Introducing ITIL - first steps

I recently came across a rather nice summary 'The ABCs of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)' by Lynn Greiner on CIO.com. Normally when people ask me about ITIL I usually follow up with a PDF of the booklet 'Introductory Overview of ITIL' available free of charge from the itSMF site. In the future I'll also be including a link to this article as well.

APMG agreement with ISEB and EXIN!

We've all been wondering about the status of EXIN and ISEB since APMG came onto the scene, and it seems we're finally getting a little clarification. Check out the article on ITSM Portal for the latest (and also see the original press release).

I was wondering what this meant, if anything, for the ISEB when I read another take on things over at the itSMF.

Press releases:
APMG
EXIN

More on APMG and Accreditation

If you haven't already, stop by the ITSM portal today for some breaking news regarding the APMG and training accreditation.

Also read the article regarding a hypothetical impact that the UK government's transformational strategy when it comes to information sharing may have on ITIL and Prince 2.

APMG and Approved ITIL Trainers

I came across a post that drew my attention to the new criteria from APMG for people to be "Approved trainers". It may be that I'm misinterpreting what is written - but from the looks of it to train someone at Practitioner level you have to have qualified at that level to 70% or over yourself. Having a distinction at Manager's Certificate level apparently doesn't cut it. I don't know who thought that one up but I don't much care for it and I'm not an ITIL trainer!

ITIL Refresh v3 - Public QA

It's official. The selection for public QA reviewers has taken place and the review is scheduled to start on 8th January and finish on 22nd January. It reassures me that we may indeed see the published core books by the end of spring as promised.

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I noticed an article on the BCS website about the IT departments in motor insurance companies using ITIL to streamline their operations. The thing that struck me was the comment about the 'need' to reorganise the department into 2 streams - support and delivery. ITIL v2 does not actually state there is a need to do this. I know the ITIL v3 authors have stated they will address the structure of IT departments and I am curious to see what the results of this will be. Especially given we are due to undergo a restructure where I work anyway due to partnership working. It would be nice if we could kill two birds with one stone as it were! *waits impatiently for v3*

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Also of interest may be the article about FITS (Framework for ICT Technical Support Operations Management). British Educational Communications and Technology Agency's (Becta) answer to ITIL for educational establishments. I think I've blogged about it before as it's a really great resource for templates.

Happy New Year!

I hope you all enjoyed the holidays (for those of you that got some time off) and I wish you all the best in 2007 both at work and at play.

It should be an interesting year for IT Service Management. Will ITIL under APMG fall into disrepute? Will more companies look towards attaining ISO20000 accreditation? Who will fill the rather large footprints left behind at itSMF by Aiden Lawes? Will I get funding for my manager's certificate before the ITIL v3 examinations are ready?

All this and more to come in 2007 ;)