Certification guide
ITIL 4 Specialist: Drive Stakeholder Value is the demand-side module of the ITIL 4 Managing Professional designation. It covers the whole span of the relationship between a service provider and everyone on the other side of it: how you find the customers you should be serving, how you agree what a service actually is, how people are brought onto it and taken off it, and how the value it was supposed to create is checked rather than assumed. Where Create, Deliver and Support looks inward at how work gets done, DSV looks outward at whether the right work is being done for the right people.
It is the broadest of the ITIL 4 Managing Professional papers. Eight syllabus sections, none of them larger than 17.5%, mean the exam samples widely rather than deeply, the whole customer journey is in scope, and there is nowhere to hide a weak topic behind a strong one. Forty multiple-choice questions in 90 minutes, closed book, scenario-led, with 28 correct answers needed to pass.
That 70% pass mark is five points above the 65% used at ITIL Foundation level, and on a paper spread across eight sections it bites harder than the number suggests: you can only drop twelve questions in total, so two sections neglected can end the attempt on their own. Accredited training is mandatory for this module, and PeopleCert withholds results without proof of completion.
Scheme status. PeopleCert released ITIL Version 5 in February 2026, and the current plan is to sunset all ITIL 4 modules on 31 December 2027. Drive Stakeholder Value is live and examinable today. An ITIL 4 certificate earned now remains valid, renews on the normal three-year cycle, and still counts as a prerequisite for higher Version 5 modules, passing this exam is not wasted work if the scheme moves on. Confirm current scheme dates with PeopleCert before booking.
Level · Managing Professional 40 questions 90 minutes 113 minutes if English is not your first language Pass · 28 of 40 · 70% Multiple choice · closed book · no negative marking Prerequisite · ITIL 4 Foundation, any ITIL v3 certification, or an ITIL 4 Managing Professional certificate Accredited training mandatory · results withheld without proof of completion Renew every 3 years · 60 CPD points From $649 USD exam bundle · list $865
Every question carries one mark and there is no negative marking, so an unanswered question costs exactly what a wrong one does. The paper is closed book, and candidates sitting in a language that is not their first receive 113 minutes rather than 90. On this module the extra time matters: eight sections’ worth of scenario stems is a lot of reading.
The eight sections follow the arc of a customer relationship from first contact to realised value, and the weights are flatter than on any other ITIL 4 module. The heaviest section is 17.5% and the lightest is 5%; three sections sit together at 15%. Listed below in descending weight order, with their syllabus section numbers.
How to onboard and offboard customers and users
Section 6 · 17.5%The largest single section, worth seven questions on a 40-question paper. Onboarding is where a service relationship either starts well or spends the rest of its life recovering, and the syllabus treats offboarding as an equal partner rather than an afterthought, leaving a service cleanly is part of the relationship, not the end of it. Expect scenarios about planning onboarding for a described user population, choosing how users are engaged and enabled, and handling the exit of a customer or a user group without damage to the remaining relationship. If you study one section harder than the rest, make it this one.
How to foster stakeholder relationships
Section 3 · 15%Six questions. The relationship itself as an object to be managed: building and maintaining it, understanding the different types of relationship a provider carries at once, and the mutual readiness of the two parties to work together. This is also where trust and communication show up as examinable material rather than soft-skills background. Questions tend to describe a relationship going wrong in a specific way and ask what would repair or prevent it.
How to shape demand and define service offerings
Section 4 · 15%Six questions. Turning what stakeholders want into something a provider can actually offer: understanding and influencing demand, describing opportunities and requirements honestly, and designing service offerings that match. This section is where the framework is most explicit that demand is shaped rather than simply received, and scenarios often turn on whether a described provider is responding to demand or being pushed around by it.
How to act together to ensure continual value co-creation
Section 7 · 15%Six questions. The steady-state of the relationship: value is co-created continuously by provider and consumer acting together, so this section covers how service interactions are designed and fostered, and how user engagement is sustained once the novelty of a new service has worn off. Expect questions about the day-to-day mechanics of interaction, what makes an interaction productive rather than merely polite.
How to realize and validate service value
Section 8 · 12.5%Five questions. The closing move of the journey, and the one most organisations skip: checking whether the value the service was supposed to create was actually created, and evaluating and improving on the answer. Charging and billing considerations sit here too, since realised value and what was paid for it are the same conversation. Scenarios generally give you an outcome and ask how you would confirm or evidence it.
How to target markets and stakeholders
Section 2 · 10%Four questions. The upstream analysis: understanding markets, identifying and analysing the stakeholders in play, and working out where a provider’s services genuinely fit. Marketing concepts appear here in the service-management sense, knowing your audience before you build for it. A smaller section, but the one that makes the later sections make sense, so it is a poor candidate for skipping despite its weight.
How to align expectations and agree details of services
Section 5 · 10%Four questions. The negotiation and agreement stage: planning for value co-creation, agreeing and clarifying what a service will and will not do, and managing the expectations that agreements are supposed to encode. Questions frequently hinge on the gap between what was agreed and what the customer believed was agreed, which is a distinction the syllabus takes seriously.
