The IT Skeptic - Comments for "Just who are ITIL V3 certification and accreditation for?"

Certifications are for customers

CaryKing — Thu, 03 May 2012 23:06:00 +0000

Realistically, customers who have not much experience with IT Service Management don't have any real way of distinguishing between a good consultant with real experience, a consultant that's worked for a company that's seen only one thing, and those that have really done the whole thing from end-to-end and can really help the company achieve their goals.

There are lots of folks out there with a bunch of really good powerpoint that can do some training-like activities.

There aren't many who can actually talk with the customer and help them achieve real results.

Roughly 60% of projects fail totally. Half those fail to achieve the original goals. Part of it is poor consulting. Part of it is poor management. Most of it is poorly set expectations.

Just today I got a call from a customer that got a really good discount on their software with just a few seats. They want a consultant to take them from no people, no processes and no software to fully audit-ready software asset management and compliance. In six weeks. Because the sales guy told them that consulting costs should equal software costs. They just don't know. And, they trust the sales guy from the really big company.
I told 'em 20 weeks would be cutting it really thin. I'm sure they'll find someone who will tell them they can do it in 6, and then change order them to death.

Certifications are to help buyers winnow out the total losers, based upon an assumption that by taking a set of classes the consultant will, magically, turn to competent.
Caveat Emptor.

I shared this news with the

Claire Agutter — Thu, 03 May 2012 10:28:38 +0000

I shared this news with the delegates from our Expert program - there are a few who are interested but the number one question I got back was "how much is it?"

Claire

All true

ITSMinfo — Wed, 02 May 2012 04:38:15 +0000

By the numbers, and ignoring the V2 bridge numbers, we know about 668,000 individuals have certified at the Foundation level, and of them about 3,850 have become ITIL V3 Experts. Of Intermediate exams, about 64,600 certificates have been issued in both tracks. That would involve between 9,800 and 49,200 unique individuals, depending their average number of Intermediate certificates.

In summary about 5% of V3 Foundation certificate holders will earn an Intermediate certificate, and another order of magnitude fewer become an Expert. These numbers will rise (perhaps to 10% and 1% respectively), but this is indeed a niche specialty and will remain so. It makes me wonder how many Master certificates will be issued in 2 years: maybe 300.

http://itsminfo.com/itil-exam-2011-statistics/

On one hand, this is a drop in the bucket. On the other hand there is continued opportunity for growth for consultants and trainers in the ITSM industry and for continued growth of the various levels of ITIL certifications. There is also plenty of wiggle room for competitive and complementary frameworks such as COBIT5.