13. Trainer to Student ratios

What is the official number of students that an accredited training company can have in an ITIL course?



ANSWER:

The ratio of students to trainers is set by the relevant Examination Institutes that an Accredited Training Organization (ATO) is accredited with. The information from Exin and APMG is presented here:



EXIN



ITIL Foundation it's 25 candidates per trainer

ITIL V2/V3 Managers Bridge it's 16 candidates per trainer

ITIL V2 Managers it's 16 candidates per trainer

ITIL V2 Practitioner it's 25 candidates per trainer

ITIL V3 Intermediate Courses it's 12 candidates per trainer



APMG



ITIL Foundation it's 25 candidates per trainer

ITIL V2/V3 Managers Bridge it's 16 candidates per trainer

For all the other ITIL qualifications its 12 candidates per trainer



This means that for an ITIL Foundation course for example if you were to have a class of 26 and above  pupils you would need an additional trainer. This trainer would play a supportive role in assisting candidates with exercises and ensuring candidates understand the concepts on a one to one basis.

14. How do I behave in an interview - Part 1

So I purchased the ITSM Job Descriptions Toolkit and now I want to go for an interview. Can you give me some help on the interview itself?

What to expect

Assuming the meeting is an hour long and they will talk half of the time and you the other half of the time, that’s just 30 minutes talk time each!

Now consider that the most common mistake people make when interviewing is to give answers that are too lengthily and even worse fail to answer the question which was asked or drift away from the subject matter.

Understand they are likely to be in control.

When an employer asks you what you know about their business, this is a great opportunity for you to score some very easy points and get you off to a great start. If you come across as being knowledge about their business and can show you can communicate well – you will appear prepared and smart.

Be Confident - Easier said than done...

7 golden nuggets to really help you boost your confidence are:

1. The best way to handle interview nerves is to make sure you are well prepared. And that means two things;

• Being ready for to answer questions you are likely to be asked.


• Have your own questions planned out in advance.

2. Be on time ~ make sure you know where you are going and get there early. Being on time will add to your confidence.

3. Breathing deeply immediately before the interview/before the people greet you will help you. This is very important. It’s a confidence booster and you can do it as you walk into reception and whilst you’re waiting.

4. Smiling, a positive greeting and nodding used in correct proportions will make you feel better about yourself and project a positive image.

5. Tread a find balance between between movement and freezing. If you don’t move you will freeze up so don’t sit in the interview chair like a statue and with tight shoulders (but also avoid fidgety movements).

6. Don't be a machine - that means replying  with overly thought-out or logical answers (don't be too well- rehearsed). 

7. Psyche yourself up ~ approach the interview in a positive frame of mind. Banish negative thoughts. 

• Focus your mind on the positive.


• Think about positive things about yourself and your merits for the job.


• Envisage the interview going well.


• Conjure up positive thoughts about the meeting going well, about you handling the questions well and asking good questions

And one final thought. Listen carefully to what they are saying at the interview including their choice of words and phrases. After the interview write down what was discussed at the interview including some of their terminology. This will be a good reference point for the second interview!!

15. How do I behave in an interview - Part 2

So I purchased the ITSM Job Descriptions Toolkit and now I want to go for an interview. Can you give me some help on the interview itself?

1. Get Fit. Exercise clears the brain. Exercise and keeping fit stimulates energy and endurance.


2. Don’t move your hands around too much. Body language gurus say this indicates nervousness


3. Be careful not to lean forward too much; it gives the impression of being too eager to talk. 


4. Maintain eye contact but don’t stare. If you look at someone’s forehead rather than the eyes all the time this can be ease any pressure and do look down at your notes every once in a while. Don’t look away or over their shoulder. Don’t worry about blinking but don’t do it too often and under no circumstances wink at someone!


5. Avoid taking yourself too seriously. Being overly formal or sophisticated for example choosing particularly complex words or expressions (not laughing or being relaxed) = being too formal portrays self-doubt.


6. Answering questions much too early is something to be careful about, it demonstrates nerves, can show too much eagerness and you run the danger of interrupting someone before they have finished!


7. Don’t talk too fast. Talking too softly will make you seem timid which isn’t good. However, talking too loud can also be seen as overbearing.


8. Some people fall into habits or repetition when nervous saying things like "right" or "you know" after saying something ~ try stay clear of this. 


9. Laugh at someone else’s joke or with others but not at your own jokes in isolation.


10. Don’t be a comedian or entertainer (unless you are one by profession and are interviewing for such a job) otherwise you can come across as too eager to please and perhaps to casual in your attitude. Saying something funny is fine but keep it polite, politically correct and under control.


11. 
    
    Be careful about talking without feedback or any interaction ~ again a sign of nerves and you could be loosing their attention.
    
    

16. What is service valuation?

The explanation of service valuation can be like finding your way through a maze of complex definitions and tricky concepts. Let's present the answer as a series of three steps:

Service Valuation is the analysis of actual funds required to deliver services against the agreed value of those services....

...the cost-to-value translation of the service or the price of a service that will influence demand and consumption...

...involves identification of baseline costs and the perceived value added by the service providers service assets to establish an agreed FINAL SERVICE VALUE.

Service Valuation is in essence the act of determining the final service value that a customer has for a particular service. The strength of the concept lies in the fact that it is an actual attempt to turn the PERCIEVED value in the service from the point of view of the customer into an ACTUAL NUMBER.

The one truly enormous benefit of this is that we start to move away from emotional decision making to more informed analysis and decision making – which can only benefit the customer and the service provider.

17. What is your view of Release Management?

Release management makes sure that things (changes) are properly planned and approved in terms of the effect/impact of deploying a change in a production environment. There are general rules that apply for all changes when it comes to deployment/release.

For many changes there’s also a lot of work that needs to happen to implement that change that is beyond the expertise of release management. That’s why different teams with specific knowledge control the implementation before the release process is involved. For example a project or application team might be involved with planning a customization. Release management, with the more general expertise, would get involved later in the game and make sure that the its been tested as per test plans, that down time has been approved, that the proper documents are filled out, training has been planned etc. Release management is a kind of centralized gate keeper for production.

Having said that, release management is incapable of presiding over the development of changes that they don’t/can’t understand. They can’t tell the remedy application team how to develop a customization. They just make sure that once that customization has been developed, that the procedure for deploying/releasing it has mitigated the risk to production.

18. What is a Change Model?

Simply put a Change model is a predefined series of steps to handle a particular type of change. For example, it would be possible to define how an organization would deal with:

• Emergency change


• Standard change – low risk, low cost


• Standard change – high risk, high cost


• Normal change – corporate impact

It would also be possible to define organizational or industry specific change models. For example, an accounting company could define the steps necessary to update taxation tables.

The Change model “ingredients” are:

1. Steps to be taken & their chronological order


2. Responsibilities


3. Timescales & thresholds


4. Escalation procedures

Models concept can also be applied to Incidents, Problems, Requests, Service Level Agreements

The benefits of predefining models cannot be understated, but it is rarely done as IT service providers are typically so busy with internal fire fighting they never get the opportunity. To create a model for change, incident, problem, etc. requires some lateral thinking and “what-if” analysis. The “what-if” analysis is an attack on any model to see if there is a situation where the model should be used, but it wouldn’t work.