ISO/IEC20000

Governing and managing IT services has become a major issue for the survival and the success of organizations, whether large, small, private business or in the public sector, and both for the customers and the suppliers of these services. Experts from internal and external suppliers of IT services from all over the world have contributed to develop an internationally recognized set of best practices, now commonly known as IT Service Management.

With the publication of the international standard ISO/IEC20000, IT Service Management made a major step forward. ISO/IEC20000 sets a standard for the quality of the provision of IT services to be used by suppliers and customers of these services, enabling them to:

• Increase confidence in service provision
• Assess the IT Service Management capability
• Assist in identifying service improvement opportunities
• Encourage a culture of continual service improvement
• Demonstrate service quality by independent assessment and certification
• Exploit compliance with the standard for marketing opportunities

ISO/IEC20000 focuses upon the breadth of IT Service Management, where other standards focus upon subsets or at an enterprise level. ISO/IEC20000 is increasingly seen as the quality standard for IT Service Management and many companies are striving to adopt ISO/IEC20000, not only for their own benefit but also to help qualify and choose suppliers and partner organizations.

There are currently 2 certification programs in place:

itSMF Certification Program
The itSMF created, and now manages the first ISO/IEC20000 IT Service Management certification program which provides an independent verification against ISO/IEC20000. The itSMF certification program currently offers 2 certifications and both are offered by Quint:

• ISO/IEC20000 Implementing and Consulting
• ISO/IEC20000 for Auditors

EXIN and TÜV SÜD Akademie Certification Program
More recently EXIN and TÜV SÜD Akademie are jointly developing a qualification program for IT professionals: IT Service Management according to ISO/IEC20000. This program is based on job roles and competencies, since that is what you will need in practice. The qualification program shows the vision behind the standard and gives insight in how to accomplish the required quality level of IT services. You will learn to use the framework neutral standard ISO/IEC20000 as a compass for navigating across all the different IT Service Management standards, best practices and frameworks, making the best use of them all.

The qualification program, IT Service Management, according to ISO/IEC20000, comprises of a Foundation Level, a Professional Level, an IT Management Track and an Auditing Track. Practical assignments are part of the higher level training courses. The following courses form part of this track, some of these are still under development and will be offered at a future date:

• ISO/IEC20000 Foundation
• Professional Delivery of IT Services according to ISO/IEC20000
• Professional Alignment of IT and the business according to ISO/IEC20000
• Professional Support of IT Services according to ISO/IEC20000
• Professional Control of IT Services according to ISO/IEC20000
• Professional Management and Improvement of ITSM processes according to ISO/IEC20000
• IT Service Consultant/Manager
• IT Service Executive Consultant/Manager