Just finished sitting the new ITIL Practitioner exam online with PeopleCert. And the scores are just in. A pass and a good pass at that. So just taking the time to post a few brief comments on my experience with this new certification from AXELOS.

My first exposure to the ITIL Practitioner course was an official reviewer of the publication and its associated toolkits. Initially I was impressed with the approach, the content and the way the authors (yes numerous authors here) joined up the material. Although at the early stages of development, these was feedback given on how to improve things (in my view).  Fast forward to 2016 and the polished up text was approved for publication, shortly followed by the official exam and certification.

Next up I took part in one of the Train the Trainer (TTT) sessions for ITIL Practitioner provided by ITpreneurs. Incidentally, ITpreneurs are one of the few official courseware providers, for the immediate time anyway – which ensures that quality content is provided to delegates attending the course. I can say first hand that the trainer material provided by ITpreneurs is of excellent quality, concise and very helpful to both trainers and delegates.

After that, I must admit, my focus was 100% put towards passing some recent exams for an MBA which I am in the middle of.  So self-study (trainer) time for ITIL Practitioner was limited.  

The ITIL Practitioner exam is open book. This is a welcome advancement as I am an advocate for open book exams under the right learning conditions. The sample exam is good. The syllabus is clear. The ITIL Practitioner Guidance book is easy to read, follow and use. All this helped towards my exam preparations.

In the interest of integrity I will not discuss the exam proper or its content. Only to say that a small number of the questions could have done with having some more specifics included to help identity the BEST answer. Or maybe it’s me? The other point I think I can make is that anyone with a reasonable background in organisational change or continual service improvement initiatives and ITIL would have a reasonably good chance in passing this exam.  There is ample time to complete the exam even though there is a lot of context to be read in the scenarios. The ITIL Practitioner Guidance was liberally used and references during the exam.

By the way I stuck to my first answer on ALL the questions, even though I had ear-marked five for a final review. Goes to show – go with your gut instinct. It can serve you well.

In closing I am excited to have passed the latest offering from AXELOS. I am very pleased with the ITIL Practitioner Guidance and having been part of its development as a reviewer. I wish it every success and hope people and organisations will benefit from having a standardised approach to making improvements continually. For me it is back to the MBA and six months of more study, assessment and exams (really) – but the optimist in me says that at the half way mark the glass seems half full!