Intro into ITIL books, ITIL Certification and Materials for Study

ITIL is a world-renowned IT framework dedicated mainly to IT Service Management (ITSM) and other management systems delivering business value to their customers. ITIL has provided thorough, practical, and proven guidelines for developing an IT service management system for the last 30 years. It has also promoted continuous development for enterprises using and providing IT-enabled services.

ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) certifications are considered one of the most valuable in the ITSM (IT Service Management) field. Getting an ITIL certification could help land a job, get a promotion, or take their career to the next level, especially if they want to become CTO or CIO. ITIL is a robust IT service management framework that can also help organizations in various regards, such as:

1. Risk management.
2. Enhanced productivity.
3. Reduction in service development and deployment cost.
4. Strong customer relations.
5. Building an agile IT environment.

The ITIL framework gives a detailed list of ways to manage and deliver IT services. It helps organizations by presenting them with relevant practices, tasks, and advice while enabling them to deliver the best possible services to their customers. With ITIL, a company can benefit itself in various ways, such as:

1. Continuous improvement of services.
2. Demonstration of compliance.
3. Prevention of common loopholes and negative consequences.

The ITIL framework is not just for one industry, company size, or type of organization (private, public, etc.). ITIL could be for anyone using technology to handle customer services. This can be understood from the fact that nearly every major organization has implemented ITIL within its framework. IBM, HBSC, and NASA are just a few of the well-known companies to be named in this regard.

ITIL allows organizations to combine strategies with the practices from other popular frameworks, like:

• Six Sigma.
• ISO 20000.
• TOGAF.
• COBIT.

ITIL Training and Certification

Axelos currently owns the ITIL framework, and it ensures it stays up to date. It also accredits ITIL training and exam centers. There are hundreds of ITIL Accredited Training Organizations (ATOs), and the certification exam is given at the end of the training course or by a partner examination institute.

Specialists have to update their ITIL certification within three years from the issue date by one of the ways:

1. Retake the same ITIL exam before the expiration date.
2. Take further courses and certifications in the same product suite/family of the certification.
3. Collect and log Continuing Professional Development points through the CPD program. Candidates are required to submit a minimum of 20 CPD points annually, across various CPD categories, for three consecutive years.

If you don’t renew your certificate within the three years period, you will still be listed in the Successful Candidates Register (SCR) and your certificate will be still valid. But PeopleCert will apply a note to the record indicating that the certification is not aligned with the current certification requirements. A certificate that passed its renew-by date will be also still accepted as prerequisite for another exam.

As a result, ITIL is great certification you can add to your portfolio even if you don’t plan to renew it.

ITIL Certification Levels

Let’s now look into structure of ITIL exams and certificates. First, every candidate is required to pass ITIL Foundation exam. After that two tracks (ITIL Managing Professional and ITIL Strategic Leader) become available.

ITIL 4 Managing Professional (MP)

To call yourself ITIL Managing Professional, you have to pass exams:

1. ITIL 4 Specialist Create, Deliver & Support (CDS): This module covers the core service management tasks and extends the existing ITIL scope to include service development. It integrates various value streams and activities to develop, deliver, and maintain IT-enabled goods and services. Moreover, it also emphasizes techniques, methodologies, and tools to support this integration.
2. ITIL 4 Specialist Drive Stakeholder Value (DSV): This module addresses all forms of engagement and contact among service provider and their clients, users, partners, and suppliers.
3. ITIL 4 Specialist High-Velocity IT (HVIT): This module examines how digital organizations and operational models work in rapidly changing environments.
4. ITIL 4 Strategist Direct, Plan & Improve (DPI): This module equips participants with the practical skills required to establish a learning and improving IT organization with a robust and successful strategic direction.

ITIL 4 Strategic Leader (SL)

To become ITIL Strategic Leader, you have to pass exams:

1. ITIL 4 Strategist Direct, Plan & Improve (DPI): This module equips participants with the practical skills required to establish a learning and improving IT organization with a robust and successful strategic direction.
2. ITIL 4 Leader Digital & IT Strategy (DITS): This session focuses on aligning IT strategy with digital business strategy. It also addresses the disruptive effects of new technology on businesses across all industries and how business leaders can adapt to those changes.

ITIL 4 Practice Manager (PM)

To be awarded the Practice Manager designation, you must achieve ITIL 4 Specialist Create, Deliver & Support (ITIL MP CDS) certificate and ANY five practice-based certifications, OR ITIL MP CDS certificate and any ONE of the pre-bundled courses. These may include the ITAM and BRM extension modules or any practices from the Practice Manager track.

ITIL 4 Master

ITIL4 Master will be awarded to candidates who achieve the Practice Manager (PM), Managing Professional (MP), and Strategic Leader (SL) designations.

Prepare for the Exams and Further Reading

To pass the exams, you can buy costly courses from certified training centers, use courses from websites like Udemy or prepare yourself. The content of training won’t differ much as all of them are based on the same Exam Syllabus and ITIL books. Then why not read the original books and get ready by yourself to save some money? All of the books can be downloaded in PDF for free following the corresponding link to my Telegram channel:

1. ITIL 4 Foundation: this module introduces an end-to-end operating model for the creation, delivery and continual improvement of technology-enabled products and services. Download book.
2. ITIL 4 Specialist Create, Deliver & Support (CDS): This module covers the core service management tasks and extends the existing ITIL scope to include service development. It integrates various value streams and activities to develop, deliver, and maintain IT-enabled goods and services. Moreover, it also emphasizes techniques, methodologies, and tools to support this integration. Download book.
3. ITIL 4 Specialist Drive Stakeholder Value (DSV): This module addresses all forms of engagement and contact among service provider and their clients, users, partners, and suppliers. Download book.
4. ITIL 4 Specialist High-Velocity IT (HVIT): This module examines how digital organizations and operational models work in rapidly changing environments. Download book.
5. ITIL 4 Strategist Direct, Plan & Improve (DPI): This module equips participants with the practical skills required to establish a learning and improving IT organization with a robust and successful strategic direction. Download book.
6. ITIL 4 Leader Digital & IT Strategy (DITS): This session focuses on aligning IT strategy with digital business strategy. It also addresses the disruptive effects of new technology on businesses across all industries and how business leaders can adapt to those changes. Download book.

In addition to main books that correspond to the exams, you may want to explore ITIL 4 Practice Guides. They allow you to refresh understanding of the basics of a particular practice, such as Incident Management, to present content on service management to your colleagues, to dive deeper into particular practice’s metrics and measurements, modernize your own activities, or even figure out how a practice fits into your organization’s value streams and processes. Download book.