ITIL Foundation Exam

The standards documented by the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) sets the world standard for IT process management and more companies than ever before expect IT managers and staff to be ITIL certified.

I have personally done a self-study and passed the exam with 90% on first try. I will be sharing my experiences in this exam so that my readers can benefit in this process.

As in any exam preparation (such as the gruelling PMP), it is important that you do some readings prior to the revision class or exam day. What you need to do is to spend at least 1 hr per day to read. This will require discipline on your part and I believed that everyone will put in effort to learn and pass the exam the first time round.

The ITIL Foundation exam is not difficult if you READ and learn the terminologies of ITIL.

To qualify for the ITIL Foundation certification, you will need to answer 26 out 40 MCQs correctly.


The following is a suggested study plan over a period of 10 days for ITIL Foundation certification

Time Schedule Topic Comments
Day 1 1.0 Introduction

2.0 ITSM - Background
2.1 Services and Quality
2.2 Organisation and Policies
2.3 Process Management

3.0 Introduction to ITIL
3.1 Background
3.2 Organisation
3.3 The ITIL Publications

Day 2 Service Support

4.0 Incident Management
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Objectives
4.3 The Process
4.4 Activities
4.5 Process Control
4.6 Costs and Problems

5.0 Problem Management
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Objectives
5.3 The Process
5.4 Activities
5.5 Process Control
5.6 Costs and Problems

Day 3 Service Support

6.0 Configuration Management
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Objectives
6.3 The Process
6.4 Activities
6.5 Process Control
6.6 Costs and Problems

7.0 Change Management
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Objectives
7.3 The Process
7.4 Activities
7.5 Process Control
7.6 Costs and Problems

Day 4 Service Support

8.0 Release Management
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Objectives
8.3 The Process
8.4 Activities
8.5 Process Control
8.6 Costs and Problems

9.0 Service Desk
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Objectives
9.3 Structure
9.4 Activities
9.5 Effectiveness

Day 5 Service Delivery

10.0 Service Level Management
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Objectives
10.3 The Process
10.4 Activities
10.5 Process Control
10.6 Costs and Problems

11.0 Financial Management
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Objectives
11.3 The Process
11.4 Activities
11.5 Process Control
11.6 Costs and Problems

Day 6 Service Delivery

12.0 Capacity Management
12.1 Introduction
12.2 Objectives
12.3 The Process
12.4 Activities
12.5 Process Control
12.6 Costs and Problems

13.0 IT Service Continuity Management
13.1 Introduction
13.2 Objectives
13.3 The Process
13.4 Activities
13.5 Process Control
13.6 Costs and Problems

Day 7 Service Delivery

14.0 Availability Management
14.1 Introduction
14.2 Objectives
14.3 The Process
14.4 Activities
14.5 Process Control
14.6 Costs and Problems

15.0 Security Management
15.1 Introduction
15.2 Objectives
15.3 The Process
15.4 Activities
15.5 Process Control
15.6 Costs and Problems

Day 8 - 10 ITIL Exam Practices
Try out the exam questions.



Below are some of the books I used for the certification preparation :

What is ITIL and its relationship to ISO 20000?

ITIL provides guidance & governance function on how IT services should be run to support business & help business achieve their goals. ITIL stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library also ITIL certifications are available for individuals but until recently there was no way for an IT organization to prove that it is working along the ITIL recommendations.

The ISO 20000 standard was conceived to fill this gap. Initiated by the two organizations itSMF and BSI (British Standard Institute), it is modeled upon the principles of ITIL and for the first time offers IT organizations the possibility to have their IT Service Management certified.

In contrast to the ITIL books, ISO 20000 does not offer specific advice on how to design your processes. It is rather a set of requirements which must be met in order to qualify for ISO 20000 certification.

To see what ITIL is really all about click on video below: