Leading virtually - bcs.org · NLP for Project Managers This is the only book on neurolinguistic programming written ... Spring 2011 IT Training 03 26. ... contributed to this magazine

Leading virtually

Tackling the challenge of managing global teams p18

CERTIFICATION How hacking is becoming a sought-after skill 12

SKILLS Adressing the skills gap through skills frameworks 16CASE STUDY Introducing ITIL to crisis-proof processes 26

COMMENT Why conferences play an important role in L&D 34

Spring 2011 www.bcs.org/ittraining

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Contents

22

News

06 Update Trainingbudgets2011Itseems theoutlookfortrainingbudgets in2011isnotasbleakassome mighthavefeared. LackofstaffThelackofqualified ITstaffturnsrecruitmentintoa challengeformanycompanies.

07 Supplierbriefs Newchairandsomeacquisitions E-skillsappointanewchairand twocompaniesbroadentheir reach.32 InstituteofITTraining Masteringonlineinteraction Deliveringonlinetraining,the launchoftheLearningYearPass andalearningsurvey.

08 BCSL&DSG Makingnewconnections TheL&DSGisestablishingsome newandexcitingconnections acrosstheL&Dsector.

Features

12 Securingthedefences Ethicalhackingisbecomingan increasinglypopularwayoftesting whetherITsystemsaresafe.

15 Buidlingskills Someinsightsfromlast December’sSFIAconference.16 Frameworkforthefuture Howusingaskillsframeworkcan helptoaddresstheloomingskills gapintheITandtelecomssector.

18 Leadingvirtually Whatarethesecretsofcreating realteamspiritandeffective leadershipinaglobalteam?

22 Movingforwardin2011 Establishingaframeworkforthis year’sbudget.

26 LaunchingITIL AnNHSTrustintroducedITILto improveprocessesandcreate crisis-proofITservicemanagement.

Skills watch

24Microsoftvs.opensource Long-termskillingtrendsin operatingsystems,databases anddevelopmentenvironments.

Trainer to trainer

11 Groups–mixedandonline Trainingformixedsenioritygroups andcreatingonlinecommunitites.

Self study

30 Bookreviews Leadership,programming,security, bloggingandcloudcomputing.

Comment

08 L&Din2020 AlanBellingerwonderswhatL&D mightlooklikeinnineyear’stime.

34 Conferences CliveShepherdlooksatwhy conferencesaresuchausefultool foranL&Dprofessional.

www.bcs.org/ittraining

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www.bcs.org/ittraining04 IT Training Spring 2011

Ethics, rockets and goodbye

We’ve got a wide-ranging mix of topics for the first issue of IT Training 2011. From ethics in hacking and what rockets have to do with service management, to how globalisation affects the way CIOs manage their teams and why frameworks can help to fill IT skills gaps.

For most of us, hacking will have negative connotations, especially when looking back at the last year when security scares and threats could be found all over the news. Yet, as you can read on page 12, certifications in ‘ethical hacking’ give people the skills they need to keep their companies’ networks safe and secure, and in this article we have a closer look at what distinguishes these ‘good guys’ from the ‘bad guys’ in the hacking world.

It’s not only a world of increasing security threats for IT, but also of increasing globalisation. Many IT managers find themselves in a position where they are faced with the challenges of managing a global team of people they might never meet face-to-face – as if ‘normal’ management wasn’t difficult enough! On page 18 Gary Flood investigates what help is out there for anyone who finds themselves in that position.

We also take a closer look at ITIL, the challenges of service management implementation and how a rocket launch simulation can help with identifying strengths and weaknesses when it comes to team work (p. 26).

On page 22, Alan Bellinger takes the learning and development budget discussion one step further and finds that things are not looking quite a bleak as first assumed. Similarly, in our report on last December’s SFIA conference, Kevin Streater shows that using skills frameworks can help address the looming IT skills gap this January’s e-Skills report predicted.

And lastly (and sadly), it’s time for me to say goodbye to IT Training. After three years with BCS, the magazine is moving back under the auspices of Haymarket and therefore, this will be the last issue of the magazine for me as editor. I have very much enjoyed working with the IT training crowd and will certainly miss editing this magazine. However, BCS will continue to cover, in some form or other, subject-related areas, so I hope there will be opportunities to keep in touch with the world of L&D and training. So just to say a huge thank you to everyone who has contributed to this magazine over the years it has been with BCS, and all the best for the future.

