it doesn’t offer the core, logical ITSM processes that ensure ITIL is still a useful reference tool.  But while the underlining principles of Lean are in step with what IT needs to become, ITIL appears to represent the over complicated past that is one of the prime reasons why technology departments are struggling to keep up with the pace of change.

Source: http://www.servicedesk360.com/featured-articles/is-lean-replacing-itil-as-the-future-of-business-technology/