Study, study and study, I couldn’t be successfully certified without studying it, if you are interested about ITIL 4 SL, read my article ITIL 4 be successfully certified ITIL 4 Strategic Leader. Before to talk about my exam experience, let’s review the requirements. To pass the ITIL 4 Managing Professional Transition (don’t confound with the ITIL 4 Managing Professional), I need to have 17 points from the ITIL V3.

If you are a new beginner in the ITIL world, you will take the other path, the ITIL 4 Managing Professional, in this case, you will need to get first those 5 modules:

• ITIL 4 Foundation (training center optional)
• ITIL 4 Specialist Create, Deliver and Support (training center mandatory)
• ITIL 4 Specialist Drive Stakeholder Value (training center mandatory)
• ITIL 4 Specialist High-velocity IT (training center mandatory)
• ITIL 4 Strategist Direct, Plan and Improve (training center mandatory)

In both cases, you will need to take the course in a training center. In my case, I took it online so I can study it anytime I want, the only inconvenient was that if I had a doubt, I couldn’t ask the teacher “live”, I needed to send an email and waited for the answer.

Coming from the old version, ITIL 4 has been totally revisited but some definitions and processes (alias practices) are similar or same as ITIL V3. For instance, in V3, we talked about “incident management process” and in 4, “incident management practice”.

The first thing is to learn the definition, some are the same and some have changed a little. Learning the definition gave me some inputs but the main focus was in the CDS, DSV, HVIT and DPI. To resume, pay special attention to the 4 dimensions, the service value system, the service value chain and the value stream. In CDS, understand team culture and team work. In the DSV, understand the customer journey. In the HVIT, understand the concepts. In DPI, understand governance and organizational change management.

To prepare myself, I also used the sample exams to see how good I learnt. In my situation, the “real” exam questions were harder than the “sample” ones so don’t be confident.

The exam itself is based on 40 “simple” and “scenario” questions in which 1 out of 4 answers is correct. A simple question is like “where can be found governance ?” and a scenario question is like “a company has… what can be done to remediate the issue ?”. The simple questions are very easy to answer because if you learn well the concepts, the correct answer will popup automatically in your head. In my exam, I had more difficult than easy scenario questions in which I doubted at least between 2 answers. To select the correct one, I took a look to the 4 answers because sometimes, one is out of its place. For instance, 3 answers about customers and 1 about company so based on the question, it is a kind of trail.

I finished the exam in about 45 minutes, since it lasts 90 minutes, I didn’t spend the time left to review my answers. Based on the principle, my first choice is the correct one and also because the 40 questions were totally different. In my previous ITIL exams, it may happen that I had 2 questions very similar and in this case, I reviewed the question to see if the answer matched or not.

The final result appeared at the end of the exam so instantaneously I knew if I passed it or if I failed and th final confirmation is sent by email 2 working days later. In this case, I passed it successfully. You can download here the sample exam questions/content exam training. In the other hand, you can download them in Axelos. If you are interested, read my course ITIL 4 Managing Professional Certification Course.