IS ITIL certification good for a Software Project Manager?

There is no doubt that ITIL is applicable to all domains of I.T . ITIL is all about best practices,the more you know about it the more you will gain. ITIL has now became emerging need because clients/employers every one are demanding it. ITIL will definetly help you maintaining proper workflow in any kind of I.T Project.

Professional certifications (in any discipline including ITIL, project management, ... etc) are good for IT professionals including "software project manager"  ...  But .. would ITIL (as a topic) help a "software project manager" ??  i.e. would the ITIL content help aproject manager managing a software project ???   I do not see this kind of relation directly and strongly !! 

Dear Mohammed,

ITIL is still evolving & gaining foundational level certification would be advised as in general you could say anything related to Information Technology is touched by ITIL. But a lot depends on the domain & location the Software Project Manager is working in. 

Rather PMP would be more appropriate for Software Project Manager(s).

Regards,

SAAA. 

Not really. ITIL is purely for IT Operation and Services. Though certain module of ITIL may help Software Project Manager as they are helpful with SDLC.

PMP and ITIL are two different best practices and they can help a software project manager from rather different angles. I do not see PMP as a replacement for ITIL, although it is quite desirable for any project manager.

In ITIL you may learn to adopt a service-based perspective and understand how to use different ITIL processes in your software projects. ITIL is not “purely for Operation and Services” and it consists of5 service lifecycle stages, namely service strategy, design, transition, operation and continual service improvement, from which the first three can only be properly addressed through an effective project management. As you may find in ITIL core books, many ITIL processes (e.g. design coordination, change management, release and deployment management, etc.) are very much suited for software projects. I suggest taking the ITIL Foundation course and certification and then continue your path in ITIL by two capability courses called PPO (planning, protection and optimization) and RCV (release, control and validation).

In case of IT project management methodologies, you may also consider Prince2 which is even more suitable for IT projects than PMBOK.

Comparing to PMP and ITIL, PMP is more suitable for Software Project Managers.