ITIL®/ITSM Education & Training                                                                                                             

We welcome the opportunity to comment, and hopefully add value to customer consideration for ITSM/ITIL® related education and training.   As it relates to an “ITIL® education plan”, it will typically require conversation to make the best recommendation.  The following information should adequately provide a guide through such a conversation.

Through strategic/channel relationships (e.g. Tandem), SMDx has demonstrated success in working with IT organizations to help identify the most appropriate level of ITSM/ITIL® training.  Although 100% awareness of ITIL® is important, most IT organizations recognize that training all IT resources to the same level of ITIL® training is both unnecessary and cost prohibitive.  SMDx believes the appropriate amount and level of education and training is driven by the following three considerations/types:      

Sponsorship – targeted towards the leadership of the IT organization.  These are the resources that have peer relationships with the other business units that use IT services.  These resources have a twofold responsibility:

1.       To convince the recipients of IT services the importance of IT Service Management (ITSM), promoting the importance of requirements gathering and why IT is establishing ITSM as the means to provide predictable service.

2.       To drive compliance throughout the entire IT organization and endorse the importance of Organizational Change Management (OCM).   It has been proven that the ‘execution’ team cannot make significant progress (with customers or other IT resources) without the sponsorship from their leadership team.

In the case of sponsorship, the message and approach has tended to be more of a priority than certification.  In many cases, the IT leadership team will make certification a ‘personal choice’ (students are on their own for paying for and sitting the exam), as they have tended to be more concerned about exposure and execution throughout the IT organization.  In some organizations SMDx has worked with, certification has been a condition of employment.  SMDx is careful to understand this position before moving forward, and our channel relationships endorse this approach as well.

Execution – targeted towards those IT resources that will be chartered with managing (e.g. Process Owners) and/or the day to day execution of the processes (e.g. Service Desk, Incident Management, Change Management, Service Catalog, etc.).  At a minimum, these resources would require training at the Foundation level initially and then may move on to Intermediate levels.  No matter what the version of ITIL®, Foundation provides the “what is it”, while Intermediate provides the “how to”.

Awareness – targeted for the remaining IT resources that do not fit within the “Sponsorship” or “Execution” groups.  In some cases, this may actually be the most challenging group.  They tend to be ‘gate keepers’ of information, and therefore source points for the Execution team.  Some feel threatened by the need to provide the information, perhaps suspecting their “performance” is in question.  So it is important to help them understand the ‘why’.  In ITIL®, this is known as the “awareness campaign”:

What’s the message

Who’s the audience

What’s the best approach to reach that audience  

Please take a look at the following chart.  It is not so much an “offering list” as much as it is a ‘targeted option list”, pointing out the recommended training for areas of focus by function (i.e. sponsorship, execution, or awareness) within an IT organization.

In the case of most any customer, the above options are potential starting points, with likely only two of the choices needed, targeted toward two distinct audiences:

Ø  the IT leadership team

Ø  those identified as being part of the execution team

There are a number of other training options associated with ITSM/ITIL® available, as well as additional workshops and assessment engagements.  The above chart should be considered prerequisite to the remaining options.  Participation in an option will yield a common understanding among all and position an opportunity to identify the most effective approach to adopt an ITSM strategy for the customer, whether it is additional training, customized workshops and/or assessments.   

After conversation leading toward decision, it may be determined that the option/s selected is better facilitated as a customized session for the customer. 

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