Diplomas, Advanced Diplomas, Degrees and Doctorates

In a huge shake up for the industry, the APM Group have given the first hints of what is to come with regard to their ITIL certification program. In what can only be described as a bold move the APM Groups appointed Examination panel – chaired by the Chief of all things ITIL – Sharon Taylor – have unveiled their points based ITIL Certification scheme that culminates in the Advanced Service Management Diploma. Below the Advanced Diploma is a “Diploma in Service Management”.

The Advanced Diploma may well be out of the reach of mere mortals; it looks as if holding the Advanced certificate will mean that you either wrote ITIL or you are good enough to be asked to write ITIL or you’ve been a key player for many (many) years. The Advanced Diploma sounds as if it could be a “by invitation only” – perhaps a secret handshake as well.

It is the Diploma in Service Management for most of us. Your existing v2 Qualifications can be used as credits towards the (current thinking) 22 points required to be awarded the Diploma. The Diploma is earned by accumulating enough points.

1.5 points for your existing v2 Foundation, 15 points for your v2 Managers certificate, 3.75 points for an existing Clustered Practitioner and 1 point for a single Practitioner. There will be 0.5 points for passing the v2 to v3 Foundation upgrade exam.

The new v3 Foundation will be worth 2 points and there will be 3 points per exam, per book in the Core of ITIL. The examination panel is pushing the clustered approach for practitioners – with a to be created set of service capability programs.

There will be a “capping” course and Exam in the Service Lifecycle (worth 5 points) that all of us will have to do if we want to get the Diploma (so for those of you with Foundation, Managers and a few clustered practitioners behind you – you will still need to do the 5 day Service lifecycle course).

So, it is big change ahead for Education. We should remember that the new program outlined is under the control of the APM Group. As the “official” accreditor for the OGC they will manage the program once it is endorsed by the Examination Panel (the panel includes Exin, ISEB, APMG, Sharon Taylor and other notables that have been invited). Once approved then the program becomes law for ITIL v3 and it will be interesting to see how Exin and ISEB actually present to the marketplace.