Ten Tips for Passing the ITIL V3 Foundation Exam
Date: Aug 24, 2010
Because I'm a Certified ITIL Expert and Accredited ITIL Trainer, students and fellow IT geeks always ask me for tips and tricks for passing the ITIL V3 Foundation Exam. Perhaps you're still fuzzy on some concepts, or maybe you have some test anxiety. Check out my top suggestions to prepare yourself for the exam and pass with flying colors.
Tip 1: Practice Makes Perfect
Take at least one of the official sample exams (also known as sample papers) from APMG, and then read the Answer Rationales. If you've taken a class through an Accredited Training Provider, you should have been given at least one sample exam. If you've decided on the self-study route, you can download one sample exam from APMG's official ITIL site.
Every official sample exam from APMG comes with an answer key and a list of the Answer Rationales; however, some training providers neglect to provide the Answer Rationales for their students. The Answer Rationales are very handy, because they explain these important details:
- Why each answer on the sample exam is correct
- Where in the Core ITIL Publications you can find the answer
- Which section(s) of the exam syllabus are being tested with that particular question
Study the sample questions and the Answer Rationales so you can understand how you're expected to approach each question.
Tip 2: Read Carefully
When taking the exam (or the sample exams, for that matter), slow down and read each question and all possible answers carefully. It's very easy to miss a question if you skimmed it instead of taking the time to read it thoroughly.
You also need to read the wording of each question very carefully. I can't begin to tell you how many students miss questions because of one or two missed—or imagined!—words. For example, some questions are phrased as negatives: "Which of the following is not a subprocess of Capacity Management?" If you miss the word not in that question, you could very well get the answer wrong.
If you're taking a paper-based exam, it's helpful to circle important words as you first read the question, just to make sure that you understand what's being asked.
If you're taking a computer-based exam, that's all the more reason to slow down and read extra carefully, since the test-taking software doesn't allow you to jot down notes.
Tip 3: Think ITIL, Not Your Organization
Give the ITIL-based answer, not the answer that best fits how your organization operates. You're being tested on how well you understand the ITIL processes, functions, tools, roles, and general concepts as presented in the five ITIL books—you're not being tested on what your company does.
Tip 4: Know Your Keywords
Certain ITIL concepts have keywords loosely associated with them. Learning these keywords can point you in the right direction when taking the exam, and in your own practice, too:
- Does the question sound like marketing lingo? ("How do we create value for our customers?" "Why should a customer buy our services?") Is it talking about setting policies and objectives, or other "big picture" ideas? If so, it's related to Service Strategy.
- When you see the word negotiate, think of the Service Level Management process. The Service Level Manager (or the Service Level Management process) negotiates all of the following:
- Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
- Operational Level Agreements (OLAs).
- Underpinning Contracts (UCs). Of course, UCs may also be negotiated by the Supplier Manager.
- When you see phrasing like fairness and transparency, think Governance.
- When you see the word relationship, think of the Service Asset and Configuration Management (SACM) process, or the SACM-related tools that record and manage those relationships:
- Configuration Management Database (CMDB). Records relationships between Configuration Items (CIs), assets, infrastructure, and services.
- Configuration Management System (CMS). Records relationships between different types of data, such as incidents, problems, CIs, services, changes, known errors, documentation, and so on.
- If a question mentions data centers, this usually points to the function known as Facilities Management, since that team is typically responsible for managing data centers, as well as the HVAC systems inside to keep them cool, the backup generators, cabling, raised flooring, etc.
- The phrase self-contained unit is often used when defining the word function.
- The phrases pre-authorized or pre-approved should make you think of a Standard Change.
- The phrase pre-defined approach is often used to describe models: incident models, change models, request models, or problem models.
Tip 5: Avoid Legalese and Use Measurable Targets
Your SLAs should never contain legalese. SLAs that are written in complicated legalese won't be read, which means that they won't be followed. SLAs should be written in clear, concise, simple language—but they should also be complete. Leave no ambiguity or wiggle-room in your SLAs.
All targets in your SLAs, OLAs, and UCs should be measurable. If your targets aren't measurable, you'll have no way to prove whether an SLA target has been met. This leads to arguments, nasty-grams, and a general mistrust between IT and the business.
Tip 6: Deliver Value
Everything must deliver value. If something doesn't deliver value, why are you wasting time and money on it?
- All processes must deliver value (as well as their primary results) to a customer or stakeholder.
- All services must deliver value to a customer. If a service is no longer delivering value, it's probably time to retire that service.
Tip 7: STAMP Your Service Design
In the Service Design phase, we learn about the Five Aspects of Service Design, which describe the five main "things" to be designed in the Service Design phase. Since these five aspects are part of the exam syllabus, you'll need to memorize them. Using the acronym "STAMP" is helpful:
- S stands for "Designing the Service Solutions." In the Service Design phase, we design a service solution to meet the documented needs of the business, from soup to nuts. This includes all of the agreed-upon functional requirements, as well as all of the necessary resources and capabilities.
