A few weeks ago, I took the ITIL Service Manager certification course and exam.  It was the by far the most difficult exam I have ever taken in my life.  Let's just say, I have much respect for all certified ITIL Service Managers.  The course lasted a total of two weeks with two 3-hour written essay exams at the end.  I ended up hand-writing a total of 81 pages, and my hand hurts just thinking about it!  The exam is hand graded, so I am still waiting for my score (and keeping my fingers crossed!)

However, it was also probably the best exam I have ever taken in the sense that, just like in life, you are handed a real-life situation and have to come up with a plan on how to overcome the various problems.  The exams describe a company scenario (case study), and students are asked to do any number of number of things, for example: Write a proposal for the CIO detailing how you would implement an ITIL based change management process, the advantages of implementing a particular process, the short-term and long-term proposed activities, etc.  It forces you to use your knowledge and experience as a manager to diagnose a problem and determine how you would actually fix it, using ITIL methodology.  It was pretty amazing.  

Lots of people (myself included), think that taking an ITIL foundation course is enough.  However,  the foundation course is just that - a foundation.  You don't really get a good understanding of how to actually lead ITIL initiatives and affect lasting change in a company until you take one of the more advanced ITIL courses, namely one of the practitioner courses or the service manager course.  True to its name, the Manager course actually teaches how to design, implement, and manage IT services.   I was blown away by what I took away from the course and feel pretty confident I could implement new ITIL processes into a non-ITIL environment, clearly communicate benefits of implementing ITIL processes (always a challenge as a manager when trying to get money for process improvement programs), as well as anticipate common problems when implementing ITIL and know how to avoid them. 

It's definitely not a course for the faint of heart, but it's one that empowers you with the ability to bring immediate value to any organization.  I really think every IT Manager needs to take this course.  Here is a link to some upcoming courses: http://www.beyond20.com/itil-service-manager.php