As IT Service Management grows in maturity, so too do the requirements for developing and recognizing capable individuals in the industry.
The need for increasing levels of IT Service Management knowledge and skills can be seen in the increasing number of jobs that require these skills, the emergence of ITSM academic programmes, and formal professional and career frameworks for ITSM practitioners.
The ITIL Master qualification meets these growing needs by focusing on the experienced levels of the industry, testing the capabilities of senior IT service managers, executives and practitioners.
In an industry that values the ability to work in the real world, advanced qualifications need to test more than application to hypothetical cases.
Candidates for the ITIL Master qualification must select one or more real world situations and explain how they were able to apply their knowledge of ITIL to implement real solutions. Testing is performed by assessing a written submission describing real-world assignments, augmented by oral examination.
The ITIL Master qualification is aimed at people that are experienced in the industry – typically, but not exclusively, senior practitioner, senior consultant, senior manager or executive, with 5 or more years' relevant experience. All candidates must hold the ITIL Expert qualification.
Since every candidate will have a unique range of experience, principles, methods and techniques that they choose to apply, it is not possible to define a fixed syllabus, instead, the ITIL Master qualification allows candidates to determine their own field of study based on ITIL.
A Requirements and Scope document will guide candidates through the process of defining their field of study and which elements of ITIL they can include.
The steps for achieving the qualification are:
Although there is no fixed syllabus for this qualification, each candidate is expected to have an in-depth knowledge of the areas of ITIL that they have selected for inclusion in their Proposal and Work Package. Candidates are also expected to demonstrate management and planning skills in support of the areas of ITIL that they select.
The ITIL Master qualificaiton is currently in pliot phase and further information regarding the qualification and its release date will be available later in 2010.