On my second week of joining this consulting company, the regional director from Miami office contacted me and told me we had to do something about the existing ITIL Foundation e-learning program for it’s losing its novelty established when it was first launched to market four years back.

After some analysis on the e-learning program I could empathized with the director. His concern and frustration is not uncommon. Sadly many e-learning users had to endure poorly designed courseware that resembles a lack of effort work by translating a book online or merely calling a Power Point-nish presentation slides an e-learning courseware. In our case, it was not a lack of effort but more of a lack of understanding in the powerful application of sound instructional design strategy to achieve what e-learning is intended for – to impart knowledge, engage learner and make learning fun.

I have a challenging tasks at hand given the subject of ITIL foundation alone is not an easy concept to teach especially its size – 11 different key processes that are link to one another in an integrated way. What is ITIL? ITIL is an integrated set of best practices and most widely accepted approach to assist organization in developing a framework for IT Service Management. Sounds easy and interesting? I don’t think so. Given only 6 months I have to revive the program.

Quickly I gathered an international team of experts to get this project started. We spent 40% of our time in the analysis and design phase, discussing and debating all the issues and possible solutions on the drawing board. There are so many things to consider: learners’ whimpers, what ID model to apply, what values to we could create, how should we structure the program, what is the scope, what learning mix (medium) yields best result, how should the students be assessed, what mix of learning medium, use of multimedia technology, security issues and so on.

After one month deliberation, we finally came out with a final blueprint for our new ITIL foundation e-learning. The broad treatment surprising came from one of our lunch sessions when one of instructional designers got this brilliant idea of using our day to day life to make ITIL fun and easy to digest. ITIL concept which might sound very IT, could be applicable in many situations. So we adopted the idea of growing a new township. For instance teaching Configuration Management we mapped it into the town map where street names, buildings are given their identities. Using different stories within the township we managed to integrate all the 11 processes nicely. Learners are also evaluated throughout the curriculum. At any time they could go through a mock ITIL exam and find out areas they are weak at for further revision.

The most satisfying moment of revitalizing the program is when we get feedback from customers and learners who find our e-learning program useful and innovative.

ITIL Foundation e-learning is an online course designed specifically to prepare students for the examination leading to the Foundation Certification in IT Service Management. If you are considering an ITIL Foundation e-learning program visit our ITIL training and certification courses.


Alexa Yim is the global learning strategist for Quint Wellington Redwood with 8 years of e-learning and training experience. Visit our ITIL training and certification courses (http://itiltraining.quintgroup.com) and our other case studies for your reference.