The IT Skeptic - Comments for "Feedback on the ITIL V3 manager's bridge exam"

ITIL v3 Bridge exam

morticia — Fri, 13 May 2011 18:24:15 +0000

I just recently passed this exam.

I think as an exam it solely tests the entrants ability to remember the course / book material. Therefore, is not a good preparation for the real world.
Certainly in my current organisation I am seeing 'ITIL pedants': people who have V3 qualifications in ITSM roles who have very little real world experience. Like the exam, it results in a sort of tick-box, theoretical approach to ITIL.

I just passed the ITIL V3

Sonny — Sun, 08 May 2011 14:56:22 +0000

I just passed the ITIL V3 Managers Bridge Exam. In my view, this exam was designed for those who already possess a V2 manager’s certificate (Red Badge), which in my view from a V2 perspective you are an expert but for the introduction of V3 required certification to transition your V2 expertise to V3. Exin thinking in my view, was rather than expect a long-winded approach to those otherwise would not have been required to re-test, they provided a 20 question objective approach for already experts to pass to acquire rightly so, the V3 expertise. Now, in my view the thinking is right, but you can imagine telling someone who has already a driver license with x amount of years of driving to re-test, perhaps, on new criteria, hmmm hard to get rid of known habits...

That’s exactly what this V3 MB exam requires, forget completely about V2 approach when you choose your answers...

Keep reading (there are no short-cuts) and have a good go at the exam no matter how many times before the end of June 2011, you would get it!

Goodluck

University Higher Education Examples

Sandra Whittleston — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 09:47:12 +0000

I am the course leader for the MSc in ITSM at my university (Bolton). I am more than happy to discuss what I consider to be an important issue for the ITSM industry. Taking on board this thread about the ITIL V3 Qualifications it was a key driver for me to bring a more considered approach to explore the material in depth. Having taken the V3 Manager's Bridge I was left cold. Designing the MSc in ITSM built on V3, it was interesting to see what was missing from the Bridge approach.

I also think much of this depends on whether students/candidates study ITSM practices or pure ITIL. We feel that ITIL on its own is quite restrictive.

To be honest (like all things) there are good and not so good aspects of what we do, but as we work with sector quality standards we constantly seek to reflect, review and improve, and this year we have improved some aspects which didn't work so well during our initial launch. A huge plus this year is that we have ITSM industry mentors helping the students, which puts a practical (field-based) element to study - it has made a huge difference. The course at Bolton is currently a taught masters but we are bringing on a fully on-line work-based masters built on organisational issues agreed with the student and their employer. We feel this will have a more direct affect on learning and motivation. This is still going through validation processes but we hope to have it sorted to deliver in September this year.

Having spent the past five years planning and now delivering (since 2009), I realise just how tricky all this is to get right. There is no easy answer especially as the courses run and managed by APM Group are embedded into the psyche and academia has its own ways of doing things.

Good luck whichever path you chose, as I say happy to chat on here or by other means.

Sandra

Used this book as a study

Visitor — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 03:51:47 +0000

Used this book as a study guide for my Managers bridge, got the pass on my 3rd attempt. Pethetic exam which make referances to specific vage statements in the core books. Found the V2 managers exam more worthy as you get the opportunity to explain your answers based on your experiance / logic and best practice, afterall ITIl doesnt specifically tell you how to do something thats more of an iso20K area.

totally agree. Written by

jkstiles — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 22:15:55 +0000

totally agree. Written by someone whose native language is Dutch but speaks English. By the time it got to us in the US (where we don't speak English), the Denglish was sometimes indecipherable.

Anonymous correspondent

Andrew C — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 10:55:27 +0000

Anonymous correspondent wrote: "The downside of this of course is that with multiple choice you get no chance to explain your thinking so you are either right or wrong depending on their definition of 'best'."
I have also recently written this exam. I have to disagree that any of the answers are subjective. The exam very obviously [and take this comment lightly as you only get 20 questions from a huge database I assume - so my experience is related from my 20 questions] based on the ITIL V2-V3 training material. If you are doing as I did, trying to apply your years of knowledge as a certified V2 ITSM consultant you will fail. You are required to sift through the provided answers and pick the answer that best relates to the training material. In fact, you should not read the case studies first and then look at the questions this will only serve to confuse. You should read the questions first, eliminate the obvious ones that do not relate to ITIL, then go back and pick the best one of the usually 2 remaining that best relates to the question.

My complaint is slightly different. - you get 20 questions. This in my opinion is way to small a sample to adequately test your knowledge. Having recently written [and passed] my CISSP exam which was 250 multiple choice questions, I believe this method to be the correct approach. It is a meaningful mechanism that properly tests a broad base of knowledge pertaining to the subject. Quite frankly to have only 20 questions on a topic as large and complex as ITIL V3 is somewhat insulting and cheapens the qualification.

Manager's Bridge book.

Matthew Flynn — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:11:00 +0000

Phanto

You might find this book useful.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1906124205?ie=UTF8&tag=thitsk-20&linkCo...

It was written specifically to as an extra resource for those taking a v2 to v3 Manager's Bridge training course and exam.

Matthew Flynn
Book Publisher - BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.

Exam mock ups

Phanto — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 11:42:14 +0000

Hi,

Have anybody any resources or sample exam mock ups for ITIL Expert - bridge from ITSM V2?

Thanks

Sour grapes

Visitor — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 18:11:54 +0000

OK, I understand where you are coming from,- I wrote and passed.

Yes they test the books, but that is the key, the new books are about ITSM, and although the V3 Bridge is just that, we formed an independant study group on the books before we did the course and exam, I think they are 200% better than the old stuff, and hughly more applicable.

am I an Expert - mmm if they want to call me that - fine, the essence of V3 is about understanding that what you know and do, can be improved on, and if that is what an expert is I am cool with the idea.

