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

Course overview

The adoption of ITIL as the world’s most widely used guidance for IT and service management continues with ITIL 4. ITIL 4 ensures continuity with existing ways of working (where service management is already successful) by integrating modern and emerging practices with established and proven know-how. ITIL 4 also provides guidance on new methods to help individuals and organizations see their benefits and use them with confidence, focus, and minimal disruption.

ITIL 4’s holistic approach raises the profile of service management in organizations and industries, setting it within a strategic context. Its focus is on end-to-end product and service management, from demand to value. ITIL 4 Direct, Plan and Improve (DPI) is an essential source of reference in aligning product and service management with modern business requirements—driving transformation and creating a continual improvement culture. The DPI course discusses concepts, principles, methods, and techniques that are leveraged to give direction, engage in planning, and participate in improvement activities. Not least of all, it enables participants and their organizations to adopt a service management approach and demonstrate a service mindset.

ITIL 4 Direct, Plan and Improve identifies and focuses on the core competencies that leaders and operational employees should cultivate and apply throughout their service management careers. Participants receive a supply of ideas and methods that will make them better leaders and individual contributors, and that will help them continue to improve.

Course objectives

ITIL 4 Direct, Plan and Improve helps align product and service management with modern business requirements; drive successful organizational transformation; and embed continual improvement into an organization’s behavior at every level. It is one of four ITIL 4 publications that build on the concepts introduced in ITIL Foundation. Each of these publications focuses on a different aspect of service management. The DPI course prepares candidates for the PeopleCert ITIL 4 Strategist Direct, Plan and Improve formal examination. The official DPI course syllabus outlines the following categories:

• Understand the key concepts of direct, plan and 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 GRC (governance, risk and compliance) 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 for 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