AXELOS - new name of the joint venture managing ITIL and PRINCE2 certifications

As we mentioned in a previous post, Capita plc and Government Office created a new joint venture to promote and manage ITIL® and PRINCE2® certifications.

On 1st July 2013 the joint venture has been launched under the new name - AXELOS.

 

CEO of AXELOS is Peter Hepworth who came from Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty, anyone?).

 

AXELOS will be the owner of the intellectual property of the Best Management Practice portfolio. It will manage licensing schemes, accreditation and support of examination institutes, training organisations, and consulting organisations.

 

Have a look at the official press release.

 

A few less known curiosities:

• On average one ITIL exam is taken every 1.5 minutes.
• ITIL exams are available in 21 languages in over 150 countries worldwide.

Let us all hope these latest development will turn out for the best of international IT Service Management community.

UPDATE: Axelos shows first signs of life. Have a look at http://axelos.gtml2.com/axeloslz/lz.aspx?p1=054481S1&CC=&p=1&cID=0&cValue=1, first strategy hints and some nice market research figures there.

ITIL Foundations Exam - Go/No Go?

Some of my friends and colleagues sat the ITIL V3 Foundations exam this week. Since I am in the business for some time, I helped them prepare. Of course, I was anxious what do the training, materials and the exam look like. I have seen some critiques and exam reviews in blogosphere, and first impression was that things are not very pink (ha, get it?).

I have read all five books this summer (some of them a few times) and my impression was that in 3 days of Foundations training you can't cover much more then some kind of extended glossary for these 32 ITIL V3 disciplines. People had two days to cover 11 disciplines (Processes/function(s)) in V2. Extending a training for one day to accommodate (a lot) more then 50% of increase in scope looks very brave and optimistic. What do the students say?

From what can be seen in student materials and exam questions, authors had a very high opinion on future attendees. Preparation questions were easy for me, I think I could guess my way thru at least 30 questions. But the EXIN set of exam questios was completely different thing. Without preparation, I would have flunked flat on this one.
I have no particular objection to the questions, they are understandable, do not suffer from English/English phrases and questions were rather equally divided between lifecycle stages. They were just too difficult for an introductory course.

Some of the new prep and real questions can be found on the web.

I have read somewhere that the syllabus is going to change a lot in Q1 2008. All the problems occurring in this phase were expected (at least by me), since this is all a matter of rough feedback-based tuning. So the first exam candidates will pay the price. If someone asked me, I would not sit an ITIL exam for at least six next months, like I wouldn't buy any (not even Japanese) car if a model is less then a year old. People invest three work days, some money and a piece of professional reputation here, only to end up ITIL exam guinea pigs. They should at least get some benefits for that (better price, longer training, free attempts...).

For now, the only thing stimulating people to show up on an exam is their ignorance. And some hype too. Everybody's doing IT(IL). But OGC and APMG people should have in mind that the Market is a bitch.