One of the trends in IT these days is something called ITIL, which stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library. It's basically a new way of standardising Service Desk processes and the language around it.

I finished Day One today of a course called ITIL Service Management Essentials. I need to do this one before I do the next one, which is ITIL Service Management Practitioner (or something like that). The course I'm on right now is only two days long, followed by an exam at the end of it. Pass mark is 65%. Based on a sample exam I did at the end of today's course I got 78% on today's content. I'm quite excited about that! My rate of comprehension isn't usually very good, and today was just casual reading and listening to the lecturers (there were two of them). I guess I was surprised about how much I retained.

I've been working in IT for 10 years now, and these ITIL qualifications will be the very first course I've ever done which will qualify me for anything! I'm a highly-skilled,highly-experienced but completely unqualified IT professional. Somethign I'm actually quite proud of.... But now I'll have some qualifications... my life will forever be changed.

ITIL Service Management Essentials
This is designed to provide a foundation level of knowledge in IT Service Management and is aimed at all personnel who wish to become familiar with the best practices for IT Service Management, as defined in the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). The Foundation Certificate in particular enables people to understand the terminology used within ITIL.

ITIL Service Management Practitioner
This is aimed at those who are responsible within their organisation for designing specific processes within the IT Service Management discipline, and performing the activities that belong to those processes. The Practitioner's Certificates focus on the depth of understanding and application of those subjects, treating each subject as a specialism.