I was lucky enough to be invited to attend Axelos’ ITIL 4 Train the Trainer session in Washington DC in November 2018. Hundreds of instructors applied to attend, and only about 100 were actually accepted across a few sessions worldwide. I feel . . .
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Flippin’ the IV: November 2018, Washington DC. Axelos ITIL 4 Foundation Train the Trainer Session

I was lucky enough to be invited to attend Axelos’ ITIL 4 Train the Trainer session in Washington DC in November 2018. Hundreds of instructors applied to attend, and only about 100 were actually accepted across a few sessions worldwide. I feel very, VERY lucky to have been chosen. I think the only reason I was chosen was because of my ITIL Foundation LiveLessons product has done so well (thanks to many of you all! <3), and they knew I’d be wanting to create new courseware and hopefully another set of LiveLesson videos for ITIL 4.

The goal of these Train the Trainer sessions was simply to learn the differences between ITIL V3/2011 and ITIL 4. It wasn’t a full-blown ITIL 4 Foundation class, it was a “What’s different, let’s make sure you instructors understand it right here from the horse’s mouth, let’s all figure out together how you’ll teach these new concepts to your students, and let’s all take the official ITIL 4 Foundation Exam so we can be certified ahead of everyone else, and so we can give exam feedback to James The Official Axelos Exam Creator Guy.” It was a ridiculously helpful two days!

The absolutely magical Donna Knapp from ITSM Academy taught the class, and she did a spectacular job. (That’s her, on the right side of the photo.) It was so great to finally meet her in person! I’ve known about her for well over a decade, and I lost counting the number of people who ask me if we’re related. For the record, Donna and I aren’t related, though I wish we were because I admire her to the moon and back!

Before the session, we attendees were sent a final draft edition of the ITIL 4 Foundation book. We knew it wasn’t the official version, but it’s what existed at the time in November 2018. (The good news is that it was very, very close to the official version out now.)

We were all instructed to read it before class, and I dutifully did.

What I Like About the ITIL 4 Foundation Book

What I like most about it is its readability. It’s easy read and understand, and there is a little story that flows through the entire book making the concepts easier to grasp because you get to know each of the characters, their roles, and how these ITIL terms and practices relate to them.

It’s not a terribly huge book, either. It’s not intimidating.

I also admire the heck out of the authors… the team of writers responsible for this thing are some of the industry’s most important (and not to mention some of my favorite) ITSM thought leaders.

Some of the changes to the framework, what little we know about it since this is just a Foundation book, are really logical. They got rid of ITIL processes and functions and now call them all practices. How many times did we have to drill into students’ heads that “The Service Desk is the FUNCTION that does the Incident Management PROCESS.” So we don’t have to worry about that anymore.

Back in ITIL V2/V3/2011 we learned that a PROCESS is a step of steps for getting something done (for turning inputs into outputs). And ITIL 2011 had 26 processes. Like, the process steps for Incident Management are in order and make logical sense… you can’t categorize an incident until you log it, theoretically. But can anyone tell me the steps, in order, of the Information Security Management process, or the Availability Management process? Nope… because there aren’t really any super-specific steps, it’s just something you kinda do. So ITIL 4 gets rid of the word “process” in that sense and replaces it with “practice,” so you’d have an Availability Management practice. Aaaaah, much better.

It’s also nice to see ITIL aligning with DevOps and Agile, because every time I teach a class with anyone younger than 55 in it, everyone argues with me about Change Management and Release and Deployment Management, and how people can’t seem to get anything done without Change Management authorizing everything every step of the way. Now of course, ITIL is and has always been “just a framework,” meant to be adopted, adapted, and even ignored when necessary, but students eager to pass a test really stressed out about that. So it’s nice to see that.

What don’t I like about it?

It is super-confusing to me that a book called “ITIL 4 Foundation” can exist without any other ITIL 4 books. Like, what is ITIL 4 Foundation, um, founded on? It seems really premature. It’s like we’re just watching the movie preview even though there’s no actual movie yet.

I also wish that things had different names, because so many of the names and terms are confusing, especially to someone new.

The Service Value System, the Service Value Chain, and Service Value Streams are three very different things. Service Relationship Management and Relationship Management are two very very different things.

