Happy Birthday To My Blog

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of the Gary Drumm blog. It's been an exciting year. The blog has had over 9100 views, currently has 3 Feedburner subscribers, and I've published 85 posts, about one post every 4 days on average. Not too bad for a guy who isn't a professional writer.

At any rate, happy birthday blog!

Cool Stuff in Google Chrome

OK, so if you've been on the Internet for longer than a month, you're probably aware that Google recently released it's own browser called Google Chrome. It's a pretty slick browser with some nice features.

Of course it has tabs, and processes flash files for YouTube, but one of the coolest features is the element inspector. If you're a geek, like me, you like to see what's going on under the hood and the element inspector gives you that information at a glance.

To access it, simply right click on a blank space within your web page and select... (wait for it...) Inspect element (difficult, I know). You're presented with a sort of "debug" screen that shows you the different code elements behind the page you're loading.

Still another cool feature is the Task Manager. In the upper right hand corner you'll find a sheet icon with a down arrow. Click the down arrow and go to Developer then select Task Manager (or, for you keyboard people, just press shift+esc). This brings up a task manager specific to the Chrome browser and comes in VERY handy when you have a web page that craps out on you.

Just launch the Task Manager (in Chrome), select the offending page, then press "frapee", (or End Task, to all you non-geeks). It kills the offending page/site, without crashing your entire session, something Microsoft hasn't quite figured out yet.

Lastly, under this same window, there's the Stats for Nerds. A cool little page that shows you statistics on memory usage and processes, as they relate to your web browsing. Wanna see how much pork is in that home made sausage video you're watching on YouTube? This is where you can find out.

So, I'd higly recommend giving Chrome a try. It's not quite ready for prime time, with a few minor bugs that still need to be ironed out, but it us a fun browser and I think it's going to have a dramatic impact on Microsoft and Firefox's future designs.

Expandablog - Growing the Gary Drumm Blog Community

OK, I wanted to announce to all my loyal readers that I'm now using FeedBurner to manage subscriptions. If you've already subscribed, please cancel your previous subscription and add this new feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/garydrumm.

This change will do a few things: 1. It will give me a better count of my subscribers. 2. It will give me insight into which articles are being read, allowing me to more effectively focus my writing to topics you, my readers, are interested in. 3. It gives me access to some great promotional tools, which will help me grow the blog and it's redaership.

While you certainly don't have to change your feed settings, I would greatly appreciate it.

In other news, next week begins my "Daily Posting Initiative". Every week day I'll bring you my thoughts and ideas on the tech news of the day, management, project management, etc.

Lastly, I'm going to launch an official "garydrumm.com" website where I will post more in-depth articles, book reviews, and other items in support of this blog, as well as tying in a YouTube channel that I am creating specifically for tech projects and videos.

So here we go. This should be fun...

Hey Gary, You Just Passed Your PMP, What Are You Gonna Do Now?

I'm going to Disney World!

Yep folks, I just got back from vacation. I took my lovely wife and awesome son to Disney World. We had a great time. Now that I'm back I wanted to let everyone know to expect a few changes to the blog in the coming days. My intention is to begin writing something for the blog every day, so thanks for your loyal readership and start looking forward to some great new content.

Why Is Training Undervalued on Technology Projects

Recently, someone posted a question on LinkedIn.Com asking why training is undervalued in technology projects. Here's my answer to his question:

In my opinion and experience, training for technology projects is typically undervalued because corporate management feels that the technical people performing the project work should obtain the necessary technical knowledge on their own time and on their own dime. Companies just do not seem to be willing to put forth the money necessary to adequately train their employees anymore. The bottom line is the bottom line, and if the company is paying, say, an engineer several thousand dollars a year, then they expect that engineer to keep up with all of the latest technologies and information on their own.

Of course this idea is flawed because you're not really paying said engineer because he knows everything about everything, but rather he's invested the time into learning how to learn technical details and concepts. So the company thinks they're buying an SME in everything technical, when what they really need is an SME in learning and applying technology appropriately and to the proper levels of accepted best practices.

With regards to how this question relates to project management, in the PMI world there is an entire section, under the Human Resources Management knowledge area, dedicated to adequately training, or rather developing, your team.

