I returned from holidays last week
and boldly started 2014 with a ‘polarising’ tweet:
OK, I'm back from holidays and have stepped into 2014.What's new? Has @AXELOS_GBP messed up #ITIL yet? #ITSM
Admittedly quite a blunt tweet, but
I was hoping for some responses and got exactly what I bargained for with
specifically two interesting ‘discussions’ following (using the term lightly as
it was all in 140 character twitter statements, thus lacking some ‘finesse’).
One was rather obviously about
AXELOS’ performance to date. More on that later, but first the other
discussions which diverted into whether (ITIL) training should be of the best
quality or the most accessible. John Custy (@ITSMNinja) mentioned that if ITIL
exams were more expenses (based on AXELOS’ price increase) ‘maybe fewer, but
more right people certified...’
This got me thinking, as I have
always been a great advocate of training quality and a skeptic of the current
ITIL certification scheme (see my blog from March 2013 on Action Based Learning).
However at the same time I can see
the importance of training be accessible to a large audience, particular at the
basic/entry/foundation level. Hence the title of this blog: Quality over
Quantity/Accessibility.
The current ITIL Foundation course
(or rather ‘Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management’) has become a
volume-seller with around 20,000 exam each month. Plenty of organisation are
sending all their IT staff to this course and the prevalence of the ITIL
Foundation certificate has certainly helped to make ITIL the ‘de facto’
standard in IT Service Management.
Compare this for instance with
COBIT. COBIT is seen as an equivalent if not better alternative to ITIL (with
more prescriptive guidance, standard RACIs, a direct link to governance, risk,
project management …). However, whilst there are COBIT qualifications available,
it comprises mainly of Foundation, with then ‘specialised’ implementation or
assessor courses which are not focused on general staff. And it is much harder to obtain with fewer organisation (in fewer locations) offering this course
less frequently (although there is always the on-line option).
And it is a similar story with MOF
(Foundation only), TOGAF (Foundation or Certified qualifications), LEAN or
AGILE. Whilst there certainly is certification in those methodologies, it is
far less known, far harder to obtain (not because of difficulty but because of availability)
and far less recognised.
As mentioned, I believe this is part
of the success of ITIL and in order to maintain this it is important that
AXELOS not only maintains the quality of the ITIL certifications, but maintains
or even improves the availability/accessibility/quantity. Most certainly at
entry/Foundation level but also for Intermediates, which have a far smaller
uptake. The more people are trained and certified in ITIL, the more people will
want to use it (and the more people use it, the more we can work towards
quality improvement of the theory).
That doesn’t mean that quality is
not important. And whilst I hope that future updates to ITIL will improve the
quality of the theory, and with it the quality of the certification (for
instance a lower, operation-only Foundation, more practical and less factoid
based, periodic exam refreshers to maintain higher levels, …). We need to look
at the situation at hand: The Foundation is course is so prevalent that a
lucrative and significant grey circuit has developed offering courses that do
not (always) meet the existing quality standards. This (in my opinion) is a
real threat to both AXELOS, the ATOs and the market.
For instance I believe we can all
agree that the existing ITIL Foundation syllabus only just fits in a three day
format. There is a lot (too much!) theory to explain and the danger is of the
course becoming death-by-powerpoint, theory-overload with not enough time to
discuss practical application of the principles. So, I was not overly impressed
when I was approached by a (non-accredited) training organisation with the
question whether I could deliver the Foundations in two (albeit extended) days …
over a weekend … including the exam. I declined and sincerely question the
quality and outcomes of a course like that.
Because as important as
certification is, there is more to training than that. However we need to look
beyond the IP-owner and training organisations and realise that it is the responsibility
of the organisation/manager who sends staff to training to obtain ‘value’ from
it (as well as the staff attending training). I advocate an immediate follow-up
on training: at Foundation level an attendee could do a review of existing
procedures, tools and documentation (and discuss any questions or suggestions
with the process manager/owner). At Intermediate level this can become a more
formal assessment and CSI/SIP and at Expert level the scope increases (all
lifecycles) and would include tactical or even strategic customer
relationships.
Anyway, bringing this rant to a
close: the quality of training is paramount and any customer/participant of
training is responsible for choosing the best training and getting the most out
of it. The better training organisations (and fortunately there are plenty of
them) will maintain quality and inject this into their offering.
The role of the ‘examiner’, in our
case AXELOS, is to design a qualification scheme that is acceptable by the
market, but also to maintain a delivery model that will make it available to
that market.
Whilst this includes maintaining
quality (EIs, ATOs, …) there is more to it. And a first action of increases the
price of exams (and thus their revenue) does not necessarily give out the right
signal. But that is a different discussion (on AXELOS’ performance, which I promised
Andrea Kis (@AndieKis) to have in 170 days).
Best wishes for 2014!
the ITIL Zealot
January 2014