Editor’s intro

Jutta MackwellBrian RuncimanBob Jalaf

Acting EditorManaging Editor

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Update A round-up of the latest news and developments for IT training professionals

A survey by SkillSoft found that over 80 per cent of UK managers expect their training budgets to either remain static or increase over the year ahead. Two-thirds are saying that they have not been affected by the difficult economic conditions. The survey of 96 business decision-makers also revealed that 95 per cent now matched their training provision to business goals and strategy in order to measure return on investment.

These findings were mirrored in a study undertaken among a larger group of 748 organisations in the US by Bersin & Associates, which established that companies saw a two per cent increase in their training budget after two years of double-digit cuts.

IT is seen as one of the key drivers for revenue growth in 2011, a survey of more than 2,000 CIOs by Gartner found. While CIOs do not report IT budgets returning to their 2008 (pre-recession) levels, the number of those experiencing budget increases in 2011 outnumbered those reporting a cut by almost three-to-one. CIOs are also expected to adopt new cloud services much faster than originally thought, with the percentage of those running IT in the cloud or on SaaS technologies forecast to rise from three per cent to over 40 per cent.

Yet despite this potential of IT to drive a company’s growth and competitive advantage, a study of 1,000 IT professionals by Virgin Media Business showed that over 40 per cent went into IT with the belief that they could change how it was perceived across the business and bring real change to their company, but over two-thirds say they’ve failed to achieve their personal goals in

their job. The study found that London is home to the most frustrated IT workers, with three in four admitting that they’ve fallen short of changing the way that the IT department is perceived across their organisation.

2011 could prove to be the tipping point at which IT becomes integral to business strategy, but the shift will only happen if

the profession can overcome its perception as a non-critical implementer, according to Modis International, a global leader in IT recruitment. Modis’ research found that while the majority of IT leaders were under pressure to develop transformational changes for their businesses, traditional views of IT’s function were holding back the pace of change.

A survey by KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) found a skills shortage in .Net and Java development for temporary roles as there was an increase in IT sector jobs in December 2010, which occurred mainly in the private sector.

Growth in IT sector jobs

Andy Green new Chair of e-skills UKE-skills UK, the sector skills council for IT, has appointed Logica CEO Andy Green as its new Chairman. Andy Green replaces Larry Hirst CBE, who will retire as Chairman of e-skills UK and as Chairman of IBM Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Cyber skills in short supplyRecruiting and retaining people with cyber skills is one of the top challenges to law enforcement, says the head of the Metro Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU), a unit that is also tasked with improving national police cyber capabilities.

As professionals with these skills are in short supply and high demand, they often move into the private rather than the public sector. The PCeU has started drafting in expertise from the financial and other key industrial sectors.

Content Master and Jonckers form strategic partnershipContent Master, part of CM Group, and Jonckers Translation & Engineering have formed a strategic partnership to provide e-learning and other education, training and reference materials for clients who create and deploy e-learning programmes worldwide. The two companies have now integrated their production processes to create, localise and distribute learning materials for their customers on a global scale.

Name change at Kaplan STT Trainer, Atlantic Link and Perform IT, former brands of Kaplan IT Learning (KITL), are now operating under the new company name of Kaplan Learning Technologies (KLT).Over the past five years, Kaplan IT Learning has expanded its products and services to meet the growing needs of clients around the world. In 2005, it acquired STT Trainer, in spring 2009 it added Perform IT and in 2010, Atlantic Link joined the company.

SumTotal buys GeoLearningTalent management solution provider SumTotal acquired managed services and on-demand learning management software (LMS) provider GeoLearning. The acquisition extends SumTotal’s string of mergers with other software companies and places SumTotal in the lead among LMS and talent management companies, further distancing Saba, the nearest in size.

New certification in storage networking and information managementCompTIA and the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) are collaborating to develop and market a new professional certification for IT workers responsible for storage networking and information management.

The credential ‘CompTIA Storage+ Powered by SNIA’ will be a comprehensive validation of the knowledge and skills necessary to support various solutions and technologies in data storage,

Update

www.bcs.org/ittraining Spring 2011 IT Training 07

The next few years will see a big increase in the number of recruits needed in the IT industry, with the industry set to grow five times faster than the average UK industry. A report by e-skills UK said that employment in the IT industry over the next 10 years is expected to grow by 2.19 per cent a year, which means over 100,000 new recruits will be required to keep pace with demand.

While this is a positive development, e-skills UK expressed concern with figures showing that the proportion of IT and telecoms professionals under the age of 30 had declined from over 30 per cent in 2001 to only 19 per cent in 2010. E-skills predicted that the UK economy could be boosted by £50bn over the next five to seven years by exploiting the full potential of the technology sector.

