ITIL Foundation Course?

[slloyd]

I'm looking to further my career in the field of IT and for the last 3 years now I have slowly began to remove myself from the Technical side of IT and become more into Management and Project Planning. Although I do like to keep my hand in...just my role now is split 60/40 but I feel like my technical gloves should be hung up and retired.

My question is, I don't have too deep pockets and wanted to know if I could study and pass the ITIL Foundation Course without the need of going on a 1-3 days course and where can I download all the required material to do so.

Thanks, Steve.

[timwilky]

It is a condition of employment in my company that everyone is ITIL foundation. OK the company paid for everyone to do it.

The exam is a b'stard. OK it is easy to pass, but bloody hard to get 100%. only 40 questions but you need to give the textbook answer. of the 300 of us in the UK. Only one got all 40. a couple got 39. I got 34 and I think the pass is 28. The only one who failed was the accounts clerk and all question why she had to do it.

Whilst in some ways it is teaching your granny to suck eggs. You have to use the right terminology. A server going down is not a problem. It is an incident etc. I think many IT companies now base themselves on ITIL practice. so having the foundation is no bad thing. But it should be as in my companies case for everyone. Business and project managers then need to be doing extra qual's such as service management etc.

Just doing a reading exercise will not pass the exam. You really do need the course

[600+]

Currently studying for my ITIL Managers exam......end of April is the date :(

I would strongly suggest you do the 3 day course for the v3 Foundation. What you get out of the course is what you need to pass. If you are in the job then with some common sense you will get a good mark. Doesn't matter though.

Check some of the training companies as they do online courses and these cost less. If you need any help feel free to msg me.

[-Ralph-]

+1 to above. Foundation level ITIL is easy, but the questions can be a bit stupid. It has a few questions that seem like trick questions, and a few where the answer is not what you expect because of the way you read the question. I commented afterwards that I didn't know if the exam was trying to test my knowledge of ITIL, or my ability to spot a trap, or ability to be extremely pedantic in my use of English.

It's the kind of course where you need to be trained to pass the exam, even if you could learn all the material perfectly satisfactorily for day to day use by yourself.

[steveg]

I had to do the ITIL foundation course , not hard just dull :(

Cheers Steveg

[slloyd]

Thanks folks for all your responses and guidance, and looks like I'll have to look around for a good training organisation within the M25 to get this underway. I don't want to ask my current company to foot the bill as I'll then be tied to the job with the qualification if I do pass - or would need to pay the cost back if I decided to leave.

Also on a side note is PRINCE2 worth taking?

[-Ralph-]

and become more into Management and Project Planning.

Also on a side note is PRINCE2 worth taking?

Much more so than ITIL IMO, of course if you have both, better again.

[squirrel_hunter]

Also on a side note is PRINCE2 worth taking?

Stretchie has done some PRINCE2. We used the manual to spread the load of his Thundercat engine on the jack when we dropped it out the frame.

As for ITIL, I've not done it. However my former company sent a lot of the management on a course for it not so long ago. My Dev manager fired a load of the exam questions at me, and I got them all right apart from the ones that required the knowledge of the terminology used. I've never read a manual on it.

The thing with ITIL and PRINCE2 (or any other) methodologies is its all good to go on a course its another thing to actually use what has been learned. After all that ITIL covers the only difference that we made was the introduction of a more complicated and meaningless Change Control system and an introduction of a Change Advisory Board (don't get me started on this one). None of the project management techniques were ever implemented, it was as if ITIL never happened...

[krhall]

ITIL foundation very boring, but many places do require it.

Do some microsoft courses, we are now a Microsoft IT Academy!

[-Ralph-]

The thing with ITIL and PRINCE2 (or any other) methodologies is its all good to go on a course its another thing to actually use what has been learned. After all that ITIL covers the only difference that we made was the introduction of a more complicated and meaningless Change Control system and an introduction of a Change Advisory Board (don't get me started on this one). None of the project management techniques were ever implemented, it was as if ITIL never happened...

Bet your place still advertises themselves as ITIL compliant when they are selling to customers though :rolleyes:

Lots of places try to put in ITIL process and procedure and fail, either because they didn't understand what it was beforehand, or they tried to do it in prescriptive manner. It's a framework, a toolset, not a set of hard and fast rules, you draw from it what suits your business and provides a benefit. There's not point in putting in a procedure that becomes an obstruction to the way you do things, unless the way you do it already is causing you to fail. Same goes for PRINCE.

My career has mainly played out amongst the big outsource organisations such as Capgemini, there getting fairly close to ITIL is pretty essential with so many people and so many customers involved in a single support organisation. Your organisation needs to be pretty close to ITIL to achieve ISO27001 accreditation too, which a lot of the big tenders are now stating as a pre-requisite.

[600+]

I'm with Ralph on this one! ITIL and any other methodology is adopt and adapt.

But going back to the OPs topic:)

I think you need to decide for starts where you want to be. If that is Service Management then get on the ITIL wagon first. If you prefer Project Mgt then get on the Prince2 wagon.

You can always jump ship after you have done the job for a few years. Many people go from SM to PM and vice versa. Two different jobs and Service Mgt is a very wide spectrum of opportunities depending on the organisation you work for.

