ITMLP^® and ITMLE^® Certification Exam Process

Taking the Exam

IT Management and Leadership certification exam can be taken at any time at your convenience from any location.

Each certification exam contains a combination of multiple choice, true/false, and other similar type questions on each of the exam’s topical areas. It also includes short-answer questions categorized as “Situational Analysis”, “Personal Introspection”, and “Definitional and Practical”. Typically, the exams take 3-4 hours to complete.

These exams are not timed; therefore, you can take whatever time is needed to complete the questions.

The exam is open-book open notes and may be taken in parts, rather than all at once. The reason for these non-customary exam options is because of the nature of IT. IT Management is open-book open-notes, therefore, so is the exam. The rationale to allow you to take it in parts is because as an IT Manager/Executive, when hardware, data communications, and/or software go down, it’s all-hands-on-deck, including yours.

Once you have completed the certification exam, the results will be sent to you within ten business days. You may take exams up to three times if necessary. Upon receiving a passing grade, certification information and documents will be sent to you promptly. These consist of instructions for designating your new certification on your business cards and other business documents, as well as a framed certificate.

We ensure that all of our students are given the tools to succeed. If at any point you are experiencing any difficulties with our user interface, accessing content, or have ideas for content you’d like to see, we strongly encourage you to reach out to us. We are constantly working to build a stronger system built to service your needs.

Exam Cost

The ITMLP^® and ITMLE^® exams are included in the price of the three-day class, at no additional cost.

Short Answer Exam Question Evaluation

The short answer questions within the exams will be based on the following three criteria:

Accuracy: The correctness of your answer, based on the class materials and IT management industry best practices.

Completeness: The percent to which your answer addresses the content of the question.

Clarity: How clear your answer is written. Because for many of our students English is a second language, proper English grammar is not included in our evaluation, as long as the answer can be understood by the class evaluators.

Exams Integrity Statement

We uphold the highest standards of academic integrity during certification exams. Students are expected to take exams honestly and without unauthorized assistance. Cheating or any form of dishonesty is strictly prohibited and will result in the loss of certification. By adhering to these principles, we maintain the integrity and credibility of our academic community.

Exam Appeals/Retake Process

If you feel you were treated incorrectly, your exam outcome did not meet your expectations, or the exam process was not fair, you may please contact us at info@ITMLinstitute.org or complete the form on our Contact Page.

Once received, the ITML Institute will respond by email or phone call within five business days. This email may ask for additional clarification to make sure your issue is understood and will provide the option to discuss the issue via phone or Zoom with the ITML Institute executive director or his designee.

The option to take the exam up to three times at no additional cost will always be offered.

Upon understanding the issue, the ITML Institute will manually re-review the exam of all auto-corrected questions, reread all short-answer questions, and take other appropriate steps based on the nature of the issue.

While general feedback may be given about the exam results, clarification of a specific question, or why a question was not answered correctly (at the sole judgement of the ITML Institute), it will not include information that compromises the fairness of the exam to others by divulging correct answers.

Continuing Education Requirements

Enhancing your IT management and leadership ability is not just an event nor a destination.  It’s a life-long journey of learning, practice, experience, and growth.

While becoming certified is both an event and a destination, it’s your continued learning throughout your career that will help you maximize and realize your career potential.

To that end, continuing your education is a key ingredient of your future development.  To assist you in this process, the ITML Institute requires ongoing learning to maintain your ITMLP^® or ITMLE^® certifications.  This requirement is to participate in ten (10) hours of ongoing learning per year, for five (5) years to maintain your certification.  That would be fifty (50) documented learning activities during the prior five years.

This five-year period begins when you receive confirmation that you passed the exam and became certified.  For those who passed the exam prior to January 31, 2024, your five-year continuing education requirement will begin on January 31, 2024.