ISO 20k Foundation

aroos — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 05:36:00 +0000

I'm busy training the ISO20k Foundation course with certification exam by EXIN. Check here

Br Aale

Case studies is a start

skeptic — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:16:46 +0000

Case studies is a start - better than multi-choice :-D One hopes the process will be transparent.

Anyone who wants to leak to me the details I'd be grateful :-D

Any One else concerned about the need to submit case studies

Visitor — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:38:57 +0000

To reach the pinnacle you now will have to demonstrate your expertise. By submitting case studies. to APMG.

What is done with them, who reviews them, how they are managed is unclear.
So I will stick with my expert title for V3 and use my red badge to provie I can structure a solution.

Not happy, but resigned. ISO 20000 looks so much more appealing to my clients.

Has anyone heard any news on whether EXIN will be offering a version of ISO2000 based certifications?

As above, I'm slightly....no

Confused — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:29:59 +0000

As above, I'm slightly....no more than slightly...hugely perturbed by a failure which is based on the fact that 18 of the questions in the live exam were similar if not the same as example questions during the course. Obviously I answered all of these the same (as marked correctly by the instructor) so where did I go wrong?

As with previous practitioner courses, trying to get any feedback is impossible, so I am left with thinking maybe I didn't get it....despite all the evidence to the contrary.

I am totally disatisifed

Disillusioned — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:17:36 +0000

I am totally disatisifed with the whole v3 Managers' Bridge malarky.
I'm not embarrassed to say that I've taken the exam twice now and failed both times. I'm almost proud of the fact as it proves my point.

In my opinion if I had passed the exam I would hate to be considered an ITIL Expert because of it.
Where on Earth did that the term 'ITIL Expert' come from? Isn't ITIL v3 all about working with other methodologies?
Shouldn't it at least be 'IT Service Management Expert'?

In no way does the exam test your knowledge of ITIL v3- all it tests is the candidate's abiltity to recount what was in the course notes. It doesn't matter if you have a case for questioning the examiner's answer - as long as your answer is the same as the examiners - you're ok. At least in v2 you could give your own interpretation and be rewarded for it. Isn't being an expert all about questioning 'the Correct way'?

To be called an 'Expert' I would like to be able to contest 'the books' and give an explanation that I know works and would be accepted by an adopter of ITIL. I don't want to be told that I am wrong irrespective of my reasoning.

And then on top of all this you get questions about resourcing levels on the Service Desk that could be applied to v1, let alone v2 of ITIL?!!?

WHEN WILL APMG SIT UP AND LISTEN TO ALL OF THE DISATISFACTION WITH THIS APPROACH INSTEAD OF SITTING IN THEIR IVORY TOWERS WITH THE ATTITUDE OF 'WHO CARES? WE'RE MAKING MONEY'

Who is behind ITIL certification?

skeptic — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:24:45 +0000

Citizen, see this new post

I think some academic institutions recognises ITIL certification for ITSM degrees.

EXIN developed most of the ITIL exams

jvbon — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:47:01 +0000

EXIN is an examination institute in the Neherlands that has been around as a professional organization for decades. They provide a wide series of exams on management and information technology. It was EXIN that developed the ITIL Essentials exam (now widely known as ITIL Foundation) in 1994. I was part of that team, so I remember it well. Actually this project was the reason we installed the Dutch ITSMF later that year.

That first ITIL foundation exam was licensed to ISEB in the following years. ISEB didn't start developing any exam questions of their own till years later.
It was also EXIN that developed the ITIL Practitioner exams - which were then copied by ISEB.

The large majority of the ITIL certified folk have been certified through an EXIN exam - maybe without knowing it, but they have. And I bet the number of ITIL certificates has exceeded the total of 1.000.000 this year.

EXIN is now offering the ITIL exams that are outsourced by OGC to APMG (and we've all seen the result of that), but they also developed a series of exams on ISO 20000. Maybe you should take notice of that....

As fas as I know, EXIN certificates carry no weigt for universities, but neither do other business trainings or exams. ITIL Foundation certificates (an original EXIN product) however are among the minimum requirements for most Dutch IT jobs.

Not all of us

JamesFinister — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:46:19 +0000

I don't fully understand the current system, on more levels than I care to admit, but I'm glad to say Exin doesn't appear anywhere on my certification, which was under the original ISEB/BCS scheme. I used to have to administer Exin Foundation exams and the quality was appalling - badly translated into something resembling Emglish and on some papers the same question appeared twice.

EXIN - who are they

ITIL citizen — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:24:36 +0000

I am surprised in all the discussion around certification that no one has bothered to mention The Examination Institute for Information Science (EXIN).
Just in case you don't look at your ITIL certificate, they are the body that endorses your ITIL certification.

Directly from the EXIN website:

"EXIN establishes educational requirements and develops and organizes examinations and learning tracks in the field of IT, giving IT professionals the ability to prove appropriate competencies and skills for improved job performance."

Just who are these EXIN folks anyway, does anybody know?

And does any university care to recognize the certification that they provide?

Graduate ITSm discussion

skeptic — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 04:39:19 +0000

For discussion see here and here (several comments) and here here

University/Higher Education Examples

Tim — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 02:04:32 +0000

True points regarding the focus on cattle-herding the masses through the exam process. To change topic slightly, has anyone attended or heard good feedback regarding any post-graduate programs with a large ITSM (ITIL or otherwise) focus?

The IT Skeptic - Comments for "Feedback on the ITIL V3 manager&#039;s bridge exam"