The IT Skeptic - Comments for "Proliferation of ITIL V3 introductions and pocketbooks"

USMBOK

skeptic — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:24:00 +0000

yes Dave, USMBOK is definitely worth considering. Big heavy book and quite technical, but generalised beyond IT. More of a comprehensive classification than introductory educational explanation though

Yep I do

pjotrg — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:41:12 +0000

Good initiatve. Dutch universities do this already for some years. If you want the students to also obtain the ITIL Foundation exam I should pickt the Van Haren Introduction. You can have the university accredited via EXIN. They have special arrangements for universities (and other public education). Drop me a line if you want to know more.

Otherwise I would have a look at Ian Clayton's ITSM BOK (do not know if I got the name of the book 100% right)

It's a healthy sign - but I'm not sure what to pick

dave — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:58:41 +0000

I would be worried if there were NOT many people writing books on it. I don't see a "dummy's guide" from IDG though (wait an hour).

Any topic which is more than an obscure niche has many people writing both tutorial texts and more advanced. Do an Amazon Search on "project management" or to keep it closer to ITIL, pick a single methodology - say "prince2" or "pmi".

What I don't see are hints to my particular need. I have put my hand up to teach ITSM to students in their final year of an IT degree. I'm doing this because I think that these concepts are important for our students; not because I am an expert. I'm not by any means , I'm mainly a network/sys-admin guy. But I will try to do as good a job as I can in preparing my students, and know I will get better over time.

But I really REALLY need a textbook to help my students. Yes I will be using online articles, pulling pieces in from the ITIL library, MOF, BECTA-FITS and the sceptic will be seen often, but I'd like something to tie it all together. And it needs to be accessible to people who do NOT have the context of having worked for years in IT depts.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

a backlog of book reviews

skeptic — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:10:23 +0000

As an unpaid service provider, I have a backlog of two book reviews already: CMDB Imperative and Building an ITIL-Based Service Management Department. If OGC and TSO and itSMF all worked as one team we'd have one good official book.

poor ITIL newbies

Visitor — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:36:08 +0000

Well the poor ITIL newbie on a limited budget doesn't have to buy all these books - just one will do if it is good enough. However they're 'expected' to buy the complete set of the ITIL Lifecycle suite - currently selling for $483.81 acording to the amazon link on your blog. If these foundation books weren't around they really wouldn't have a choice but to spend nearly $500 ($785 at full list price!)

Perhaps you could do the poor newbie a service and publish reviews of the foundation books mentioned so they have an informed choice rather than relying on guesswork.

Chris

many more beginners' books

skeptic — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:39:05 +0000

...and then there is IT Service Management - An Introduction based on ISO 20000 and ITIL V3 (English version) (ITSM Library) and Foundations of IT Service Management: The Unofficial ITIL v3 Foundations Course in a Book and Foundations of IT Service Management Based on ITIL V3 and The ITIL V3 Service Management Awareness Pocket Guide - The ITIL V3 Pocket Toolbook and Introduction To Real Itsm (Oops! how did that get in there?) But like the BCS books, they don't have the official swirls and stuff plastered all over them.

Of course one more book does have all the logos on the cover: Passing Your ITIL Foundation Exam

Poor poor ITIL newbie on a limited budget....

And not forgetting....

Matthew Flynn — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:40:04 +0000

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, also have a introductory book coming out: [http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.10905 IT Service Management Foundation: A Guide for Foundation Exam Candidates]

Together with a [http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.10906 Foundation Level Practice questions book] it will be the start of a series of books we're publishing in the ITSM area.

As you say open competition is good to see. We'll just have to hope that quality will win the day.

Matthew
BCS Book Publisher