I've worked at newScale for six years and it was very exciting for me to see a recent press release announcing that a new ITIL Service Catalog Certification Program meant the beginning of a new profession - the Service Catalog Manager. As the market leader for Service Catalog solutions, this validated the hard work put in by a lot of people - in particular, newScale employees and customers.
What is the news? APM Group, with the support of newScale, Pink Elephant and endorsed by the International Qualifications Committee of itSMF® International (itSMFI), announced the development of a new, stand-alone certification for IT practitioners interested in the creation and maintenance of a best practice Service Catalog. This will become a new international certification based on IP from newScale and Pink Elephant.
In short, Service Catalog education now is a formal part of ITIL qualification. Taking the course will count towards Expert certification. (APM is the certifying authority for ITIL under license from the OGC.)
In the journey to today, newScale saw that people wanted to better understand what a Service Catalog was about before venturing further. So in 2005, we started the first service catalog course and encouraged other training organizations to do the same. Pink Elephant took the call and co-developed a course they offer; it also led to co-authoring our book, Defining IT Success through the Service Catalog.
Other training and consulting organizations followed. Yet many of them, as well as the practitioner community, asked how this course fit within the ITIL qualification scheme. With this week's announcement, Service Catalog now becomes a first class citizen along side Change, Incident and other older processes.
This summer, a full and rigorous accreditation process will take place, involving independent trial deliveries of a Service Catalog course that will cover the key learning requirements Pink Elephant and newScale have identified. Once the Service Catalog certification scheme is finalized and released in September 2009, authorized training organizations (ATOs) may then develop and submit their own training materials for accreditation.
Excerpt from the APM press release
The APM Group (APMG) High Wycombe, UK announces the release of a Certification Scheme for Service Catalogue. The Scheme initiated by market leaders newScale, headquartered in San Francisco and Pink Elephant in Toronto, Canada, and developed over the last several months is the second complimentary scheme for the ITIL Qualification Portfolio.
The Certification Programme was subject to independent review and scrutiny by the International Qualifications Committee of itSMF International, the leading Service Management movement with 52 different Chapters.
Colin Rudd, itSMFI Director of Professional Qualifications and Certifications said, “Service Catalog makes an important contribution to the effectiveness of the organization. Candidates can now gain a recognized qualification in this discipline whilst working towards their ITIL Expert Certification.”
Sharon Taylor, ITIL V3 Chief Examiner said, “This initiative supports a more operational approach to create the service catalogue as an important tool in the alignment and delivery of IT services to the business. Candidates will find this qualification hugely beneficial to their real working environment.”
Service Catalogue is a new qualification that looks at new ways to control demand, publish and track service pricing and cost, and automates service request management and fulfilment. Service Catalogue also looks at ways to help reduce cycle time. Implementing workflow can reduce the time it takes to fulfil services, saving numerous hours per request. Organizations can thus reallocate precious staff time to more strategic initiatives.
Further, the new course will qualify for 1.5 ITIL V3 credits, and will become only the 2nd course recognized in ITIL V3’s Complementary Guidance, a selection of best practice courses intended to supplement the content that currently exists in ITIL V3’s core portfolio of examinations and certifications.
The detailed Certification Scheme will be developed over the next few months and the qualification will be trialed by Global Knowledge, headquartered in Cary, N.C, and PINK Elephant. APM Group will be inviting training companies to apply for accreditation from September 2009 and, having gone through the rigorous assessment process for which APM Group is known, they expect to have a number of training providers active in the market place in the last quarter 2009, first quarter 2010.
Richard Pharro, CEO of APM Group is quoted as saying, “We are thrilled to have been chosen by New Scale and PINK to take over the Service Catalogue Certification and to create an international standard for one of the key tools in service management.”
The newScale press release is here, and the Pink Elephant press release says, "APMG Approves Development of New ITIL Certification; Accepts Proposal from Pink Elephant & newScale Inc."
Congratulations to all those involved with the birth of this new profession and this major milestone!
Comments