The lack of qualified IT staff also hinders IT department recruitment, according to research conducted by CompTIA. Almost two-thirds of the 1,385 IT managers surveyed said their IT department was understaffed and planned to recruit in 2011, but 60 per cent also voiced concerns about finding new employees next year, while 31 per cent said they will struggle to retain existing workers.

The research found the most in-demand skills are project management, database administration, business intelligence, PC and technical support, cloud/software-as-a-service as well as network administration, virtualisation and security. Most recruiting IT managers (78 per cent) said candidate certifications and experience are a high or medium priority in hiring.

Supplier briefs

storage networking, data protection and the underlying interconnect technologies. A beta release of this new examination and certification is scheduled for Q2 in 2011 with global availability in the second half of 2011.

e2train acquires IntraventureLearning and performance management system provider e2train acquired Intraventure, a provider of succession planning, talent and performance management software and services. e2train is the UK’s largest supplier of learning and performance management systems and services. Both organisations work for leading blue chip organisations and governmental bodies.

OU aligns higher education with SFIAThe Open University (OU) has developed a set of tools and resources to enable employers to identify appropriate higher education modules, qualifications and continuous professional development courses using the internationally recognised Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA).

The OU has recently become a SFIA Accredited Partner and has developed tools that will enable employers of IT professionals to browse potential courses and qualifications available against the SFIA skills required for each role. By combining the necessary SFIA skills for professional profiles and job descriptions, a skills development path can be identified.

Update


Alan Bellinger

L&D in 2020

What will L&D look like in 2020? To get some clues I would refer you to a new report from Forrester with the very long title ‘IT’s Future in the Empowered Era: Sweeping Changes in the Business Landscape Will Topple the IT Status Quo’. The question that lingers throughout the report is whether corporate IT, as we know it today, will even exist in 2020.

Three forces are bearing down on IT and will likely have long-lasting ramifications, according to the report. The three trends include business-ready, self-service technology (including cloud and SaaS adoption); empowered, tech-savvy employees who don’t think they need corporate IT; and a ‘radically more complex business environment’.

The interesting point is that these three forces also affect L&D. The first – new applications in the cloud – has the rather trite consequence that L&D is no longer dependent on IT for access to learning technology; you can get it wherever and whenever you want. But the rather more significant impact is that application readiness is no longer limited to Office and ECDL. The term ‘application readiness’ is an interesting one, and I suggest that L&D’s mission is not simply to ensure that employees can use technology, but rather applications.

‘Empowered, tech-savvy employees’ is definitely the second major impact on L&D;

it is the catalyst to change L&D from its current ‘push’ approach to a ‘pull’ approach as learning becomes more embedded in work. L&D needs a completely different mindset to operate in the pull world rather than the push world – fundamentally, it’s the change from controlling to facilitating. But I believe it’s a given that we will need to make that change – and sooner rather than later. That’s the fundamental reason why business professionals want L&D to keep their hands off informal learning – the fear that they’ll come in and start trying to control it.

Forrester’s final point is the one about increasing complexity in the business environment. And this is where I feel the analogy between the IT world and the L&D world fails; or at least it does fail if L&D fails to step up to the issue. Let me explain; certainly there will be increasing complexity – and that will affect the way in which we deploy technology. But the area that will have the greatest impact on this complexity will be the combination of analytics and business management.

This, in turn, highlights the biggest change that we as L&D professionals need to make. We not only have to focus on performance rather than training, on working smarter and on embedding learning into work; we also need to be totally analytics-savvy and use analytics to fuel the pull approach to building capability in the enterprise.

BCS Learning and Development Specialist GroupMaking new connections

form a vital part of the City’s constitutional fabric and history. The WCIT received its Royal Charter in June 2010 and currently has around 750 members, comprising many of the most eminent IT professionals (such as Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf and several former BCS Presidents). The company has four key themes: charity, education, industry and fellowship.

Two of our committee members, Paul Jagger and Kevin Streater, have recently been elected to the Freedom of the WCIT, and the SG committee already have plans for similar MoUs with a number of other leading bodies that support workplace learning in the field of IT.

The BCS L&D Specialist Group has acted upon a recent survey in which its members expressed a clear desire for the committee to build relationships with other relevant bodies. The first such body is the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (WCIT). A Memorandum of Understanding establishing a formal partnership between the BCS L&D SG and WCIT’s Education Committee is awaiting signatures, and will open a wide range of events to members of both organisations. Most importantly it will provide a framework for the planning of joint events.

