ITIL tool certification

The launch of an official ITIL tool certification scheme has raised hackles, and it is worth thinking why.

There are a number of issues to consider.

There are those who question whether a framework like ITIL actually lends itself to conversion to a compliance criteria for a tool, especially some of the more esoteric aspects that v3 has introduced.

But then PinkVerify has been around for a long time, and most of us use it to produce a long list for tool selection. We, that is ITSM consultancies, also have our own proprietary approaches to tool assessment.

The Pinkverify criteria are in the public domain, those for the new scheme won't be. You can argue that the availability of the Pink criteria makes it easier for vendors to distort features of their tool to fit the criteria, but I like the transparency.

There will, I'm sure, be a market for the new scheme amongst tool vendors, and seeing a tool badged as officially compliant will I'm sure appeal to some buyers, though they would be unwise to place too much relience on it because we all know that a tool that works well in one organisation might not be the best fit for another.

I think my personal concern is to do with checks and balances. To be credible the scheme has to be seen to be transparent and independent.

If anybody knows how the decision to award the contract for running the scheme was awarded I would like to know more about it than I do. I am presuming it was the result of an open competitive tender?

I would also like to know what safeguards are in place to ensure the assessments are free of any perceived bias.

My final thought is I wonder if the new scheme has been launched at the wrong time. In a recession tool buying is driven by different thought processes than in the good times.