ISEB and EXIN reinforce ITIL commitment

Well, it looks like we can still continue booking, studying for, aspiring to the ITSM qualifications already on offer from ISEB and EXIN. I spotted this statement published yesterday...

Statement BCS-ISEB and EXIN

Following recent announcements by OGC on ITIL®. BCS-ISEB and EXIN, 26 July 2006
Introduction
BCS-ISEB and EXIN, the two independent worldwide IT examination providers, would like to update you on our position with regard to the continuation of our work in the IT Service management area, following recent announcements by OGC on ITIL®.
Continuity

The recent announcement of OGC may cause concern among students, course providers, experts and companies and raise questions about the continuity of the ITIL® based IT Service Management Certification program.

This program is currently managed by the ITIL® Certification Management Board (ICMB). Through the ICMB the influence of the IT Service Management community on the Certification program is guaranteed.

In this statement we explain why the examination institutes BCS-ISEB and EXIN are able to safeguard and continue their IT Service Management Certification services in the future.

BCS-ISEB and EXIN own the current ITIL® certification program consisting of ITIL® examinations on various levels in over ten languages. Together with itSMF, both parties are involved in preparing the alignment of the ITIL® certification program with the upcoming refresh of the core ITIL® books.

As the initiators of the ITIL® certification program, we have made many contributions to the ongoing development of ITIL®, through papers, presentations, memberships of a number of committees, and editorial boards.

As global players in the area of certification for IT Service Management, we will continue to closely cooperate with the parties involved in the current ITIL® based certification services to safeguard and support the quality of the worldwide qualification & certification program in the IT Service Management field.
Future

We will continue to guarantee the quality of training institutes providing ITIL® courses for the ITIL® Foundation, Practitioner and Service Manager Certification.

Current applications for accreditation are valid, and we encourage new training provider prospects to become accredited. BCS-ISEB and EXIN and other stakeholders, will aim at a continued cooperation with accredited training providers in order to maintain the high quality of the ITIL® certification standard.

BCS-ISEB and EXIN have indicated that it is our intention to continue to work with all of the existing members of the IT Service Management community, and are committed and ready to continue the development of ITIL® and by doing so work with the current IT Service Management community and also maintain, improve and safeguard the standards of IT Service Management around the world.

We look forward to the continuation of our cooperation and the further development of ITIL® and IT Service Management.

BCS-ISEB
Pete Bayley
Director of Qualification Products
British Computer Society

EXIN International
Joep van Nieuwstadt
CEO

For more information please contact:
EXIN International on telephone number +31 (0) 30 234 4820 or
BCS-ISEB on number +44(0) 1793 417494

It's official - APMG has the rights to ITIL

Well, we knew it was coming but it's now official. At 4pm GMT on July 20th 2006, APMG signed a contract with the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) to become the new accreditation body for ITIL.

The questions for many (including myself) are:
'Where does this leave the itSMF?',
'Where does this leave the ITIL v3 Refresh?'

I don't have the answers - but I'll be watching this space with many over the coming months.

Where's the profIT?

I really should have written about the ProfIT conference immediately so this may be old news to some of you.

On Monday 8th May 2006 I attended the Prof IT conference in London. The tagline: 'Building a World Leading IT Capability'. Not world-class, but world-leading.

My interest in the event stemmed from a desire to see IT become a recognised profession in the same way that say, accountancy is. I've heard people talk about IT staff as a 'protected species' but without perhaps the understanding of why we may be protected and what it is we actually deliver to the business. I don't want to be a member of a protected species; I want to be recognised and valued as a professional (but that's another blog entry).

The seminars throughout the day explored the issues around what constitutes a profession as well as a professional, and having defined this, how to go about making it happen.

There was an impressive array of people on the guest list ranging from MDs and CEX across both private and public sectors which inspires some confidence that there is a commitment to seeing this vision become a reality. Curiously, some comments from people in the private sector suggested that they believe real change can only happen if government embraces it. They seemed particularly pleased to hear Katie Davies, Director of IT Professionalism for e-government introduce the Government's take on the SFIA framework, etc.

The highlight of the day for me personally was the motivating presentation from David Taylor, author of The Naked Leader. He hates us calling recipients of IT services 'users' which he pointed out was akin to calling them druggies and suggested we come up with something else (but such is the dependence on IT these terms that the term is rather apt in my opinion) !

The culmination of the day was the signing of the ProfIT Programme Alliance by representatives of E-Skills UK, Intellect, the National Computing Centre and British Computer Society.

Anyhow, presentations from the conference are available for download. So if you want to know how IT professionalism is progressing be sure to take a look.