It is now two years since the OGC launched ITIL (R) version 3; its best practice guidance for IT Service Management. Since the launch, the administrators of the examination scheme (APMG) have been busy getting the new qualifications scheme, leading to the ITIL Expert qualification, into shape.

But the whole thing could be dead in the water before it has even got going properly according to the most recently published figures for ITIL training. It seems that whilst the foundation course is popular for version 3, the more advanced training courses have been rather slow to take-off.

The large number of courses now required to be completed and corresponding examinations to be passed in order to obtain the expert qualification may, to a large extent, be responsible for the low demand at the intermediate level. The older V2 Service Sanager certificate could be completed, start to finish, in only 13 days whereas the new ITIL Expert qualification would now take up to 27 days to finish.

The new qualification schema is a three-level affair with a fourth level also scheduled. Of course, this new range of courses may be good for training providers, but the key question is: is it right for the market? The absence of a significant number of bums-on-seats seems to me to suggest that it absolutely is not.

In addition, whilst the V2 Service Manager certificate is live, it remains a much more attractive route to the new top-level V3 qualification for many people since it only requires eighteen days to complete from scratch; and just fifteen if you already hold a V2 Foundation certificate. This boils down to less days out of the office, lower cost and fewer exams to pass.

It is, in my opinion, time for APMG to be decisive and act immediately to support the V3 qualifications scheme. It is finally time to axe the old V2 qualifications and really get behind the new scheme.