How customer journeys are designed
Section 1 · 5%The smallest section, worth two questions, but it is section 1 for a reason: the customer journey is the organising idea the other seven sections are steps within. Understanding what a journey is and how one is designed and improved costs very little study time and makes the rest of the syllabus cohere. Learn it first even though it is examined least.
A free 15-question Drive Stakeholder Value sample is live now, weighted across all eight syllabus sections in the proportions PeopleCert publishes, scored instantly against the real exam’s 70% threshold, no account needed. Full-length 100-question practice sets are in development and will follow the same official weights: roughly 17 or 18 questions per hundred from onboarding and offboarding, 15 each from fostering stakeholder relationships, shaping demand and defining service offerings, and acting together for continual value co-creation, 12 or 13 from realizing and validating service value, 10 each from targeting markets and stakeholders and from aligning expectations, and 5 from customer journey design. On a real 40-question paper those weights land as 7, 6, 6, 6, 5, 4, 4 and 2 questions respectively, which is worth knowing when you decide how to spend a study week. All questions and explanations are original and written in the scenario style the live paper uses.
Frequently asked questions about ITIL 4 Drive Stakeholder Value
What is ITIL 4 Specialist: Drive Stakeholder Value?
It is the stakeholder and customer-facing module of the ITIL 4 scheme, covering the full customer journey: designing journeys, targeting markets and stakeholders, fostering relationships, shaping demand and defining service offerings, aligning expectations, onboarding and offboarding, co-creating value through service interactions, and realizing and validating that value. It sits at Managing Professional level and is one of the four modules that award the ITIL 4 Managing Professional designation, alongside Create, Deliver and Support, High-Velocity IT and Direct, Plan and Improve.
How many questions are on the exam and how long is it?
Forty multiple-choice questions in 90 minutes. Candidates taking the exam in a language that is not their first receive 113 minutes. There is no negative marking, so leaving a question blank costs the same as getting it wrong.
What is the passing score?
Twenty-eight of 40, which is 70%, five percentage points above the 65% used at ITIL Foundation level. You can drop twelve questions in total across all eight sections, which is less room than it sounds like on a syllabus this broad.
Are there any prerequisites?
Yes. You need ITIL 4 Foundation, any ITIL v3 certification, or an ITIL 4 Managing Professional certificate before sitting the exam.
Do I have to take accredited training?
Yes. Accredited training is mandatory for Drive Stakeholder Value, and PeopleCert withholds results without proof of completion, an exam voucher alone will not produce a certificate. Treat the course as part of the cost and the schedule of the credential, not an optional add-on.
What are the eight syllabus sections and their weights?
How to onboard and offboard customers and users (17.5%), how to foster stakeholder relationships (15%), how to shape demand and define service offerings (15%), how to act together to ensure continual value co-creation (15%), how to realize and validate service value (12.5%), how to target markets and stakeholders (10%), how to align expectations and agree details of services (10%), and how customer journeys are designed (5%).
Is the exam open book?
No. Drive Stakeholder Value is closed book, no syllabus, no framework publication, no notes.
How does DSV differ from Create, Deliver and Support?
They are the two halves of the same designation seen from opposite sides. CDS is about how a provider organises value streams and applies practices to build, deliver and support services. DSV is about the relationship with the people the service exists for, who they are, what was agreed, how they are brought on and taken off, and whether the value promised was delivered. Both count toward ITIL 4 Managing Professional, with High-Velocity IT and Direct, Plan and Improve.
How long is the certification valid, and does the ITIL Version 5 release change that?
Three years, renewed with 60 CPD points or by passing another ITIL exam. PeopleCert released ITIL Version 5 in February 2026 and currently plans to sunset all ITIL 4 modules on 31 December 2027, but a DSV certificate earned now stays valid, renews normally, and still counts as a prerequisite for higher Version 5 modules.
How should I prepare?
Learn the customer journey first even though it is only 5% of the paper. It is the frame the other seven sections hang on, and without it they read as eight unrelated topics. Then work outward in weight order, giving onboarding and offboarding the most attention at 17.5%. Because no section exceeds 17.5%, this is the one ITIL 4 module where near-even coverage is close to correct: a section you skip entirely is two to seven questions gone, and you can only afford twelve mistakes. Drill blueprint-weighted sets until you clear 70% consistently, and read the explanation on every miss.
Trademark notice & independence. Certifym.net is operated by Certifym Exam Services, LLC and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by PeopleCert. ITIL® is a registered trade mark of PeopleCert group companies, used here only to identify the certification these study materials are intended for. The ITIL 4 Specialist: Drive Stakeholder Value syllabus and its section weights are the property of PeopleCert; candidates should always confirm the current syllabus, exam format, pricing and scheme dates directly with PeopleCert before booking, as scheme details and the announced ITIL 4 sunset arrangements may change.
All questions, answers, and explanations on Certifym are original content written for practice purposes. They are not actual PeopleCert examination questions and are not represented as such. Practicing with these materials does not guarantee a passing result on any live certification exam.