Distressed ITIL Trainers

I am seeing quite a few messages in which very proficient ITIL trainers pour out their concerns regarding the delivery of ITIL v3 courses.

At the time of writing the only course that is being discussed is the v3 Foundation program and the concerns go along the following lines...

I've been an ITIL trainer for x years; but with v3 I am really worried that there is too much material to cover and the concepts are far too detailed for a Foundation level program.

Ok... let's break this down.

Firstly, yes it's harder - but it will become easier with time and practice. As trainers there is a need to learn how to present the course and nothing beats practice. The reality here is that even in a v2 world every course you ran was just that bit better than the last - because of your confidence in your own ability.

So too it will be for v3. The confidence will take big steps in the first ten courses; but after 10 you will be wondering why you were concerned.

Your material must be spot on. Most vendors are just wildly following the syllabus without creating stories and anecdotes to support the message. You do need to study the syllabus, your material and books and then think about easy ways to explain that.

You need to ensure that one slide/topic flows to the next and this can even mean that you change the ordering of the materials (there is no hard and fast rule that says your course must follow the syllabus)... For example.. I put all the disucssion about certification at the front of the course (in the syllabus it is last).

Two reasons to change that. It gives you something 'easy' to discuss AND it is what your class students want to talk about when they first start the course. This is just one example of many where the syllabus writers were obviously not trainers (but to their credit - there is no rule preventing you from moving elements around).

Also, you must come up with non-IT stories and examples to help explain concepts. There are a million stories around and perhaps trainers reading this blog can add comments.

My one for the community is a airline company and long haul plane flights. Strategic - which markets shall we compete in, Transition - new fleet of planes to replace older models, Operations - mid-course correction required to avoid bad weather, CSI - improvements in customer seating and in flight entertainment.

So, please feedback any support for other trainers and perhaps leave a story that others may benefit from.