The ITIL 4 Practitioner is an advanced level of the ITIL 4 Foundation (the base of IT Service Management - ITSM). You don’t need to get this certification to reach the ITIL 4 Managing Professional or ITIL 4 Strategic Leader, it is an optional one but if you decide to go for it, take note that it will give you 3 points so in total, with your ITIL 4 Foundation Certification, you will have 5 points to your way to the ITIL Master.

It focuses mainly on the Continual Service Improvement (CSI) approach as the way to structure any improvement initiatives, with explicit attention for a set of key skills that will allow you to apply this approach in your own organization.

It also covers 3 key areas crucial for success of any improvement initiatives:

• Organizational change management,
• Communication
• Measurement and metrics

Moreover, it provides 9 guiding principles:

• Focus on value
• Design for experience
• Start where you are
• Work holistically
• Progress iteratively
• Observe directly
• Be transparent
• Collaborate
• Keep it simple

To get this ITILP certification (about 310 euros), you will need first to have the ITIL 4 Foundation Certification. No need to be accredited by a certificate training center, so you can study by yourself.

The exam is made of 40 questions with multiple choice answers based on a scenario (1 question with 4 answers, only 1 is correctbased on a scenario) and you have only 1h35. Each correct answer gives you 1 point and you need to have 28 points (70%) to be certified. The good thing is that you have the right to use the “ITIL Practitioner Guidance” book by Axelos during the exam. You can download the sample question paper available for free at the Axelos website or just clicking ITIL V3 Practitioner sample exam (I also included the ITIL 4 Foundation).

Following the exam content:

• Use IT Service Management concepts that are important drivers of continual service improvement.
• Apply the ITSM guiding principles in a real-world context.
• Apply the CSI approach to manage improvements in a given organizational context.
• Use metrics and measurement to enable continual service improvement.
• Communicate effectively to enable continual service improvement.

I bought the book “ITIL Practitioner Guidance“ (about 70 euros) at the Axelos website and read it but I decided to skip it since it is not mandatory and to go directly for the ITIL Capability.

Did I take the right decision ? Well, honestly, I don’t know, after thinking a lot, I decided that my strategy was to pass all the 4 modules of the ITIL V3 Capability, giving me 16 points + 2 points of the ITIL Foundation = 18 points allowing me to be eligible for the ITIL V3 MALC Certification, the last one before to be ITIL V3 Expert, ready my topic ITIL Managing Across The Lifecycle Certification.

Do you have to get it ? I can’t answer this question for you, at the end, it gives you 3 additional points for a cost of around 310 euros (it is not very cheap !!!).

The ITIL Practitioner is only available for the ITIL V3 so if you are coursing for the ITIL 4, this certification doesn’t exist, so why get certified ? For that, check my other topic ITIL 4, the new ITIL for 2019.