Submitted by skeptic on Sat, 2009-06-20 22:51
I used a very humble recession-era hourly consulting rate of $120. I bet some of you are on more.
I averaged the costs of two vendors (Pink and HP) to get a price. You can overtype the column "enter your own costs here" if you have quotes for local courses.
For the online courses I used a good value bundle deal (including the cost of examinations) from ITSM Solutions. I make the assumption that the time commitment is about the same. You get the opportunity to use more "non-billing time" with online training, but I also believe you need more hours for the same result: you are less focused, more easily distracted, less supported, and often more fatigued than in a classroom setting.
Perhaps you don't want to charge all (or any) of the study hours as lost revenue time. Then it will "only" cost you about twenty grand (or five grand for online courses!). Maybe you want to remove the Foundation course because it is pretty much a given you would do that anyway. Or cost it at about $300 if you self-train and don't cost the hours spent. Come up with your own number.
Then answer these questions:
- Maybe your personal networks and reputation deliver you enough work anyway. Do you need this to get hired?
- Is your future in ITIL? Perhaps you could better spend these funds opening up a new area such as audit, security, governance or whatever.
- Can you afford this kind of money in 2009?
- Can you spare 200-350 hours right now?
Personally I answer "no" to all four. I don't see me getting ITIL Expert.
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Published in The Skeptical Informer. July 2009, Volume 3, No. 5
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