Three times an ITIL Master – what it takes to maintain ITIL’s highest designation

David Billouz – President, Ociris and triple ITIL Master

During almost two decades of officially adopting ITIL, David Billouz has achieved the ITIL Master designation in three versions of the framework.

Here, he describes how the designation has enabled him to both demonstrate a deep knowledge of ITIL and become the bridge between a variety of organizational teams:

When I first trained in ITIL (in 2007), I didn’t imagine I would be using and talking about the framework almost 20 years later.

But I certainly saw how ITIL (at the time, v3) could be a business-critical enabler when working with a customer that wanted to standardize its service management system in line with ISO 20000. The framework became the clear and compatible way it could achieve this international certification.

Fast forward to 2022 when I first became an ITIL Master – based on a real-life project with a national rail operator.

Not unlike reaching the highest level in a martial art like karate or kung fu, becoming an ITIL Master provided confirmation that I had obtained the necessary knowledge and practical experience to operate and advise with confidence and authority.

However, achieving mastery doesn’t end with one designation, and the arrival of ITIL 4 began a new journey towards ITIL 4 Master, with immersion in the framework’s advanced modules, like assembling different parts of a puzzle to provide a holistic picture of topics including continual improvement, the customer journey and agile service management.

At the time, this supported my professional strategy to deliver ITIL consultancy services: defining where organizations are today and helping them improve service management by understanding ITIL’s 34 management practices.

Today, with the arrival of ITIL (Version 5), I have again followed the route to ITIL Master. While the new ITIL defines a lifecycle concept inspired by previous iterations of the framework, it has also expanded it to cover both digital products and services. From service-centric ITIL v3, through value-centric ITIL 4, the latest version ensures that agile product teams and service teams can – and should – collaborate fully to maximize customer value and experience.

But why does refreshing an ITIL Master designation matter?

ITIL Master – spanning the spectrum of knowledge and teams

Having an ITIL Master’s broad spectrum of knowledge and skills gives you the ability to bridge the needs and interests of a variety of different teams, including service management and product development.

Where organizational structures often create silos – for example, causing a lack of collaboration between HR and IT for employee onboarding – an ITIL Master can facilitate discussion and co-operation in the knowledge that the work of product and service owners is deeply connected. That’s what the product and service lifecycle model in ITIL (Version 5) advocates.

Being an ITIL Master has really helped in creating meaningful conversations with a large spectrum of service management and non-service management professionals in projects, as well as gaining customer recognition for my expertise in the field.

From ITIL 4 to ITIL Master (Version 5) – the pathway and key concepts

The Managing Professional Transition (Version 5) module enabled me to move from ITIL 4 Master to ITIL Master (Version 5) – and it has equipped me with some important concepts for working with organizations today:

Aligning the value chain with the digital product and service lifecycle addresses the issues associated with agile product teams and what happens in the service management area once a product is released.

In addition, recognizing that the use of AI requires governance is critical: it’s reckless for organizations to “play” with AI without guardrails, so governance provides the “firewall” through people setting rules and ensuring they are applied. This means the risks of experimenting with AI as part of digital transformation remain within the realm of safety.

And reaching ITIL Master (Version 5) has also introduced me to two advanced modules that I can seriously recommend: ITIL Experience (Version 5) and ITIL Transformation (Version 5). The former offers deep and eye-opening insights about the human tensions involved, such as service level managers making promises the service desk can’t deliver, while the latter provides fully-actionable ITIL knowledge for organizational change.

Accessing the entire ITIL framework via ITIL Master

It’s unfortunate that some organizations fail to encourage their people to pursue their ITIL learning to Master level.

Because combining the knowledge that practitioners gain either within their companies or working with clients with ITIL Master-level expertise can achieve radical improvements to their existing operations and cross-team collaboration.

Achieving an ITIL Master designation gives you confidence and capability across the entire framework and the ability to make it relevant to internal or external customers.