ITIL® 4 Strategist: Direct, Plan & Improve (DPI)

This course is presented as Live Virtual Training. Click for more details.

The next step in your ITIL career path

The ITIL 4 Strategist: Direct, Plan and Improve (DPI) certification is a required module for both the ITIL Managing Professional and ITIL Strategic Leader qualifications.  ITIL DPI helps to align product and service management with modern business requirements, drive successful organisational transformation, and embed continual improvement into an organisation’s behaviour at every level.

The course aims to identify and focus on the core competencies that leaders and operational employees alike should cultivate and apply throughout their service management careers. Successful candidates will find a supply of ideas and methods that they can use to be better leaders and individual contributors, and that they will find more scope to continue improving in the future.

In the new ITIL® 4 scheme there are two high-level “stream” qualifications – ITIL Managing Professional (MP) stream and ITIL Strategic Leader (SL) stream.

The ITIL 4 Managing Professional (MP) Qualification

The ITIL Managing Professional stream targets IT practitioners working within technology and digital teams across businesses and provides practical and technical knowledge about how to run successful IT-enabled services, teams and workflows. It comprises of 3 specialist modules and 1 strategist module:

• ITIL 4 Specialist – Create, Deliver & Support
• ITIL 4 Specialist – Drive Stakeholder Value
• ITIL 4 Specialist – High Velocity IT
• ITIL 4 Strategist – Direct, Plan & Improve

The ITIL 4 Strategic Leader (SL) Qualification

The ITIL Strategic Leader stream focuses on the challenges for leaders to create an appropriate digital strategy to enable the success of businesses and how it can be integrated to the IT strategy and aligned to the wider goals of the organisation.

• ITIL 4 Leader- Digital & IT Strategy
• ITIL 4 Strategist – Direct, Plan & Improve

You can get a good and quick idea of the new ITIL 4 Certification Scheme in the diagram below.  To obtain the ITIL Managing Professional (MP) or ITIL Strategic Leader (SL) designations you must complete all modules in each stream, with ITIL Strategist being a common module for both streams.

Learning outcomes

This 3-day course covers the core service management concepts and practices beyond the foundational level, that will equip organisations and individuals with better understanding and application of the concepts to establish a learning and improving IT organization. The principles, methods and techniques that can be universally used to direct, plan and improve are explored and explained in this course.

• Understand the key concepts of Direct, Plan & Improve
• Understand the scope of what is to be directed and/or planned, and know how to use key principles and methods of direction and planning in that context
• Understand the role of Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) and know how to integrate the principles and methods into the service value system
• Understand and know how to use the key principles and methods of continual improvement for all types of improvements
• Understand and know how to use the key principles and methods of communication and organizational change management to direction, planning and improvement
• Understand and know how to use the key principles and methods of measurement and reporting in direction, planning and improvement
• Understand and know how to direct, plan and improve value streams and practices

Who should attend

The ITIL 4 Strategist: Direct, Plan & Improve course is designed for:

• IT service management practitioners who are seeking to obtain the ITIL® 4 Managing Professional (MP) designation
• IT service management practitioners who has the authority to direct something, even if that authority is limited to personal direction
• Anyone who is contributing to, if not leading, improvement
• Roles include:
  • Quality Assurance personnel
  • Governance or Audit personnel
  • Portfolio Director/Manager
  • Project Director/Manager
  • Service Director/Manager
  • Service Desk Manager
  • System Engineer
  • Application Director/Manager
  • Infrastructure Director/Manager
  • Information Security Manager/Engineer
  • Continual Improvement Director/Manager

Course contents

1. Recap of ITIL Foundation

2. Introduction

• Organizations, people, and culture
• Why direction, planning, and improvement matter
• Direction
• Planning
• Improvement
• The role of measurement and reporting
• Direction, planning, and improvement of the ITIL SVS
• Applying the guiding principles
• Value, outcomes, costs, and risks in direct, plan, and improve
• Direction, planning, and improvement for everyone

3. Strategy and Direction

• Strategy management
• Defining the structures and methods used to direct behaviours and make decisions
• The role of risk management in direction, planning, and improvement
• Portfolio management: a key decision-making practice
• Direction via governance, risk, and compliance

4. Assessment and Planning

• Basics of assessment
• Basics of planning
• Introduction to value stream mapping

5. Measurement and Reporting

• Basics of measurement and reporting
• Types of measurements
• Measurement and the four dimensions
• Measurement of products and services

6. Continual Improvement

• Creating a continual improvement culture
• Continual improvement of the service value chain and practices
• Continual improvement in organizations
• The continual improvement model
• Using measurement and reporting in continual improvement

7. Communication and Organisational Change Management

• Basics of effective communication
• Identifying and communicating with stakeholders
• Basics of OCM

8. Developing a Service Value System

• Adopting the guiding principles
• Centre of excellence for service management
• The four dimensions of service management in the SVS

9. Bringing It Together

• Modern leadership
• Using the guiding principles for direction, planning, and improvement

10) Exam Preparation

• Exam techniques
• Sample Exam(s)

Course fees

Course Fees

• ITIL® 4 Strategist: Direct, Plan & Improve
• $2,450 + gst per person

Fees Include:

• ALC Course Workbook
• Official ITIL® 4 Strategist: Direct, Plan & Improve Textbook
• ITIL® 4 Strategist: Direct, Plan & Improve Examination Voucher

Pre-Requisites

The ITIL 4 Foundation Qualification is a prerequisite for the ITIL 4 Strategist: Direct, Plan & Improve Certification.

Live Virtual Training – Participants will be provided with an online exam voucher to sit the exams at a time and date of their choosing within 3 months of the course. The web-proctored exams are available 24/7 and run by the examination institute PEOPLECERT. 

Face-to-Face Training – As of 01 February, 2022 paper-based exams will no longer be offered by PeopleCert the examination institute for ITIL®. All exams will be conducted online. During the course you will receive an exam voucher and instructions how to book the exam for a date and time of your choice within 3 months of the course. The exams are web-proctored by PeopleCert and are available 24/7.

Exam Information

The Direct, Plan & Improve exam is paper-based and is held in class at the end of the course.

The exam comprises:

• 40 multiple choice questions
• 28 marks required to pass (out of 40 available) – 70%
• 90 minutes duration
• Closed book