ITIL Certification for... who?

[Harvey]

Hello all,

I am currently learning ITIL, and hoping to bring some changes to our large, about 200 IT members sometime next year.

When considering ITIL training, who would you suggest get certified?

Of course, project leaders, and heads of the IT departments should be aware, but what about HelpDesk operators, and for example the various escalation points involved in completing users requests, and solving incidents and problems?

Any advice would be appreciated.

-Harvey

[mcardinal]

Harvey,

IMHO, everyone in IT should get certified at least at the Foundations level. It will provide a consistency of knowledge and approach for implementation. It will also put a common language in place. The overall result will be a smoother road for implementation, and improved quality. My own management has resisted this approach and we are suffering as a result (we cannot even decide on common definitions of terms like service, incident, problem, etc.)

To me Service Management is much more of a philosophy or management approach than it is just a set of processes (this echoes Deming's approach to Total Quality Management). By getting everyone on the same page through certification, you start to instill the same values and culture across the organization. This makes org change much easier and gets everyone focused in the same direction.

People who manage and support the processes should go on for Practitioner. Management and champions should go on for Master's.

Again this is the opinion of a philosophical purist when it comes to IT Service Management. Your own situation may be cost or organizationally prohibitive.

Hope this helps in some way.

Michael

[Harvey]

Thanks that helps out a lot.

[H]

Harvey,
I want to begin by saying this is not a sales pitch- however if you need lots of folks trained we would come to your site and train your folks. I would say that we are almost on a missionary quest to point out the relevance of Governance, the business, the processes then IT.
This requires a lot of thought and 'soul searching' and an ability to be adaptive at the enterprise level.
The business holds its goals and the relevance of IT as the Damocles sword of outsourcing.
Once you prove that you can do this better than any one else the business realizes and understands your value. You do however, in the final analysis have to deliver.

H

[Harvey]