I've been through problem mgt, incident mgt, service level mgt and now I'm more focused on risk, audits and compliance for a portfolio of services. Getting bored of it (and the organisation) so looking for a change.

Bare in mind that Prince2 requires a refresh every 2 years!! ITIL you get for life.

[-Ralph-]

If you prefer Project Mgt then get on the Prince2 wagon.

Then get on the ITIL wagon after, if you are delivering IT implementations which will be handed into a service delivery organisation for live system support afterwards.

Last time I was doing any major PM work, my job was to manage the transition of existing IT services from incumbent suppliers who we had just won the deal from. This involved setting up the service desks and support teams, on bigger deals from scratch, and smaller deals into existing syndicated teams, so a mix of ITIL and PRINCE was essential in that role. I also had to stick with the service after go-live and act as the operations manager for three months (which I hated) to ensure that at the end of the transition we did not just hand a crying baby over to somebody else, bit of an incentive to do a good job of the transition!

[squirrel_hunter]

Bet your place still advertises themselves as ITIL compliant when they are selling to customers though :rolleyes:

Not exactly. But what you said goes some way to explaining the events of recent months.

Lots of places try to put in ITIL process and procedure and fail, either because they didn't understand what it was beforehand, or they tried to do it in prescriptive manner. It's a framework, a toolset, not a set of hard and fast rules, you draw from it what suits your business and provides a benefit. There's not point in putting in a procedure that becomes an obstruction to the way you do things, unless the way you do it already is causing you to fail. Same goes for PRINCE.

And I would very much agree with everything in that statement.

[slloyd]

I think you need to decide for starts where you want to be. If that is Service Management then get on the ITIL wagon first. If you prefer Project Mgt then get on the Prince2 wagon.

I think Service Management is more suited to me, and where I am in my career right now but is ITIL Foundations really required in the workplace, or is it just another buzz word that organisations want on paper, but it's common sense that always prevails.

Although without it, I bet I won't get through the door of any companies requiring it.

[timwilky]

Anyone wanting to work in an organisation delivering IT services must have ITIL to get anywhere. As I said in my post. It is a condition of employment in my company

[slloyd]

timwilky: that said I will need to adapt my mindset then, and move forward.

Thanks everyone for the advice and guidance.

[-Ralph-]

I think Service Management is more suited to me, and where I am in my career right now but is ITIL Foundations really required in the workplace, or is it just another buzz word that organisations want on paper, but it's common sense that always prevails.

Although without it, I bet I won't get through the door of any companies requiring it.

It's not just a buzz word, no. I don't know of a customer worth having that will award an IT services contract to an organistion who don't, or at least don't claim to be, ITIL compliant.

That's not necessarily to say that all doors are closed to you until you get ITIL, as most employers would expect to have to train those that don't already have it, but whether you do it now or with your next employer, you will have to do it to progress in IT service management.

My current employer had an issue when they employed me because my MCSE was not up to date, to which my reply was "Well that's very easily fixed with a 1 or 2 week crash course isn't it, the only issue is who pays for it which I'm happy to have a discussion on", to which the interviewer thought about it and replied "I suppose if you put it into that perspective it's not an issue".

[slloyd]

That's not necessarily to say that all doors are closed to you until you get ITIL, as most employers would expect to have to train those that don't already have it, but whether you do it now or with your next employer, you will have to do it to progress in IT service management.

My current employer had an issue when they employed me because my MCSE was not up to date, to which my reply was "Well that's very easily fixed with a 1 or 2 week crash course isn't it, the only issue is who pays for it which I'm happy to have a discussion on", to which the interviewer thought about it and replied "I suppose if you put it into that perspective it's not an issue".

Thanks for that -Ralph-; that could be a conversation I could be having.
Anyway who paid for the MSCE update in end then? ;) and a 2 week crash must have been fun for you. not.

[-Ralph-]

Anyway who paid for the MSCE update in end then? ;) and a 2 week crash must have been fun for you. not.

Never did it and I've been there 16 months, shows how much of an issue it really was after all! It's amazing what people THINK they need.

I need to get up to scratch as I'm a Technical Pre-sales Architect, doing sales, system design, pricing and product strategy, and the idea is that I know what I'm talking about to recommend, design and sell solutions to customers. The truth is I'm well out of date having not touched, for instance Windows or Exchange since 2003 versions, I have no practical experience of Win2008 or Exch2007 and now we are on Exch 2010. I'll be pushing them in this financial year to put me though the crash course as my last MCSE was in Windows NT 4.0 and I did an update course when Windows 2000 came out! I'm also a version behind on VMware VCP and Citrix XenApp. The only think I am up to date on is NetApp ASAP.

I am supposed to do 80% sales and commercial and 20% technical implementation, but since I joined the company I haven't done any hands-on technical at all. I intend to change that this year as it's getting to the point I can't do the 80% effectively as I'm missing the up to date technical knowledge and experience.

How can I really talk about the latest products if I have never actually implemented them, and I'm in hosting so I need to use the latest technology to develop product strategy "as a service" product offerings and I can't do that if all I know about a products capabilities is the claims Microsoft makes about the product on their website. I need to be able to test products and see if they really are as good as Microsoft say they are (usually not the case!).