One of the concepts that students in ITIL foundation classes sometimes have trouble grasping is the difference between an incident and a problem. In this series of blog posts, I will discuss the difference, and why the difference is important, as well as some practical examples of the differences between incidents and problems.

Which of the following correctly defines an Operational Level Agreement?

ITIL strongly recommends that organizations establish a measurement framework with relevant metrics at the technology, process and service level that provide a comprehensive and overall view of organizational performance. There are two types of metrics, quantitative and qualitative.

You are doing quality planning for your project. You have decided to provide a cost-benefit analysis to show the benefits of meeting quality requirements relative to the expense associated with Project Quality Management activities. What is the primary benefit of meeting quality requirements?

I’m an Oakland Raiders fan so I didn’t have a dog in this year’s Super Bowl fight. Even so, I can admit that the NY Giants’ display was impressive. A down-and-out team at mid-season made quite a run in the post season and won the ultimate prize. I love an underdog about as much as watching Tom Brady’s bride berate opposing fans.

Do you feel like an underdog at work? If so, it’s understandable. Maybe you have a brother in the same sport, I mean industry, who seems to get all the glory. Maybe your team, I mean company, is located in the largest TV market on the East Coast and gets a lot of unwanted attention when you’re not doing well. Maybe your coaching staff, I mean company executives, are seen as old, stodgy, and behind the times. Perhaps, adding insult to injury, your competition is a well-oiled machine guided by one of the league’s, I mean industry’s, masterminds of the last decade.

Last summer ITIL 2011 was released. When a refresh to the ITIL material is released, the syllabi which the accredited training are based upon often change, which drives the need to update our courseware.

We took this opportunity to not only update our courseware to match the new syllabi, but we also decided to make some significant changes to make the ITIL courseware a more effective learning tool for students. This post describes some of those changes.

Which of the following is NOT a responsibility of Service Level Management?

The terms ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) and IT consumerisation have become part of business jargon as increasing numbers of employees use mobile devices in the workplace. But what are the associated opportunities for mobile learning, and how should L&D professionals seek to maximise these?

If you’re like me, you may have just gone through the process of making New Year Resolutions. One of my annual processes is to think about the security certifications I want to complete this year. The only problem is that as the year goes by, sometimes my plans get forgotten. To remedy this problem, I came up with a list of tips that I use and hopefully will be useful to you in keeping your certification plans on track.

A few weeks ago I delivered an ITIL Intermediate Continual Service Improvement (CSI) class at a customer site. One of the students in the class had already completed the four other lifecycle classes, meaning that the CSI class was his final class before taking the Managing Across the Lifecycle class and hopefully becoming an ITIL Expert.

He asked me, “Once I become an ITIL Expert, what do I do?” My first inclination to such a question is to respond that you should probably know that before you embark upon something as significant and time-consuming as the ITIL Expert certification. However, I didn’t want to be rude, and I do recognize that sometimes we begin something with one vision in mind, and then as we work towards completion that vision changes because of various internal and external factors.