Why I Love Teaching ITIL Foundation

I have been instructing ITIL classes now for almost ten years and wow have things changed in our industry over those ten years. Many new tools, concepts and practices have been introduced along the way. Yet somehow, I still get excited about teaching ITIL Foundation even after presenting it a few hundred times. The material has changed somewhat, my presentation techniques have gotten better and my jokes and stories still seem to be timeless, kind of like me (Lol).

I guess part of what is amazing to me, is the fact that there are still many people out there in the world of ITSM that have not been formally introduced to ITIL best practices but yet participate in them. So I take very seriously the responsibility to not only educate the learners, but hopefully to inspire and excite them to really want to utilize these practices in their everyday activities; to see the value in these practices and not view them as just something else they must do. Given the number of times that I have taught this course, and expanded the depth and breadth of my own knowledge, I really enjoy introducing concepts that learners may not be exposed to in their everyday endeavors.

Getting IT people to think about what the organization actually does beyond IT or what’s the “vision & mission” and how that relates to them can still be quite a challenge. One of my favorite topics now (this has changed over time) is to introduce the concept of the Service Portfolio and its three components. They are the Pipeline which represents the “Future state”, the Catalogue (Technical & Customer) “Present state”, the Retired Services “Past state” and how we utilize the Service Portfolio to operate like any other business unit. I so an overview of the thirteen statuses and tie in the Configuration Management System (CMS), a few roles like Design Coordination and Transition Planning and Support (think TPS Reports, a reference to the movie Office Space that I use in class), and how these tools can be used to show where and how the IT resources are being utilized across the entire service lifecycle.

It’s actually still pretty cool when you begin to see some lights go on over people’s heads and it still charges my batteries for the next class. As I said earlier there have been many new practices and concepts being introduced over the last several years. We get to introduce some of them by explaining their connection and tie in with ITIL best practices. It helps to keep it all relevant and real.

For more information please see https://www.itsmacademy.com/foundation/

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