"I have recently sat my ITIL v3 Managers Bridging course and it wasn't as bad an experience as I was expecting".

 

Having successfully passed the ITIL v2 Managers exam back in 2000 the prospect of sitting another ITIL exam was daunting.

 

The course spanned over 4 days which I believe is the norm for most training providers, with the exam on the afternoon of day 4.

 

Day 1 consisted of introductions of the other delegates and the lecturer themselves. We swiftly moved onto the overview of ITIL v3 ‘the lifecycle’, why it was written and the rational behind the update, interesting stuff but I wasn’t entirely convinced of the extent it had been updated and thought a few tweaks here and there would have sufficed!.

 

Service Strategy was first up and from what I’d heard from fellow professionals this is the driest book of the set and the most difficult to relate too, especially for me as I came from a 'Service Support' background. That said, some of the content made good sense especially when starting out on an ITIL implementation or project, setting the scope, objectives and financials are key.

 

Service Design came next, introducing new or a changed service into Live (don’t forget retiring a service!). This is where the majority of old ITILv2 Service Delivery processes sit (with the exception of Financial Management which now sits in Service Strategy). As the title suggests, this is the Design phase of the lifecycle. Policies and process are defined and documented, the Service Catalogue is built and populated, and risks are identified and managed risks through this phase.

 

Next it was the turn of Service Transition, some of the Service Support processes are in this phase with Change Management having changed slightly in terms of definitions e.g. Forward Schedule of Change (FSC) is now a Change Schedule. Evaluation has its own ‘process’ although typically most of this would be carried out within Change Management. Configuration Management has become Service Asset and Configuration Management this is a benefit of v3 as Service Assets as described in the Service Strategy phase, are made up of Resources (Financial capital, infrastructure, applications, information and people) and Capabilities (Management, organization, processes, knowledge and again people). The concept of Configuration Items (CIs) still exists.

 

After Service Transition came Service Operation, the nuts and bolts of running an IT service. Incident Management remains primarily unchanged, Problem Management dispenses with Problem Control and Error Control. The new processes Event Management, Request Fulfilment and Access Management are good additions in their own right.

 

Finally Continual Service Improvement (CSI) was discussed. Its main objective is to add value to the business. The 7 Step Improvement Process was the main component of this phase. I learnt that Continual Service Improvement can be utilised on all of the lifecycle phases including itself!!

 

As we progressed through the course and various Service stages it became apparent that learning key diagrams and the meanings behind them would be extremely useful when it came to revising, some examples:

Having revised by mainly learning key diagrams and the new Lifecycle stages (particularly Service Strategy) and processes has hopefully stood me in good stead to pass!!. As I write I am still awaiting the results…..

 

Hints and tips, as usual always read the question, you should be able to discount two out of the four answers, if that fails go with gut feel. Remember it is multiple choice so answer all the questions even if you have to guess and finally if you are planning to take the course then it is worthwhile taking and good luck.

 

You’ve read my experience, if you have recently taken the course and wish to share yours pleaseleave your comments below.