What use is Passing Your ITIL Foundation Exam now?

Submitted by skeptic on Wed, 2009-06-17 20:55
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How many revisions of the ITIL V3 Foundation syllabus have we had since Passing Your ITIL Foundation Exam was published? It must be pretty badly out of date by now. [Update: TSO's ITIL Foundation Handbook was revised in June 2009 to fully comply with the May updates. But Passing Your ITIL Foundation Exam is still dated November 2007.
Update update: A new version of the book is available: Passing Your ITIL Foundation Exam (updated to 2009 syllabus)

The rest of this post is obsolete now: here for historical record only]


The offiical ITIL V3 Complementary publication Passing Your ITIL Foundation Exam - The ITIL Foundation Study Aid Book was published in November 2007. The latest Errata for it are dated December 2007. By my count there have been at least two revisions of the syllabus since then counting the simplification going on right now (see "ITIL V3 Foundations effectively put on hold until May 2009? ").

Somebody more expert than me, please comment. Just how close is the book to the new syllabus? Is it still useful as a study aid? I'm sure it is still an excellent introduction to ITIL V3, but...

P.S. I'd like to sell it to you new but it is not listed as new on Amazon.com, though it is on Amazon.co.uk. TSO need to learn how to list properly on Amazon - not being on the US site must cost them dearly. I have personal experience of just how badly disconnected Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk are, but a publisher the size of TSO ought to be able to make it work.

Published in The Skeptical Informer, March 2009, Volume 3, No. 3


Comments

Submitted by Joaquin Bañez (not verified) on Thu, 2009-06-18 15:22.

I passed my ITIL Foundation Exam 2 weeks ago

I passed my ITIL Foundation Exam 2 weeks ago basically reading the itSMFi book and did really well; I had also bought "Passing your ITIL Foundation Exam" around march, but used it very little, and I found sample questions were quite weird -and I could confirm that when I sat the exam.

Prior to sit the exam I thought of waiting until the new syllabus was published, but couldn't hold me back... Anyway, now I think I should have spent my money buying the Pocket Guide instead of "Passing your...", as it would do for the exam and will still be useful for work.

Submitted by PELIJN on Tue, 2009-03-10 21:16.

It is really out of date



The Passing your ITIL v3 Foundation book is out of date. We still use it in some of the Foundation courses we run, but we have to tell people: don't try the exam questions, because they are old. The same thing applies to some of the text.
The syllabus is going to change again on May 1, 2009... so even less value then.

It just confused people.

By the way Have you seen the TSO ITIL v3 Foundation handbook? I ordered one, but would love to see some comments on that one.

http://www.tsoshop.co.uk/bookstore.asp?FO=1159966&DI=583769#GEMS6439527

Really funny though. They sell one copy for GBP 9.95.... and if you order 10 copies you get a deal: GBP 99.50 ....

Regards
Peter Lijnse

Submitted by Liz Gallacher on Wed, 2009-03-11 08:59.

Discounts

Make sure that you are logged onto the itsmf website, the price should then go down to £7.96. Be careful if you are ordering multiple copies - experiment with different amounts - 100 copies gets the discounted price down to £7.46, whereas 101 copies gets it down to £6.96. So you get another copy, but pay £42.73 less!
Liz Gallacher
Freelance Trainer and Consultant

Submitted by Annelise (not verified) on Thu, 2009-03-12 10:53.

Pocket Books


Readers might like to know that the ITSMFI Pocket Book (IT Service Management based on ITIL V3) is published by Van Haren Publishing and is available in the English version for 11,95 Euros (c. 11 Sterling). Price for 10 copies for end users is Euros 99,50 (approx 92 Sterling).
Most Chapters stock the single copy option and give a member discount
Translations are available at a slighly more expensive rate in Japanese, Italian, Dutch, German and Spanish

(Skep: I have tried to avoid a shameless plug by cutting out any marketing speak in this response -- hope I got the balance right!)

Submitted by skeptic on Thu, 2009-03-12 19:17.

People's Liberation Front of Judea


Shades of the "People's Liberation Front of Judea"! Everyone has the official book. For a handy pocket reference you can buy

  • the Key Element guides fron OGC
  • the itSMFI (but actually itSMFUK) Introduction to ITIL V3
  • the pocket book from the "Official Publisher of ITIL" as TSO bill theirs
  • "the ITSMFI pocketbook" from the Netherlands
  • of course Art of Service have one too (shown here)
  • and Van Haren have an almost identical-looking one on "ITSM" instead of "ITIL"

That's what we like to see, open competition in all its glory. Pity the poor punter though new to ITIL and trying to work it all out.

[Updated: P.S. I've been working on a post about this for a while. Coming soon]

Submitted by Michiel on Fri, 2009-03-13 12:18.

one more pick

And of course, there is 'De Kleine ITIL' for Dutch and Flamish readers (SDU publishers), a handy pocketguide covering ITIL v3, and extended with practical tips & tricks.

Submitted by skeptic on Wed, 2009-03-11 18:56.

logged onto the itsmf website

That's all very well for you Brits. itSMF membership is so fragmented that this is problematic for many other countries.

Submitted by Duncs on Sat, 2009-03-07 13:47.

Second Impression 2008


I've got two copies on the shelf next to me as there was an update last year which did a little of that years updating. I used to use it on Foundation courses but replaced it with the ITILv3 Foundation Handbook as that showed the syllabus items plus extras so was a better reference after the course.

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