Certification guide
ITIL 4 Leader: Digital and IT Strategy is the module for people who have to decide what an organization should become, not how it should run. It sits at the top of the ITIL 4 scheme alongside Direct, Plan and Improve, and the two together complete the Strategic Leader designation. Where the Managing Professional modules are about delivering services well, DITS is about whether the organization delivering them will still be viable in five years, how digital disruption arrives, how to read it early, what strategic responses are available, and how a strategy survives contact with the organization it is meant to change.
It is also the shortest paper in the scheme. DITS is 30 questions in 60 minutes, not the 40 questions in 90 minutes that Create, Deliver and Support, Drive Stakeholder Value, High-Velocity IT and Direct, Plan and Improve all use. The pass mark is the same 70%, which means 21 correct answers out of 30. Fewer questions makes each one worth more: on a 40-question paper you can absorb twelve misses, here you can absorb nine, and a single careless answer moves you a third of the way through your margin.
The questions themselves are the hardest in the ITIL 4 set to guess at. They tend to present an organization facing a real strategic choice and offer four responses that are all defensible in isolation, where only one fits the situation described. Reading the scenario properly matters more than recalling a model.
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. Digital and IT Strategy 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 toward higher Version 5 modules. One point about this module specifically is often reported out of date: four practical assignments accompany DITS, but since 1 July 2024 PeopleCert no longer requires them to be marked. Certification turns on the 30-question multiple-choice paper alone. Some training providers still describe the assignments as a scored gate you must clear; that is no longer how the module is certified.
Level · Strategic Leader 30 questions 60 minutes 75 minutes if English is not your first language Pass · 21 of 30 · 70% Multiple choice, closed book, no negative marking Prerequisites · 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)
Thirty multiple-choice questions in 60 minutes, closed book, with no negative marking, a blank scores what a wrong answer scores, so there is no reason to leave one. Twenty-one correct answers pass. Candidates sitting in a language that is not their first receive an additional 25% of time, giving 75 minutes. Two minutes per question sounds generous until you meet a scenario that runs to a full paragraph; pace yourself against the clock from the first question rather than the twentieth.
The four practical assignments deserve a clear statement rather than a footnote. They still form part of the module’s design and accredited courses still work through them, but PeopleCert has not required them to be marked since 1 July 2024. What determines whether you are certified is the multiple-choice paper. Treat the assignments as the applied practice they now are, genuinely useful preparation for questions that ask you to choose a strategic response, rather than as a second hurdle to clear.
A second detail worth knowing before you study: the syllabus includes a learning outcome on the ITIL guiding principles that carries 0% of the multiple-choice weight. It is context taught in the course, not examinable content, and it is not sampled in the practice bank. Every mark on the paper comes from the seven weighted sections below.
Those seven sections are unusually spread out. Nothing dominates the way High-Velocity IT’s largest section does, but the gap between the top and bottom is wide: the largest sections are worth six questions each and the smallest is worth roughly one.
How digital disruption affects the organization
Section 1 · 20%What digital disruption actually is, where it comes from, and how it changes the terms on which an organization competes. Digital transformation as distinct from digitisation, the pressures that force a response, and the difference between an industry being disturbed and being displaced. Roughly six questions, usually framed as a described market shift you must classify correctly before you can answer.
Strategic approaches for the digital organization
Section 4 · 20%The available responses: positioning for customer value, operational excellence, ecosystems and platforms, and the choices an organization makes about where to compete and where to partner. Tied for the largest section. Questions here typically give you an organization with stated constraints and ask which strategic approach fits. The wrong answers are strategies that would work for a different organization.
Risks and opportunities of digital strategy
Section 5 · 17%Strategy as a bet with an accepted downside. Identifying and managing digital risk, recognising opportunity in the same conditions that create the risk, and the balance between innovation and stability that leaders are actually paid to strike. About five questions, and the section where the expected answer is rarely the most cautious one.
Implementing a digital strategy
Section 7 · 17%Turning an approved strategy into operating reality: sequencing, capabilities that must be built before the strategy can work, structural change, and the ways implementation fails, usually by leaving the organization’s incentives pointing at the old strategy. Also about five questions, and the closest this module comes to hands-on content.