The activities of the Service Value Chain aren’t explained well to me, and no matter how many times I ask for clarification, nobody can clarify it for me… specifically the definition of the “Build/Obtain” piece. In Jill-language, this is the value-chain activity where we buy something or build something. Customer needs a new application? Okay great, let’s decide if we should buy it or build it. Awesome. Makes sense. “All new resources are obtained through the obtain/build activity.” Sweet. Makes perfect sense. But the ITIL definition is “The purpose of the obtain/build value chain activity is to ensure that service components are available when and where they are needed, and meet agreed specifications.” How on earth do you get “buy or build” outta that? And no matter how many times I ask, nobody can explain it to me. So I recognize I might be stupid here, and that I just need to accept it and memorize it and shut up about it. But MAN, do I hate not understanding something in my bones, especially when I have to teach it. Because what if one of my students needs clarification? I’ll be stuck.

What did I think of the ITIL 4 Foundation exam?

I felt like it was a very fair exam.

It was really, really cool and very helpful having James The Official Axelos Exam Creator Guy(“TOAECG” – haha) attend our sessions, so we could not only give him feedback on the actual ITIL 4 Foundation book itself, but so we could give him feedback on the Foundation Exam Syllabus and whether we thought we could teach it all in the recommended 12 contact hours. We were also able to give him feedback on the sample exams, as well as feedback on the real exam. We felt very heard, which we all appreciated so much.

One interesting thing that James The Official Axelos Exam Creator Guy told us is that on the new ITIL 4 Foundation exams, every single possible answer will be something real from ITIL 4. For example, in ITIL 2011 exams, you could get a question like,

“Which ITIL core publication would focus on the diagnosis of problems and identifying root causes?”
and the possible answers would be:
(A) Service Strategy
(B) Service Chewbaccas
(C) Service Operation
(D) Service Spam Spam Eggs and Spam

The correct answer is obviously (D) (C) Service Operation, but you’ll notice that answers (B) and (D) are totally made up things and completely unrelated to ITIL. My examples are silly, but on the real exams of the past, sometimes using totally fake (but plausible-sounding) answers was just cruel.

In the ITIL 4 Foundation exams, all possible answers will be real, actual ITIL 4 things; there won’t be any made-up terms. I appreciate that. We all thanked James TOAECG very much for that.

Was it an easy exam? Nope. Was it the hardest thing I had ever done? Nope. Was I glad I studied? ABSOLUTELY, and that’s coming from me, someone who has written books on this stuff.

If you’re an ITIL V3/2011 ITIL Expert, you can probably pass the ITIL 4 exam just based on your old V3/2011 skills and your smarts. If you’ve only got your ITIL V3/2011 Foundation cert and you took that class/exam a few years ago, then I wouldn’t take the exam lightly.

Personally: I read the entire ITIL 4 Foundation core book, I sat in an intensive two-day session filled with fellow ITIL Experts, and I studied my face off, and I got a 37/40. (I’m not going to lie and tell you I got 100%; I didn’t.) But I was pretty surprised I did that well– I did not feel very confident coming out of the exam session. So when it comes time for you to take the class and take the exam (I would wait until 2020, honestly), TAKE YOUR TIME. I surprised myself, but I was the last one of my whole class to finish my exam. It was tricky, for sure.

“So Jill! When will your ITIL 4 Foundation LiveLessons videos and study materials coming out?”

Not for a while. First off, ITIL 4 isn’t even out yet, though it will be any day now.

But besides that, I am a firm believer in “Never install a new operating system until at least one service pack comes out.” That same logic applies to ITIL and courseware, and especially applies to something like LiveLessons Videos that have to be as perfect as possible the day I create them, because making updates to them is nearly impossible.

So I want to wait until ITIL 4 Foundation has been out for a good while, and for the exams to have a chance to settle down a bit and get the bugs worked out, and to give myself time to get used to teaching it in the real world. I want to make sure my real-life students have solid pass-rates, and that I feel like I’m setting students up for success with my teaching methods, stories, and details. Like I always say when teaching 2011 Service Design: “You can’t rush awesome.”

When I created my ITIL 2011 Live Lessons videos in 2015, I had been teaching ITIL 2011 for a few years, so I was very comfortable with the material, I had my schpiel down, and there were very few do-overs. I want my ITIL 4 Foundation LiveLessons to be that effortless, and I’m sure you do, too. There’s no rush. Relax. You don’t win a medal or a monument if you’re the first person on your block to earn an ITIL 4 Foundation certificate.

