New ITIL v3 certification scheme to be launched in UK

The new scheme for ITIL v3 certification will be launched at the itSMF conference in the UK this week. Prepared by Sharon Taylor it is the first time all the discussion has been drawn together into one paper.

The ITIL Diploma or Diploma in Service Management - which was to be near the top level certification for most ITIL professionals is now to be called the ITIL Expert.

That is about the only change for the much publicized and heavily criticized v3 certification program.

22 credits is the magic number to earn the ITIL Expert qualification.

Foundation earns 2 credits, each of the 5 Service Lifecycle programs is 3 credits, 4 for each of the Service Capability and 5 for the mandatory Managing across the Lifecycle.

The most annoying element of the program is still the amount of hours that each program is expected to take.

30 hours for Managing Across the Lifecycle
30 hours for each Service Capability course
21 hours for each of the Service Lifecycle courses
16.25 hours for the Foundation

So how does a training company decide how many days each course should be? It is even more complex when APMG haven't defined how many hours of contact time they consider a full traning day to contain.

Most people would say that a typical day involves 6.5 contact hours.
BUT APMG have said that the hours listed assume an 8 hour day... so now that is just plain silly...

Is a Foundation course expected to take two full days and then 15 minutes on the third... No, but equally would a vendor say that a Foundation is 2.5 days (assuming 6.6 hour days) ??

Why can't APMG just define this so that all ATOs have a common platform? My reason for why they cannot is that APMG are perhaps more interested in online study for each of the courses.

Maybe I am too cynical.... perhaps not!