Best sources of ITIL

More often than not, the web misleads you more than it guides. Same is the case with the ITIL subject. If you try to search for a topic under ITIL, the web will give you enough food for thought to get confused than convinced. Every one of us would have been a victim of it, sometime or the other. What we will try to do in this post is discover the top 5 web sources of ITIL, their contents and takeaways from these websites.

#1 - The official ITIL site (http://www.itil-officialsite.com/) takes the first position, hands down. It contains all information related to the history, qualification scheme, certifying bodies and major developments that is speculated in the ITIL space.

#2 - So, after browsing through the first link, you have got enough information about this subject, the qualification schemes etc. etc. What next! Try browsing through the ITIL process map on wiki (http://wiki.en.it-processmaps.com/index.php/Main_Page). This site works as a wonderful flash card to revise/ refer the ITIL topics at a high level. Some good contents of it being, the ITIL V2 and V3 details, process maps et al.  All in all, an informative site to bookmark under your favorites tab for quick reference.

#3 - If you are looking for a very informative and detailed process level information (phase wise break up) on ITIL, then i would strongly recommend you peek a boo at http://www.itil.org/en/vomkennen/itil/index.php. This site contains some good detailed break up of processes under each phase of ITIL V3, few good diagrams to help you understand the concepts better. It also gives you an insight into ISO 20K, COBIT and how to implement the ITIL processes. 

#4 - Another good site to seek information and updates on ITIL subject is http://www.itilnews.com/. This site gives good information on overall service management

(Includes ISO 20K as well). How about downloading few whitepapers and following the best practices, this site will give you enough take away, not to forget few free downloads as well (which all of us are ardent fans of).

#5 - Now, you would want to go that extra mile after attaining some knowledge on ITIL and doing few basic certifications. A good site to keep yourself updated about the recent developments, events, news, forums is http://www.itsmfi.org/ . More than a good source of knowledge, it gives you a platform for effective networking when it comes to service management. 

By now, you would have realized that there is no one stop shop to get all the information about ITIL, but yes, this post will give you some insight of “where to find what”.