The IT Skeptic - certification

ITIL exam market continues to shrink

skeptic — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 23:46:46 +0000

It's not as if too many people really care anymore, but the ITIL market appears to continue to shrink.
I haven't kept an eye on the numbers for a while - having more important things to think about these days with DevOps - but a comment on this blog triggered me to go look again. Yup, still falling.

DevOps Training Options

skeptic — Sun, 22 May 2016 21:52:42 +0000

The DevOps training space has become complex which is no surprise given that it is an open community with no central governance, so I thought it was time to canvass the DevOps training options for you in a single place.

Axelos announces a new level of ITIL certification: Practitioner

skeptic — Sun, 15 Mar 2015 22:04:25 +0000

After my dark forebodings about a potential squeeze on ITIL in 2015, Axelos' first(?) ITIL announcement of the year seems a good idea: yet another level of ITIl certification, the Practitioner.

Axelos are dropping ITIL complementary certifications

skeptic — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 23:28:15 +0000

The creeping squeeze: Axelos will no longer recognise Complementary certifications for ITIL qualifications. I can't see anything positive for the ITIL community in this. In fact the only interpretation I can imagine is an attempt by Axelos to weaken competition.

ITIL exams have fallen 11% in the last year

skeptic — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 11:58:28 +0000

According to Axelos numbers for the first half of 2014, ITIL exams worldwide have fallen 11% compared to the first half of 2013.

Just who are ITIL V3 certification and accreditation for?

skeptic — Wed, 02 May 2012 03:02:43 +0000

APMG have released ITIL Master certification. The ITIL certification edifice grows higher and heavier. As with accreditation (prISM), I'm left wondering who they build these huge structures for.

the value of ITIL certification

skeptic — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 21:07:04 +0000

ITSM Portal raises the question of the value of ITIL certifications. To me they aren't worth much.

Free PRINCE2 practice exams - a list of sources on the internet

skeptic — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 08:33:01 +0000

ITIL exam transparency

skeptic — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:18:40 +0000

Continuing a series of reforms, APMG has released the ITIL exam statistics for the last three years.

Over a million ITILers

skeptic — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 10:25:26 +0000

Recent ITIL certification stats published by EXIN that originate from APMG show clearly that over quarter of a million ITIL certifications are issued every year (extrapolating the 9 months of stats).

200,000 of them are V2 and V3 Foundations. V3 Foundations outnumber V2 Foundations by about 6:1. So every year we certify another 200k ITILers. Think about it: three years of V3 certs, plus a decade of V2 certs. There was a rumour a while ago on twitter that we'd passed the million. I have no doubt it was true. As Mythbusters would say: "plausible"

Rant vs counter-rant: the ITIL V3 Certification Scheme

skeptic — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:51:28 +0000

Pierre Bernard over at Pink Elephant had a "personal rant" about "people «complaining» about the ITIL® V3 scheme" and "much negativity presently in various blogs and social media sites about the ITIL® v3 scheme". That'd be me, for one, so I feel compelled to comment.

Castle ITIL further degrade the standards of ITIL V3 certification and training

skeptic — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 19:58:47 +0000

It is confirmed from multiple sources that APMG have raised the number of students per instructor for ITIL V3 Intermediate courses from 12 to 18. [Update: well strictly speaking I shouldn't blame APMG, it is the almost invisible IQB, the murky body that represents all the snouts at the trough of training (and not to be confused with itSMFI's International Qualifications & Certifications ESC - the IQC)]. This is clearly recognition that ITIL V3 certification is not about teaching people anything, and will serve only to reduce the perceived market value of an ITIL Intermediate certification. Add to that the fact that this has not been announced to the public (as far as I can detect) and you can see that ITIL certification is all about the industry not the customer.

How many ITIL Examination Institutes is enough?

skeptic — Sun, 02 May 2010 19:44:12 +0000

In an announcement last week, APMG have appointed a ninth Examination Institute. Readers will recall these are the companies that are licensed by APMG and in turn accredit all the 350+ training organisations delivering ITIL training. The EIs also administer the exams using standardised question content but their own tests and their own delivery systems.

Why the difference in numbers between PinkVerify and OGC ITIL product certifications?

skeptic — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:04:58 +0000

There appears to be more vendors certifying their products against more processes on PinkVerify than the OGC scheme. Why is that? What can OGC learn from Pink about making it easier for vendors? or does it show that PinkVerify is too easy? Does it matter?

ITIL V3 Master certification announced

skeptic — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:58:12 +0000

APMG have annnounced the ITIL Master certification.

Open letter to ITIL Qualifications Board

pjotrg — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:34:43 +0000

Today we have a guest post from Peter Gerritsen who has written a letter to the ITIL Qualifications Board proposing some changes to the ITIL V3 qualifications scheme. I told him he has a snowflake's chance in Hell given what they went through to get the scheme to this point (I have plenty of experience of hammering on the doors of Castle ITIL). We are interested in your views:

Pass the ITIL Foundation exam in six easy and (almost) free steps

skeptic — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 05:42:14 +0000

If you know something about IT operations (not just development) and your IQ is in triple figures then passing the ITIL Foundation exam should be no big deal and no big investment. (If in doubt, read the testimonials in the comments below). Follow these ~~six~~ ~~nine~~ ~~eight~~ seven steps:
[updated 14/4/2015 ]

Confusion around Best Practice in ITIL - Foundation exams questions unfair

skeptic — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 06:03:18 +0000

Recently I sat the ITIL V3 Foundation exam. Studying for it, sample questions show that there is now officially a distinction between "best practice" and "good practice" and it is worth a point in the exam to know the difference (and it was!). But I don't know how a student is expected to know about that distinction in meaning. In fact I think the questions are totally unfair.

Does ITIL V3 Intermediate certification need reform?

skeptic — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 09:18:14 +0000

Memo

To: the ITIL qualifications/certifications/training industry

From: we the unrepresented punters paying for this circus, a.k.a. candidates

Subject: one more pissed off customer

How to find free ITIL V3 Foundation training

skeptic — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:11:56 +0000

Update: sadly, these videos have gone from YouTube
Personally I find learning from online videos even harder than learning from online webpages ("ooh look an incoming email..."), but for those of you who can stomach death-by-video this might be a good option for you to study free for your ITIL V3 Foundation course. This post has compiled and sorted a bunch of videos created by Marco Cattaneo and alerted me to the set, but you can also access them on Marco's own playlist on YouTube.