ITIL Foundation Certificate courses can vary considerably from provider to provider. The focus of the provider should be to provide the most useful blend of theory and practical assignment either by physical attendance course or by an online delivery type course. The ITIL Foundation Certificate course is the entry level course within the IT Service Management certification scheme.

The course itself is usually broken up into three broad categories and delivered over three days (that is for the traditional attendance type).

Day 1

ITIL Foundation Certificate courses should give an introduction to Service Management covering the majority of the following list:

• Business and IT alignment
• Total Service Management
• The benefits and importance of Service Management
• Service Management disciplines
• Service Management and ITIL
• Quality
• Organizational Change

Security Management

• Activities in the Process
• Link to other processes

Day 2

ITIL Foundation Certificate courses should give an overview of the Service delivery processes covering the majority of the following list:

Service Level Management

• The Service Level Management process
• Typical contents of SLAs
• Monitoring, reporting and Reviewing

Availability Management

• Availability, reliability, serviceability
• Maintainability, security
• Designing high availability

IT Service Continuity Management

• Risk Management
• Business Impact Analysis
• Contingency options and the IT Service Continuity Plan

Financial Management for IT Services

• Budgeting, costing and charging options
• Cost centers
• Budgets and estimating

Capacity Management

• Capacity forecasting
• The capacity plan
• Elements of Capacity Management

Day 3

ITIL Foundation Certificate courses should give an overview of the Service Support processes covering the majority of the following list:

Service Desk

• Service Desk types
• Incident logging and management
• Service Desk options and procedures
• Incident reporting and prioritization

Incident Management

• Incident management activities
• Role of the Incident Manager
• Key performance indicators

Problem Management

• Problem and Known Error Control
• Trend identification
• Problem reduction

Configuration Management

• Basic principles and terminology
• The Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
• Data capture and auditing

Change Management

• Centralized Change Control
• Change Management processes
• Roles and Responsibilities

Release Management

• The Definitive Software Library
• Distribution and Implementation
• Legal and licensing issues

On this page I have endeavored to give you an insight into the types of things the ITIL Foundation Certificate courses should cover to be accredited either through EXIN or ISEB. This is not a full representation of what is covered  but more as a guide to help you differentiate between providers.