Post Exam Thoughts

Some thoughts a couple weeks after passing the exam ...

1) My opinion is that the exam is not that difficult. However, I have to mention that I have worked in the IT Service industry for probably 20 years. I've seen a lot of these items and they just made sense. The PMP and CSQE exams also helped to a minor degree as there was some overlap - not a lot, but some. I would think that most people, spending 4-8 hours per week on self-study (no classes or training) should be able to pass this in 1-2 months.

2) I felt pretty comfortable going into the exam. When I took the PMP, CSQE and Novell's CNA exams, I didn't think I would pass any of those although I did pass them all. Perhaps it was the confidence I received in getting through Brainbench earlier. Perhaps I'm just getting used to taking certification exams.

3) I really liked taking the Brainbench exam as a preliminary step. In addition to "priming" me for the exam, it identified a couple weak areas for me to look at.

Scoring 76.6% on the Brainbench exam equated to 70% on the ITIL exam. Purely unscientific mathematical analysis would therefore state that the minimum Brainbench score should be 3.26 to pass the ITIL exam at 60%. This is not a hard-and-fast rule or an absolute rule to succeed, but merely the correlation I had. One sample is not enough data, but it may give you a general idea on where you need to be.

4) Most of the exam questions related to where items fit into the ITIL processes. I didn't necessarily memorize these as much as I tried to understand and make logical sense of the processes. SD has a couple seemingly out of place processes, but the rest fall in line. You should also be sure to understand Deming's PDCA cycle, RACI and ITIL's DIKW information categories. That's Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) Responsible-Accountable-Consulted-Informed (RACI) and Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom (DIKW).

5) I retook the free online Taruu exam a few days before the ITIL exam and once again scored 26/40 for 65%. I'm providing this as a baseline, not an absolute formula for success. On this sample exam, I felt that there were many questions with two right answers.

6) I've posted a number of times over the past 15 months that I was going to register for the exam. It wasn't until I finally registered that I re-focused my studies and got the job done. Having an actual target date was a big motivator and led me to conclude this effort. You can see that I've dropped out of studying for months at a time.

7) I tried getting a study partner to go through this with, but she dropped out after a couple weeks. Maybe next time I'll try to find 2-3 study partners.

8) I received my certificate in the mail a couple days ago. My mail person semi-folded it to get it into the mailbox and the lapel pin distressed the actual certificate as well. It's not too bad, just a bit "distressed". I scanned a copy so I'll always have a backup. Within one week of passing, I also updated my resume, sent an updated copy of my resume to my employer and updated my resume on monster.com

9) It would have been nice to have been able to talk to somebody about the exam, but I don't know anyone that's ITIL certified. I guess I could have contacted somebody on the LinkedIn or Google forums. Thinking back, I probably should have done this. Hopefully this blog will help to fill the void for some of you guys ...

I don't know if I'll pursue additional ITIL certifications in the future. I don't have any problems with it, I just may want to branch out a bit more. I've mentioned on my CSQE blog that I wanted to look at some technical certifications like Linux or Web. Maybe even security. Security knowledge would never hurt you. I will not invest time in Microsoft certifications as they are rendered useless every 3 years or so. That much I know for sure.

On the other hand, I'm starting to consider the possibility of having too many certifications. A lot of certs will make it look like that's all you do. There shouldn't be any issues in certain industries like education, healthcare and pharmaceuticals where certs are required to show competency. It seems to me that if hiring managers have the certifications themselves, then they tend to value them. Same story with a masters degree for IT people - if the hiring managers have them, then they are valuable, if not, then they really don't matter. I think I'll touch base with a couple Human Resources folks that I know to get their opinions on this.

If I come across any good ITIL-related information, I'll add some new posts in the future. I'll also add a link to the next cert I pursue ...

Good luck in your pursuit of ITIL Foundations. I hope this blog provided some value.

-- Dan