In my opinion, if you do not put forth the effort to develop your team, then you really do not care about quality. There is a qualitative aspect to project management that is grossly outshined by the quantitative aspects. In other words, executive management is more concerned about the quantity of work (i.e. the number of projects that are completed on time and within the necessary budget constraints) than they are about the quality. Sure quality is important, but overall it's more important to get the work done, and at the lowest possible cost. I believe trainers and training organizations need to perform some analysis that clearly demonstrates the real world, monetary value that training can provide.

For example, Company A and Company B were both performing a widget project. Company A spent an extra 2 months sending their technical staff to training. The result: Company A was able to get the same project done 3 months faster, 30% cheaper, and with a 15% higher degree of quality than Company B. In addition, Company A was able to apply the knowledge gained from the training to other projects within the organization, which resulted in a 35% increase in overall efficiency and a reduction in overall project costs of 12.5%.

These are concepts written in the language of executives. They understand the bottom line. They are looking to cut costs, increase efficiency, improve profit margins, and increase overall shareholder value. If you can demonstrate how providing your technical staff with adequate training can do these things, you will have every executive in the country beating down your door.

Any thoughts? Leave a comment.

ITIL Implemenation Best Practice

I found this fantastic document on Gartner's website. It's a PDF file, and it's well worth the read to any ITIL enthusiast.

ITIL Implementation Best Practice (PDF)

I know, I know. Now that I have my PMP, I'm becoming a suit talking about ITIL, PMP, and other "high brow" subjects, but hey, this is how it goes. I'll do another fun project in the coming weeks, when I return from Disney World! :)

The ITIL v3 Certification Track - I Think...

After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I think I've finally figured out the convoluted certification track for ITIL v3.

It begins with the Foundation exam. According to Exin's website you can take the v3 test without any prereq's. The exam is 1 hour, contains 40 questions, with a passing score of 65% or higher.

Exin's site does not go into a great deal of information on the Intermediate exams, except to say that you can take a v3 Manager's Bridge exam. It's prereq is a current ITIL v2 Manager's certification. The test is 90 minutes long, contains 20 complex multiple choice questions, and requires 80% or better to pass.

Which leads to the question, what does it take to obtain a v2 Manager's certification? I'm glad I asked...

The two Management certifications, if I'm reading this correctly, are listed as IT Service Management Service Support and IT Service Management Service Delivery. Both require accredited training, meaning you have to take a class, a ITIL Foundation certificate, and two years of professional experience as an IT Management professional or consultant.

It is estimated that it will require approximately 320 hours of study to complete this path.

Of course, the "official" v3 track is supposed to operated a little differently:

Foundation

Pretty much the same thing as v2, except it's based on the v3 changes. You receive 2 "credits" towards an "ITIL Diploma" The ITIL Diploma actually takes 22 credits overall.

Intermediate (Thanks to Learning Tree International for this information)
There are basic areas for intermediate: Capability and Lifecycle

Capability is based on the following areas: Service Design and Optimization, Service Monitoring and Controlling, Service Operation and Support, and finally, Server Portfolio and Realationship Management. Each section earn the student 4 credits towards their diploma.

Lifecycle is based on ITIL's five core books: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, and Continual Service Improvement. Each section earn the student 3 credits towards their diploma.

There is also a 5 credit course called "Managing Across the Lifecycle", for you extra-credit geeks out there.

Advanced

Finally, there is supposed to be an "ITIL Super Hero" certification, or rather the "Advanced" diploma, but I haven't been able to find a whole lot on this, because apparently it's still under development.

How much does all of this cost?

Well, given that you have to go to class to Manager Certifications for ITIL v2, and you have to take a bridge exam to translate over to v3, it can break down to something like this...

The Foundation test for v3 is $160. The ITSM Service Support and ITSM Service Delivery tests are $250 each, classes, depending on where you go, will probably run around $800-$2500

If you want to go all ITIL v2 Super Hero, You'll also want to take the following:

ITSM - Practitioner Release and Control: $225
ITSM - Practitioner Support and Restore: $225
ITSM - Practitioner Agree and Define: $225
ITSM - Practitioner Plan and Improve: $225
ITSM - Practitioner Security Management: $185

All told, it cost between $3345-$6745 to get all of this done. But you can do quite well as an ITIL consultant, so it's an investment that reaps potentially huge rewards!

If you're realy serious about this, as I am, you'll also want to join the ITSMF (http://www.itsmfusa.org/mc/page.do) They're sort of like PMI to the whole ITSM/ITIL world.