ITIL V3 DESCRIPTION

What is ITIL?

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a series of books developed by the United Kingdom's Office of Government Commerce (OGC), which has become the world's de facto standard for IT Service Management Best Practices. These books provide a comprehensive information structure for how to plan, deploy, maintain and improve the quality of IT service support to organizations.

ITIL sets forth an extensive collection of process and procedures that serve as guidelines for effective Service Management that have been written and enhanced over the past 15 years making them a "Best Practice". An organization can customize and configure these Best Practices to fulfill their own organizational business needs.

The ITIL Curriculum

Every member supporting an IT department has a role to play in providing an effective set of services to their customers. Within ITIL, a training regimen has been established to provide IT personnel with the requisite knowledge and understanding they need to properly fulfill their role within the IT organization's Service Management structure. There are four levels of certification within ITIL v3:

• ITIL Foundation in IT Service Management
• ITIL Intermediate: Lifecycle Modules and Capability Modules
• ITIL Expert in IT Service Management
• ITIL Master in IT Service Management

The goal from an academic standpoint in ITIL is to achieve an ITIL Masters Certificate. A credit system has been established where each certificate achieved equates to a set amount of credits earned which eventually leads to the ITIL Masters Certificate (22 Credits).

In Figure 1.1 below, you will see the credit system that starts with the ITIL V3 Foundation Course (2 Credits) then moves into the ITIL Service Lifecycle stream (3 credits each) and the IT Service Capability stream (4 credits each). One may pick and choose from either of these streams simultaneously after first completing the Foundation level. Note, the Service Lifecycle stream is focused on process and practice elements used within it and the management capabilities needed to deliver quality Service Management practices in an organization (Management oriented). The Service Capability streams primary focus is the process activities, execution and use throughout the Service Lifecycle.

Next, one must complete the Managing Across the Lifecycle course (5 credits) which ties together the relationships of both the IT Service Lifecycle stream and the IT Service Capability stream. After completing the ITIL Managing Across the Lifecycle course, and one has obtained a minimum of 22 credits, one has reached ITIL Expert status which is not a certificate.

To become an ITIL Master, one needs to complete the ITIL Masters course which has not yet been developed in ITIL V3. Although, one can still be considered an ITIL V3 Master certificate holder by obtaining 22 credits in the V3 courses including the Managing Across the Lifecycle course and talking the ITIL V2 Masters course then completing the ITIL V2 Masters to ITIL V3 Masters Bridge course.

Credits assigned to each certification module within ITIL v3 is shown in Figure 1.1 below:

Figure 1.1

ITIL v3 Course Schedule Calendar