Does that mean I’m going to wait 4 years before making the videos? Of course not! But I want to wait until I feel like I can make a really great product that is worthy of your time and money. Hopefully I’ll have something ready by the end of the year.

Until then, THERE’S NO NEED TO RUSH TO GET STARTED WITH ITIL 4 ON YOUR OWN. ITIL V3/2011 IS NOT GOING ANYWHERE, AND ALL ITIL V3/2011 PRACTITIONER and INTERMEDIATE CLASSES ARE ALL USEFUL AND FULLY TRANSFERABLE IN THE ITIL 4 SCHEME!

ITIL V3/2011 ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE UNTIL AT LEAST Q3 2020! YOU HAVE TIME!

ALL CAPS! ALL CAPS! DILUTE! DILUTE! OK! :-D

So with that, sit tight, and let’s take this ITIL 4 journey together. Patience, Grasshopper.

Thanks for reading!

Jill

Yaaaaay! I’m so excited! As of August 6th 2015, my latest exam prep product ITIL 2011 Foundation Exam LiveLessons is available now via Pearson IT Certification and also over at Safari Books Online.

I had a BLAST recording these videos this past April at Pearson’s gorgeous studio in San Francisco. I got to work with . . .
→ Click to Read More of this Post: ITIL 2011 Foundation Exam Live Lessons is live!]]> Hi all!

Yaaaaay! I’m so excited! As of August 6th 2015, my latest exam prep product ITIL 2011 Foundation Exam LiveLessons is available now via Pearson IT Certification and also over at Safari Books Online.

I had a BLAST recording these videos this past April at Pearson’s gorgeous studio in San Francisco. I got to work with Pete Vilotti (Pearson’s waycool camera guy) in the studio that week, and I even got to meet his equally-cool wife, Christie. My beau Matt came with me to San Francisco, and the four of us even hung out one night after work, too. So not only was it a successful work week, we made some super-cool new friends. You can’t beat that.

Just like my last ITIL V3 Video Mentor product, I’m obligated to tell you that this LiveLessons video series isn’t meant to replace classroom learning or your 25 hours of self-study… it’s only meant to complement and supplement it. But it does focus on the most popular exam topics so you’ll be sure to get the extra reinforcement where you need it! (But between you and me, I get 2-3 emails per week from students telling me that they simply watched the videos and and study guide and passed. Strong work!)

If you’re one of the folks who enjoyed my ITIL V3 Foundation Exam Video Mentor book/DVD set from a few years back, you’ve probably been wondering when there’d be an update. Well, I just . . .
→ Click to Read More of this Post: Yes, there will finally be an update to the Video Mentor book!]]> Hi, all! Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve updated this thing. I thought I’d pop in and give you a pretty exciting update!

If you’re one of the folks who enjoyed my ITIL V3 Foundation Exam Video Mentor book/DVD set from a few years back, you’ve probably been wondering when there’d be an update. Well, I just signed a contract with my publisher, Pearson IT Certification, to create an updated version based on ITIL 2011 and the latest versions of the exams! Yee-haw! In fact, I just submitted my outline 20 minutes ago. I’m pretty excited! It’s tentatively titled ITIL 2011 Foundation Exam LiveLesson, though that may certainly change.

The format will be different, however. Instead of it being a book/DVD set like my previous work, this will be a streaming video series only, available on Safari, and on the other platforms Pearson publishes content to. There won’t be a published book. However, if you’re like me, you like to have printed stuff in front of you. You can either take a zillion screen shots (ugh, no fun), or you can grab the supplemental printed materials I’ll have available here on my website for a few bucks extra; I promise it’ll be worth every dime. I don’t want to gouge anyone.

Many companies are slashing their training budgets and are asking their employees to take computer-based training, and my video series will be an entire ITIL 2011 Foundation class online. It’s about as close as you can get to having me in your classroom.

I’m scheduled to fly to Pearson’s video studio in San Francisco (wheeee!) in April to get it all recorded, and it’ll hopefully be available by the summer. I guess I’ll need to buy a new shirt or two. :)

So, if you can hold out until the summer, you’ll have access to some really neat ITIL Foundation training via Safari featuring yours truly. I promise it’ll be worth the wait.

See you then!

All the best for 2015!

Jill