Hello,
The world of IT Management has progressed somewhat; from the early days where you probably deserved a medal if you could write workable code on a PDP-11 to the contemporary CIO whose direction can in many cases, influence the corporate strategy.
Over the past few years we have seen a plethora of "certifications" emerge, grow and interestingly enough become a significant factor influencing the hiring of staff who work in technology organisations. Just to name some of these from the IT alphabet soup; we have ITIL, COBIT, PRINCE2, PMP, CCIE, MCSD, CGEIT, TOGAF, Lean Six Sigma; the list goes on.
Here are my recommendations as it pertains to certifications, training and to some degree best practices overall:
- Best practices are a shortcut to improving maturity - Unless if you have an R&D budget that stretches far and wide, you will always benefit from best practices - simply as they are developed sometimes from tens of hundreds of man hours (if not more) of research, trying and testing, mistakes and subsequently, improvement. There are organisations who take the initiative to develop their own intellectual capital (such as Catalyst from Computer Sciences Corporation); however the guidance they develop maintains the use of best practice (such as ITIL) as their baseline. Thereafter they develop products and guidance that is based upon and aligned with the respective best practice. They might develop some of the material into actionable toolkits that ease implementation; however the reference point remains the same.
- The Foundation level mostly suffices - The ITIL Foundation course for the sake of discussion is quite intensive. If you see the amount of material that is covered during a typical three day run; it serves the need for most knowledge workers in IT organisations fairly well. Unless if you are considering a specialised role in a particular area (service management, systems administration, application development, project management etc.), then the foundation level will have a breadth and depth that will in most cases be sufficient for gaining a sound level of proficiency within the respective domain.
- Education is never a lost investment - I often get asked about the real value of certifications. Call me old fashioned if you like, however I hold the firm belief that the widening of your horizons, the chance to improve your lateral thinking... these are all benefits that come from training and education. Bear in mind that it isn't the only indicator - you will always have a shining star who hasn't got the certification collection shelf; nonetheless that doesn't lower the business benefit of certifications to professionals as well as their employers. I have a friend with a Doctorate degree in Biological sciences who is now making remarkable delivery in the world of IT, and also know of an extremely successful professional who transitioned from IT into managing property portfolios. Irrespective of the choices you make for your career, your investment in education and training is always going to spur you forward - and accordingly will spur your organisation forward simultaneously.
- Learning is for life - No matter where you may be in the corporate structure; make sure you regularly take out the time to keep learning. Where you attend a classroom based/web based course, product demonstration by a vendor or simply reviewing papers and publications (each of these learning methods has their own benefit; don't ignore the benefit of self teaching!) to keep yourself abreast - ensure that you allot a window through each month where you take time off the mill to reflect, critique, learn and develop.
- Sharing is caring - Share your knowledge readily with colleagues on your area of expertise. Engage healthy discussion, write blog posts, review publications, carry out some academic research. It all helps one gain new perspectives and only deepens your own understanding, as well as that of your team. This candid approach will also bring peers and stakeholders onto a common platform of understanding.
Your feedback as always is most welcome - musabqureshi4[AT]yahoo.co.uk
Best regards,
Musab Q.
