Learning Unit SOA01: Introduction to service offerings and agreements (SOA)

Bloom’s Level 2 Objectives – Full understanding of SOA terms and core concepts.

• The value to the business of SOA activities
• The lifecycle within the SOA context
• How services deliver value to customers and the business and the relevance to the SOA processes
• How requirements are identified through the SOA processes
• Understanding return on investment (ROI) and the business case

Learning Unit CSI01: Introduction to continual service improvement

Bloom’s Level 2 Objectives – Full understanding of CSI terms and core concepts.

• The purpose, objectives and scope of CSI
• The value to the business of adopting and implementing CSI
• The context of CSI in the ITIL service lifecycle
• The approach to CSI, including key interfaces and inputs and outputs

Learning Unit CSI02: Continual service improvement principles

Bloom’s Level 4 Objectives – The knowledge, interpretation and analysis of improvement principles, techniques and relationships, and their application to ensure continual service improvement.

• How the success of CSI depends on understanding change in the organization and having clear accountability.
• How service level management and knowledge management influence and support CSI
• How the complete Deming Cycle works, and how it can be applied to a real world example.
• How CSI can make effective use of the various aspects of service measurement.
• What situations require the use of frameworks and models, and examples of how each type can be used to achieve improvement.

Learning Unit CSI03: Continual service improvement process

Bloom’s Level 4 Objectives – The knowledge, interpretation and analysis of improvement principles, techniques and relationships, and their application to ensure continual service improvement.

• What the seven-step improvement process is, how each step can be applied and the benefits produced.
• How CSI integrates with the other stages in the ITIL service lifecycle.
• How other processes play key roles in the seven-step improvement process.

Learning Unit CSI04: Continual service improvement methods and techniques

Bloom’s Level 4 Objectives – The knowledge, interpretation and analysis of improvement principles, techniques and relationships, and their application to ensure continual service improvement.

• When to use assessments, what to assess and how a gap analysis can provide insight into the areas that have room for improvement.
• How to use benchmarking, service measurement, metrics, service reporting, including balanced scorecard and SWOT, to support CSI.
• How to create a return on investment, establish a business case and measure the benefits achieved.
• How techniques within availability management, capacity management, IT service continuity management and problem management can be used by CSI.

Learning Unit CSI05: Organizing for continual service improvement

Bloom’s Level 4 Objectives – The knowledge, interpretation and analysis of improvement principles, techniques and relationships, and their application to ensure continual service improvement.

• The role of the CSI manager, and the roles of service owner, process owner, process manager and process practitioner in the context of CSI and how they can be positioned within an organization.
• How to design, implement and populate a RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed) diagram as well as how to use it to support CSI.

Learning Unit CSI06: Technology considerations

Bloom’s Level 4 Objectives – The knowledge, interpretation and analysis of improvement principles, techniques and relationships, and their application to ensure continual service improvement.

• The technology and tools required and how these would be implemented and managed to support CSI activities such as performance, project and portfolio management, as well as service measurement and business intelligence reporting.

Learning Unit CSI07: Implementing continual service improvement

Bloom’s Level 4 Objectives – The knowledge, interpretation and analysis of improvement principles, techniques and relationships, and their application to ensure continual service improvement.

• CSI implementation: strategy, planning, governance, communication, project management, operation, as well as how to deal with cultural and organizational change

Learning Unit CSI08: Challenges, critical success factors and risks

Bloom’s Level 4 Objectives – The knowledge, interpretation and analysis of improvement principles, techniques and relationships, and their application to ensure continual service improvement.

• The challenges and risks such as staffing, funding, management, etc., which can be related to CSI and the details behind how each challenge can be addressed
• The critical success factors related to CSI as well as how to measure and monitor them

CERTIFICATION EXAM

To be eligible for the ITIL Intermediate Qualification: Continual Service Improvement examination, candidates shall fulfil the following requirements:

• At least 21 contact hours (hours of instruction, excluding breaks, with an Accredited Training Organization (ATO) or an accredited e-learning solution) for this syllabus, as part of a formal, approved training course and scheme
• A basic IT literacy and around 2 years IT experience are highly desirable
• Hold the ITIL Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management (or other appropriate earlier ITIL and bridge qualifications– see Prerequisite Entry Criteria on p5)
• It is recommended that candidates should complete at least 21 hours of personal study by reviewing the syllabus and the ITIL Continual Service Improvement publication in preparation for the examination, specifically Chapter 2: Service management as a practice.