Upon successful completion of the course candidates can expect to gain competencies in the followings:

• Importance of Service Management as a practice concept, Service Transition principles, purpose and objective
• Process in Release Control & Validation and interaction across the Service Lifecycle 
• How to use the processes in Release Control & Validation to achieve operational excellence 
• Measurement and Metrics of Release Control & Validation activities, processes 
• IT Security and it’s contribution to Release Control & Validation 
• Technology & Implementation considerations 
• Change Management as a capability to realise successful Service Transition 
• Service Validation and testing as a capability to ensure integrity and quality of Service Transition 
• SACM as a capability to monitor the state of Service Transition 
• Knowledge management as part of enhancing the ongoing management decision support and service delivery capability 
• Release control and Validation roles and responsibilities 
• Challenges, KPIs and Risks associated with Release, Control & Validation

Many organisations deliver significant change through formal projects, and the failure to ensure that projects address the full service management and operational requirements as well as the functional requirements can be a costly, or even fatal, mistake to an organisation.

Service Transition through effective Release, Control and Validation ensures that the transition processes are streamlined, effective and efficient, so that the risk of delay of deploying solutions into the live environment is minimised. Service Transition also establishes assurance of the expected and actual service deliverables, and integrated elements that each service depends on to deliver and operate the service successfully. These elements include applications, infrastructure, knowledge, documentation, facilities, finance, people, processes, skills and so on.

The processes involved in the Release, control and validation training course are as follows:

• Change Management – Ensuring that changes are controlled and only beneficial changes are allowed to progress to the live environment.
• Service Asset and Configuration Management – Having control, sight and an understanding of the assets that make up the services they deliver to the business.
• Service Validation and Testing – Provide confidence that new or changed services will provide the expected organisational outcomes and value within the cost, capacity and constraints identified.
• Release and Deployment - Involved in release planning, build, test and deployment and review of releases that meet organisational requirements into the production environment.
• Request Fulfilment – Dealing with service requests from the organisation.
• Change Evaluation – Evaluate the service change throughout the transitional activities, to ensure it will meet the organisational requirements and create the expected organisational value
• Knowledge Management – Enable organisations to improve the quality of decision-making by ensuring that reliable and secure information and data are available to allow informative decisions to be made, based on our intellectual capital (our knowledge).

This course will be applicable for you if you:

• Are an individual who requires a detailed understanding of the Release, Control and Validation processes and how they may be used to enhance the quality of IT service support within an organisation.
• Are an IT professional working within an organisation that has adopted and adapted ITIL® but needs to be informed about and thereafter contribute to an on-going service improvement programme.
• Are a member of operational staff involved in the following areas who wish to enhance their role-based capabilities:
  • Change Management
  • Release and Deployment Management
  • Service Validation
  • Service Testing
  • Service Asset and Configuration Management
  • Request Fulfilment
  • Change Evaluation
  • Knowledge Management
• Individuals seeking progress through the ITIL® qualifications towards achieving the ITIL® Master in IT Service Management for which the ITIL® Expert is a prerequisite.
• Are in one of the following IT professions or areas:
  • Release Manager
  • Security Administrator
  • IT Operations Manager
  • Database Administrator
  • Security Manager

PREREQUISITES

You must hold the Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management (the V3 Foundation or V2 Foundation plus Bridge Certificate) and have completed an accredited training course to take the exam.

What format is the exam?

• 90 minute ‘closed book’
• Eight multiple choice, scenario-based questions
• Pass mark is 70% (28/40)

Please note that as of May 2015 ACQUIROS requires evidence of this certificate. In order to sit the exam you must provide a paper photocopy of your ITIL Foundation Certificate. Please ensure you bring this with you on the first day of your course. If you fail to do so you will NOT be able to sit the exam.