Mar 15, 2019

You’re probably aware that AXELOS has announced the first launch of ITIL®4 in February. Exciting news, as ITIL®4 expands on the V3 version. How? By providing a practical and flexible basis to support organisations on their journey to the world of digital transformation. It is good for you to know that all ITIL®V3 courses and certifications are valid and will run until 2020. If you have already started your journey on ITIL®V3, you might be wondering what the best path is for you. My recommendation would be to just continue and then bridge across to ITIL®4.

We’ve recently hosted a 60-minute informative webinar –  ITIL®4 – what’s new and why you should care… In case you have missed it, it is now available on replay. In this webinar, we will give you the scoop on what’s new in ITIL® 4. We’re touching on the similarities between ITIL®V3 and ITIL®4, as well as what is different/new. We will also explain the new ITIL®4 certification path and your options to transition from ITIL® V3 to ITIL® 4. Lastly the certification scenarios will be discussed to help you to obtain your desired certification level – If you are ITIL®V3 certified learn how you can update your skills.

In this blog we’ll quickly address the topics high level, read on to learn more.

What is ITIL 4 Foundation?

The Foundation level is designed as an introduction to ITIL®4 and enables you to look at IT service management through a brand new end-to-end operating model for the creation, delivery and continual improvement of tech-enabled products and services. If you’re already familiar with ITIL, it would definitely benefit you to take the foundation V4 course to understand how to integrate the new concepts into your current knowledge.

Levels of certification (ITIL4)

There are four levels of certification that you can acquire with ITIL ®4.  The first ITIL4 certification level is now available, with ITIL®4 Foundation Certificate In IT Service Management courses scheduled to run. If you’re bridging from ITIL®V3 to ITIL®4 you can upgrade your skills with the ITIL®V3 to V4 Foundation Bridging Course, that includes the exam that you will need to pass to get certified.

The image below shows you the levels of certification you can acquire with ITIL®:

• Foundation
• Strategic leader (comprised of two courses)
• Managing Professional (comprised of four courses
• Completing both Managing professional and Strategic leader will enable you to complete ITIL ® Master program.

What is included in the ITIL4 Foundation ITIL® course

If you want to acquire ITIL®4 Foundation certification, you can enrol in either the 2-day bridging course, or the 3-day ITIL®4 Foundation Certificate In IT Service Management Including Exam. Here’s a list of what is included in the course:

• Student manual
• Elearning access to classroom course
• End of module exercises and questions
• Mock exams and answers/rationales
• Champions assessment (to help understand strengths/weaknesses)
• Exam

What is the deal with ITIL®4?

In the webinar, we touch on the similarities and the differences in ITIL®4. From our analysis ITIL®4 is made up of the following:

• 62.5% from ITIL®V3
• 11.11% from ITIL® Practitioner
• 26.39% is new concepts

Lifecycle stages are no longer used

In ITIL®4 the lifecycle stages are no longer used. I think this is a step in the right direction, because if you look at the way that the lifecycle stages were, it was good, but it could be improved, we’ll explain this in the webinar.

The new kid in town is the Service Value System (SVS), also shown in the image below. Inside the SVS there is another structure known as the Service Value Chain (SVC). The SVC is broken down into 6 stages (similar to a lifecycle but different). This approach helps to look at things in a more holistic way.

ITIL® practitioner “guiding principles”

ITIL® practitioner “guiding principles” now form a part ITIL®4, so if you’ve done ITIL® Practitioner or ITIL® Foundation, that’s great because you will be already ¾ there to be ready for ITIL®4. The guiding principles are really important, they will help you implement the actual processes or practices that you learn. We’ll go more into depth on this in the webinar. ITIL® Practitioner will no longer exist from 2020.

ITIL®4 terminology and structure

In the ITIL®4 you’ll find that there is a change in terminology and structure. Change Management is now Change Control and Processes are now known as “practices”. There is a strong focus on Continual Improvement and governance and RADM is now in two separate practices:

• Release management
• Deployment Management

What modules does ITIL®4 consist of?

The ITIL®4 Foundation course consists of 7 Modules:

• Module 1 – Concepts of service management
• Module 2 – Adopt and adapt service management
• Module 3 – Four dimensions of service management
• Module 4 – The Service Value System(SVS)
• Module 5 – The Service Value Chain (SVC)
• Module 6 – The ITIL® practices
• Module 7 – The ITIL® practices in detail

ITIL®4 Self-assessment

Do you want to know where your knowledge is at, and what you still need to learn to be able to pass the ITIL®4 exam? You can take this self-assessment and get a feel for where your knowledge is at. Just search for ITIL® and take the ITIL®4 quiz. The report with your results will be available to you after you have finished the assessment.

Would you like to assess your team? Please get in touch with New Horizons to get started.

ITIL® is a registered trade mark of AXELOS Limited, used under permission of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved. The Swirl logo™ is a trade mark of AXELOS Limited.ITIL® training is provided by Cobitism PTY LTD, a Peoplecert accredited Training Organisation. Copyright © Cobitism PTY LTD and AXELOS Limited 2018.