The ITIL Qualification Scheme

The increasing and widespread use of ITIL has encouraged the “Cabinet Office”, the owners of the trademark to continuously update and structure the supporting schemes in collaboration with various stakeholders within the IT service management community. The latest release of ITIL 2011 was released in June 2011. 

 

Within the ITIL Qualification scheme, there are three distinct stages:

1. Foundation Level
2. Intermediate Level
3. Expert Level (Followed by Masters)

For each module successfully completed by a candidate, certain academic credits are given. To be certified the ITIL Expert, a candidate needs to have attained 22 Credit points and completed the capstone module, called MALC. Currently a candidate can only begin from the ITIL 2011 Foundation as the ITIL V3 Foundation and all associated training from the “ITIL V3” series have been withdrawn.  

So a student would attain 2 credits for successfully completing the Foundation Exam. Progress to the next stage of the Intermediate Level, involves clearing this exam.  On completion of the foundation exam the student can take two distinct tracks for the next level for becoming a certified expert.

Capability Track: This course is suitable for those who are involved in executing and improving existing ITIL processes in an organization such as the Process Manager, Operational Staff, Process Consultant and IT Practitioner. There are 4 modules in this track, successful completion of which gives a candidate 4 Credit points:

PPO: Planning, Protection and Optimization
SOA: Service Offerings and Agreements
OSA: Operational Support & Analysis
RCV: Release, Control, and Validation

Lifecycle Track: This course is suitable for IT managers, process owners, ITSM implementation teams, consultants, stakeholders, and anyone else involved in the ITSM project. There are 5 modules in this track, successful completion of which gives a candidate 3 Credit points:

SS: Service Strategy
SD: Service Design
ST: Service Transition
SO: Service Operation
CSI: Continual Service Improvement

A candidate could also do a combination of the lifecycle or capability modules depending on his work profile. After completing the Lifecycle or Capability track or a combination of courses through which a student has earned a minimum of 17 credit points, the candidate goes to the next level, of completing the “Managing Across the Lifecycle” or the MALC certificate. Successful completion of this course would provide the candidate with the additional 5 credits giving the minimum of 22 credits, which leads to receiving the ITIL Expert Certificate.