- T stands for "Designing the Service Management systems and Tools." These are tools such as the Service Portfolio (to manage services through their lifecycle), the Service Catalogue (to manage operational services as well as services about to be released into production), and perhaps even the tool your Service Desk uses to track incidents and such. Any "big picture" tool that your organization uses to manage and coordinate the delivery of services and your information technology service management (ITSM) initiative overall must be carefully designed.
- A stands for "Designing the technology Architectures and management systems." If we're designing an email service, this step is where we figure out which email platform we'll use, how many servers and how much disk space we'll need, how we'll connect to the internet, and how we're going to back it up, for example. We're figuring out the actual technology and architecture here; the geeky details.
- M stands for "Designing the Measurement systems, methods and metrics." Has a manager ever asked you for a report that you couldn't provide because you didn't have the necessary data? This design aspect prevents that problem, by making us think about the types of reports and metrics we'd like to pull when this service eventually goes live in the Service Operation phase. It ensures that we've designed the ability to compile those metrics not just for the end-to-end service as a whole, but also for individual components of the architecture, and for process metrics.
- P stands for "Designing the Processes needed." Not just the processes in the ITIL books (~24), but all of your organization's internal processes as well. Any process needed to design, transition, operate, and ultimately improve the services needs to be carefully designed here in the Service Design phase.
Tip 8: Don't Confuse the Service Portfolio and the Service Catalogue
Along with the Service Pipeline and the Retired Services, the Service Catalogue is part of the larger Service Portfolio. The Service Catalogue contains current operational services as well as those services that are just about ready to be launched into production for operational running. The Service Catalogue is maintained by a person/role called the Service Catalogue Manager.
The Service Portfolio is a larger tool that represents an organization's investments in IT. Through the Service Portfolio, we manage those investments for value. The Service Portfolio supports all processes, and it describes a provider's services in terms of business value.
The Service Portfolio allows us to answer marketing-type questions about our services, which is a hint that the Service Portfolio is introduced in the Service Strategy phase. (Remember tip #4: If it sounds like marketing lingo, policies and objectives, or other "big picture" ideas, it's related to Service Strategy.) The Service Catalogue is introduced in Service Design.
Tip 9: Know Your Business Value
Your ITIL instructor should have explained how each phase of the lifecycle, as well as certain key processes, provides value to the business. If not, refer to the five ITIL books and take some time to review it.
For example, the Service Design phase provides value to the business by helping reduce total cost of ownership (TCO)—assuming that the services, the supporting technology, and the processes were not only designed well, but then implemented according to the plan.
The process of Change Management provides value to the business by improving the productivity of both business and IT staff, improving your compliance with governance initiatives, and helping the business to stay flexible and agile, because IT can accommodate more changes with a higher success rate.
Tip 10: Connect Each Process with Its Book/Phase
You'll need to remember which processes are covered in which book/phase:
- Service Strategy. Four
processes (though some classes
only introduce three, because
Strategy Generation isn't part
of the exam syllabus):
- Strategy Generation
- Service Portfolio Management
- Financial Management
- Demand Management
- Service Design. Seven processes, as well as the Five Aspects of Service Design (refer to tip #7), as well as the Four P's (People, Process, Products, and Partners):
- Service Catalogue Management
- Service Level Management
- Capacity Management (which goes hand-in-hand with Demand Management from Service Strategy)
- Availability Management
- Information Security Management
- IT Service Continuity Management
- Supplier Management
- Service Transition. Seven
processes, although students
are required to know only the
following four for the exam:
- Change Management
- Service Asset and Configuration Management
- Release and Deployment Management
- Knowledge Management
- Service Operation. This book/phase is tricky, because it contains five processes and four functions. The five Service Operation processes spell out IPEAR:
- Incident Management
- Problem Management
- Event Management
- Access Management
- Request Fulfillment
- The four functions (teams/"self-contained units of organizations"):
- Service Desk
- Technical Management
- Application Management
- IT Operations Management (which has two subgroups: IT Operations Control, and Facilities Management)
- Continual Service Improvement. A
combination of one main process
and two approaches:
- Seven-Step Improvement Process
- Deming Cycle (for slow, steady improvement)
- Continual Service Improvement (CSI) Model
Bonus Tips
Some bonus tips for passing your test with flying colors:
- Relax! Make sure that you sleep well on the night before your exam. Then, before you begin your test, take a few deep breaths.
- Trust your gut. Studies show that when students change their exam answers multiple times on the same question, their first answer was more often the correct choice. This is not to dissuade you from double-checking your work, but if you feel yourself starting to obsess over a question, take a breath and move on.
- Don't stress—it's not a competition! By default, your score won't be shared with anyone.
- Review and rethink. When you receive your exam results, always review your Coaching Report, which shows in which areas you were strong, and which areas could use a bit more study.
- "Do over!" If you need to take the exam again, rescheduling it is simple. Just ask your instructor or exam proctor for details.
- Try a one-on-one. If you're really stressed out about the exam, consider scheduling a one-on-one exam prep session with a seasoned, accredited instructor who can provide additional sample exams, study materials, and perhaps a different way of explaining things. The confidence boost alone will be worth the cost.
Good luck!
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