ITIL Certification future

The future for ITIL Certification rests in the hands of the APM Group - who are the "official" ITIL Accreditation body (as appointed by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) in 2006.

The release of ITIL v3 has prompted a total overhaul of the certification scheme and this task rests with the APMG appointed Examination Panel.

Word on the street is that the concept of the Foundation exam will remain in v3 - except the examinable syllabus will be a selected sub-set of the v3 material (to cover all the material at a Foundation level would take too long).

The concept of the Practitioner program also looks set to remain through a well designed "Service Capability" series of exams that will be based around specialist topics and material.

The glorious Managers program, it is said, will be reborn as the "Service Management" series and here it would make sense to have 5 courses, 5 exams - one for each of the core books (but shorter courses - maybe 2 to 3 days each).

I've also heard that there may also be a "capping" course and exam that covers the all important concept of the service lifecycle.

Now, if this wasn't interesting enough. All of the courses (including current ITIL v2 certificates and ITIL v2 to v3 upgrade exams) would be assigned a number of points. Earn enough points in a given time period and you would qualify for a "junior degree" (or Diploma) in IT Service Management.

.....AND then there is also talk about an Advanced Diploma - which - rather than being examinable is earned by reputation, contributation to the industry and consideration from peers.

Now, this is early news - don't bank it, but it could be the first concrete evidence we've seen about the future certification program. And early indications are that it looks like a solid program that APMG have defined.

The important point is like it or not.. if the APM Group decree it, then Exin and ISEB will HAVE to follow suit for their ITIL certification programs.