How an organization remains viable in a digital environment
Section 3 · 13%Viability as an ongoing condition rather than a state you reach: financial and operational sustainability, the capabilities that keep an organization relevant, and how to judge whether a business model still works in a changed environment. Around four questions, closely coupled to the disruption section, disruption is the pressure, viability is the response.
Defining and advocating a digital strategy
Section 6 · 10%Writing a strategy down and then selling it. Vision and mission, how a digital strategy is articulated so that it can be acted on, and how a leader builds support among people who will bear the cost of the change. Roughly three questions, and the section most concerned with communication rather than analysis.
The relationship between the service value system and the service value chain
Section 2 · 3%The smallest section by a wide margin, about one question, connecting this module back to the ITIL 4 core structures you met at Foundation. Worth an hour of revision to confirm you can distinguish the value system from the value chain, and no more than that.
A free 15-question Digital and IT Strategy sample is live now, weighted across the seven examinable 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: 20 questions each from digital disruption and strategic approaches, 17 each from risks and opportunities and implementing a digital strategy, 13 from organizational viability, 10 from defining and advocating a strategy, and 3 from the service value system and service value chain relationship, with the pass mark matching the real exam’s 21 of 30. The guiding-principles outcome carries 0% of the multiple-choice weight and is therefore not sampled. Questions are original throughout and written as strategic scenarios with defensible distractors, because that is what the paper does.
Frequently asked questions about ITIL 4 Leader: Digital and IT Strategy
What is ITIL 4 Leader: Digital and IT Strategy?
It is the ITIL 4 module on digital strategy at the organizational level, how digital disruption affects an organization, what strategic approaches are available, how viability is maintained, and how a digital strategy is defined, advocated and implemented. With Direct, Plan and Improve it completes the ITIL 4 Strategic Leader designation.
How many questions are on the exam and how long is it?
Thirty multiple-choice questions in 60 minutes, closed book, with no negative marking. That is shorter than its siblings: Create, Deliver and Support, Drive Stakeholder Value, High-Velocity IT and Direct, Plan and Improve are all 40 questions in 90 minutes. Candidates taking the exam in a language that is not their first receive an additional 25% of time, giving 75 minutes.
What is the passing score?
Twenty-one of 30, which is 70%. With only 30 questions, each one is worth 3.33% of the paper, so the margin for error is nine questions rather than the twelve a 40-question module allows.
Do the four practical assignments still have to be completed and marked?
The four practical assignments still accompany the module, but since 1 July 2024 PeopleCert no longer requires them to be marked. Certification turns on the 30-question multiple-choice paper alone. Some training-provider pages still describe the assignments as a scored requirement; that description is out of date. They remain valuable applied practice for the scenario questions on the paper.
Are the ITIL guiding principles examined on this paper?
Not in the multiple-choice questions. The syllabus includes a guiding-principles learning outcome, but it carries 0% of the multiple-choice weight, so it is taught as context in the accredited course rather than tested. It is not sampled in our practice bank for that reason.
Do I have to take an accredited course?
Yes. Accredited training is mandatory for this module, and PeopleCert withholds results without proof of completion. Self-study alone will not produce a certificate however well you score, so build the course cost and schedule into your plan before booking the exam.
What are the prerequisites?
ITIL 4 Foundation, any ITIL v3 certification, or an ITIL 4 Managing Professional certificate.
What are the syllabus sections and their weights?
Seven sections: how digital disruption affects the organization (20%), strategic approaches for the digital organization (20%), risks and opportunities of digital strategy (17%), implementing a digital strategy (17%), how an organization remains viable in a digital environment (13%), defining and advocating a digital strategy (10%), and the relationship between the service value system and the service value chain (3%).
What does it cost?
From $649 USD for the exam bundle, against a list price of $865. That is the exam side only, accredited training is mandatory and is a separate cost.
Is ITIL 4 still worth taking now that Version 5 exists?
PeopleCert released ITIL Version 5 in February 2026 and the current plan is to sunset all ITIL 4 modules on 31 December 2027. Digital and IT Strategy is live and examinable today, a certificate earned now remains valid and renews on the normal three-year cycle, and ITIL 4 certificates still count as prerequisites toward higher Version 5 modules. Confirm current scheme dates with PeopleCert before booking.
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 Leader: Digital and IT Strategy syllabus and its section weights are the property of PeopleCert; candidates should always confirm the current syllabus, exam format, assignment requirements, 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.