This learning can include any or all of the following activities:

• Formal classroom training
• Formal live virtual/webinar based training
• Formal on-demand online learning/training
• College classes
• Webinars
• Attendance at professional conferences
• Attendance at local professional chapter meetings

Because of the wide range of IT roles, responsibilities, and career paths, your continuing education may be in any or all of the following areas, based on your current and future job roles and career aspirations.

• Management and leadership
• IT Methodology and IT process best practices
• Soft skills, such as emotional intelligence and active listening
• Organizational thinking and strategy
• Technology management
• User experience and user satisfaction
• Other IT management related topics and training
• Technology-related training, if it is with the intent of leading others using that technology

Documenting your learning using PDUs

Professional Development Units (PDUs) are one-hour blocks of time that are used to record your learning activities. Another term for these one-hour blocks is Continuing Development Units (CDUs), which are the same thing, just a different name.

Some activities, such as taking a formal class or attending a public webinar, provide certificates stating the number of PDUs (hours spent), others do not.  Also, other activities, such as attending professional conferences or chapter meetings do not. In all cases, you will just be asked to personally document your hours spent during these activities.

Additional notes on PDU usage:

• If you have both ITMLP and ITMLE certifications, the same PDU hours can be used toward both continuing education requirements.
• Submitted PDUs must be attended after receiving your certification
• Keeping a log over time of your PDUs will greatly simplify your documentation process
• Fractional PDUs may be reported in half-hour (30 minute) increments.
• As a convenience to you, you will be contacted by the ITML Institute at the end of year-four to remind you that your PDU documentation will be required the following year.

How to Submit your PDU documentation

When submitting your continuing education documentation, please email a PDF document to info@ITMLInstitute.com containing the following information:

• Your Name
• Your Email Address
• For each PDU generating activity
  • Activity title
  • Activity type
  • Organization running the event
  • Event date
  • Number of PDUs

Topics Covered on the Exam

The exam contains questions on the following topics. These questions may be in the form of true/false, multiple choice, or short answer.

Life as a Technical Manager

• Characteristics of Successful IT Managers
• Making Technical Decisions
• Managing Multiple Projects

Influence-Based Technical Leadership

• Situational Influence
• Cialdini’s Six Principles of Influence
• Cohen-Bradford Influence Currencies
• Using Influence Within an IT Context

Managing Hybrid and Virtual IT Teams

• Hybrid and Virtual Challenges
• Hybrid and Virtual Leadership Best Practices
• Task Type Needs
• Virtual Task Assignment
• Personality Types
• Communication Strategies

 Methodology Overview

• Waterfall
• Agile/Scrum
• Kanban
• IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
• Lean IT
• Scaled Agile Processes

IT Megatrends

• Reasons to Implement a New Technology
• New Technology Selection and Implementation Process
• Moore’s Technology Adoption Life Cycle Curve
• Garner’s Technology Hype Cycle
• AIOps and CI/CD
• Edge Computing
• Digital Twin Technologies
• Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
• Rise of quality end-user computing
• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Other Key IT Trends

IT Manager’s Perspective on Cybersecurity

• Attack Type Examples
• Types of Cybersecurity Activities
• The Cybersecurity/AI Connection
• Common Cybersecurity and Privacy Frameworks
• NIST Cybersecurity Framework
• Three Pillars of Cybersecurity
• Cybersecurity Maturity Models
• CIA Triad of Information Security

IT Funding and Cost Center Management

• Project/Production Team Mathematics
• Components of your budget
• IT funding and allocations
• Annual budget process
• IT budget issues and tips

IT Vendor Management

• Providers and strategic partners
• Considerations when selecting a vendor
• Vendor management life cycle
• Vendor oversight
• Outsourcing and cloud considerations

IT Internal Client Service

• User Experience
• Internal Client Service Concepts
• Managing Client Satisfaction
• Managing Client Expectations
• Measurement and Prioritization

Additionally, if you have any questions or have issues with any orders regarding registration, please contact us at info@ITMLinstitute.org or complete the form on our Contact Page.