AXELOS Adds Practitioner Branch to ITIL Certification Tree

AXELOS was formed in 2013 as a joint venture company between the United Kingdom and professional services company Capita to promote and grow the Global Best Practice portfolio, including ITIL^®, PRINCE2^®, and the other PPM products.

On 13 March, 2015, at the ITSM Leadership Congress in Singapore, AXELOS announced its intention to launch a new certification, the ITIL Practitioner credential.

Currently under development, ITIL Practitioner's purpose is to help individuals and organizations utilize ITIL more effectively by providing additional practical guidance on "adopting and adapting" the framework to support the business.

ITIL Practitioner is AXELOS' fifth ITIL certification. Their current certs are Foundation, Intermediate, Expert and Master. Slotted between Foundation and Intermediate, ITIL Practitioner is designed to be the next step for professionals familiar with IT Service Management (ITSM) basics and the business value of well-designed and delivered services. 

ITIL Practitioner certification will meet the demands of ITSM practitioners and organizations of all shapes and sizes and will, according to AXELOS's media materials, "equip ITSM professionals with added practical guidance to enhance leveraging ITIL in line with their organizations' business goals." It is expected that the first Practitioner exams will be available in the last quarter of 2015.

ITIL is the most popular and utilized service management framework in the industry. There are currently more than two million ITIL certifications worldwide; 300,000 were earned in 2014 alone.

In their never-ending quest to increase ITIL utilization, AXELOS surveyed ITSM professionals across the globe and the top request, according to AXELOS CEO Peter Hepworth in a statement to media, "was for ITSM to be treated as a profession. Having this additional, higher qualification level within the ITIL framework is an important step towards that goal."    

According to AXELOS' media materials, ITIL Practitioner's focus will be on:

"Providing practical guidance on how individuals can leverage Continual Service   Improvement (CSI) to maximize the benefits of its adoption and adaption

"Aiming to improve the capability of individuals throughout the business, to adopt and adapt ITIL in their day-to-day roles for maximum business benefits

"Making use of further evolved technological capabilities - such as automation, real-time reporting and Cloud computing – to increase the quality of service design and the efficiency of service delivery

"Leveraging other philosophies, frameworks, good practices and methodologies – including e.g., lean, DevOps, Agile and SIAM – to further enhance the value of ITSM."

In the past ITIL has generally focused on the "what" and "why'" of good practice in ITSM and left, to the practitioners, the "how" of adopting and adapting it into the context of a specific organization. Since all organizations have different cultures this was a weakness. The trend is now towards more practical guidance on "how."

In a statement to media, Kaimar Karu, Head of ITSM at AXELOS, explained why the change is happening: "The numerous case studies demonstrating how ITIL's guidance has helped organizations to succeed, our own experiences, and that of practitioners worldwide have highlighted several key challenges for a successful improvement journey. ITIL Practitioner is being developed collaboratively with seasoned professionals worldwide to address these challenges."

Speaking with CertMag.com, Peter Hepworth talked about ITIL Practitioner's impact on ITIL professionals. "ITIL Practitioner enables us to help ITIL certified professionals stay relevant and current on certifications throughout their careers. The ITIL Foundation cert does a great job at building awareness of the value of the correct processes for an organization's culture. With ITIL Practitioner we are giving more practical guidance on how to apply the principles and learn."

Hepworth also stressed that the announcement of ITIL Practitioner was "a call to action, for people and organizations" to join the ITIL movement. "The interest and momentum for this is big," Hepworth said. "Initial feedback from our training partners is very exciting. We are looking for their input as ITIL Practitioner is developed. We want input, we want to collaborate broadly with community members, organizations and individuals. We want them to help develop and address best practice for ITIL." 

Individuals or groups who want to participate in the discussion on ITIL can join online at AXELOS' Official ITIL LinkedIn Group. AXELOS' goal is to develop innovative solutions for the industry. Their primary focus is on stimulating the growth of a vibrant, open international ecosystem of training, consultancy and examination organizations.

2015 is going to be a busy year for AXELOS. In addition to ITIL Practitioner, they recently formed the Cyber Resilience Executive Action team (CREATe) — an association of security experts and senior business executives from around the globe with the goal of helping to build effective understanding and action at the boardroom level of organizations. In the latter half of the year they will also launch a new Cyber Resilience Best Practice portfolio including new best practice guidance for all levels of an organization.  

AXELOS will also soon be launching a continuing professional development (CPD) program to support ITIL and PRINCE2 practitioners. CPD will provide a clear "career path," that outlines the different types of development and how each relates to different roles across a range of industries.

AXELOS will also seek to blend the best of PRINCE2 and Agile methods with the launch of PRINCE2 Agile best practice guide and qualification. PRINCE2 Agile is an extension qualification for ITIL professionals who possess a solid understanding of PRINCE2, as well as program managers with MSP who have the need to understand both how the program relates to projects and how projects relate to the delivery mechanism.