The City of London’s Livery Company’s grew out of the medieaval guilds and now

L&D SG Committee Member Ed Monk

ProfileEd Monk, Managing Director at IITT since 2006, became involved with the organisation in 1998, when he worked as operations manager for IT Training. After successfully building the magazine’s profile, Ed joined the Institute, first running the sales and then the business development team.

His involvement with the BCS L&D Specialist Group began in 2010, when he was invited by Jooli and members

of the board to join the group. He is passionate about raising the profile of the L&D professional, especially in the IT sector where, very often, they are not necessarily considered as ‘equals’.

Apart from his interest in anything ‘L&D’, Ed plays classical guitar, is fluent in four languages and has set himself two major goals for 2011: to run the Berlin marathon and begin learning Japanese.

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Trainer to trainer


On the groundHow do you optimise training for mixed seniority groups?

We know that interactivity in a formal training course has a beneficial impact on learning retention and when individuals share knowledge with each other in more informal ways, it helps to further reinforce learning.

However, learners tend to

be more open if the group contains individuals at the same or similar levels of seniority; mixed groups can be more inhibited.

These barriers can be broken down by taking action in advance to level the playing field. For example, short introductory e-learning courses can ensure everyone has the same basic level of understanding, so no-one risks looking foolish.

Similarly, organisations can benefit from establishing social learning communities where learners get to know one another in advance, identify shared interests and

experiences and list desired outcomes for the course.

This is particularly helpful in enabling lower-level staff to get to know higher-level managers as individuals – and vice versa – thus building trust and openness.

Such interaction affords individuals with different skills and abilities an invaluable means of looking at the subject matter from different perspectives and enriches the learning experience.

Moreover, if learners can interact via online networks after the training, they can maintain the relationships they have developed and call upon

1. Define your learning domain. Make sure you define your learning domain and ensure that community members understand and share its goals

2. Provide quality content. The focus must be on the content and not on the user interface. A quality learning experience requires quality content.

3. Make an appropriate technology choice. The technology choices to support online learning communities are cheap and plentiful. However, some solutions are better equipped than others to encourage a vibrant and

successful community, supporting:

• multiple media formats;• synchronous (instant

messaging, chat and voice communication) and asynchronous (email, discussion boards and possibly Wikis) forms of communication;

• presence awareness so that you know who else is online with you;

• file sharing so users can upload and share files.

4. Establish policies and procedures. Who is allowed to upload content? What type of content is permitted? Who are the moderators? What is your privacy policy?

Breaking developmentsHow to create and encourage online learning communities.

Online learning communities must engage learners, provide a true sense of community collaboration and, most importantly, provide an environment where quality learning and knowledge transfer can take place. Here are the top five steps to make your learning community a success.

5. Encourage feedback. You need ways of monitoring the effectiveness of the learning content and the learning community as a whole. Your solution may include surveys, assessments and community-based (star) rating schemes.

To succeed, your online learning community must encourage all participants to be active, sharing their own knowledge and experiences to help each other. Your role is to facilitate this with a friendly, safe and easy-to-use solution that they will both enjoy and find valuable.

Alex Mackman, CM Group

their new network for advice. This has the added benefit of capturing vital information for future knowledge sharing. In short, social learning can significantly improve training outcomes among mixed seniority groups.

Vincent Belliveau, Cornerstone OnDemand

More advice and tips at:www.bcs.org/ittraining

Advisers: Jooli Atkins, Matrix FortyTwo and Dave Britt, BCS Trainer of the Year 2006.

In autumn 2010, an ‘ethical hacking’ experiment conducted in six cities across the UK showed that almost half of private Wi-Fi networks could be hacked in less than five seconds, even if they were password-protected. A report published around the same time by internet security and anti-virus specialist Norton found that more than half of UK adult internet users had been the victim of a cybercrime at some point.

In the corporate world, a cyber security monitor report by BAE Systems found that over 80 per cent of companies believed that cyber criminals were innovating at a quicker pace than their security measures.


IT security issues featured big in 2010 – from the Stuxnet worm to ‘hacktivism’ in the wake of the arrest of WikiLeak’s founder Julian Assange, to scares about data leakage on Facebook. In January this year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published a study that found that attacks on computer systems now have the potential to cause global catastrophes, though only in combination with another disaster.

In the face of these ‘scares’, it is not surprising that the demand for IT security specialists is growing at a rapid pace. ‘We have seen a tremendous surge in information security certified training

Certification Ethical hacking

12 IT Training Spring 2011

Securing the defencesSecurity of IT systems is a major issue in a world where they are becoming more and more ubiquitous. One way to test defences is by launching your own ‘friendly attack’ – employing penetration testers or ethical hackers to find any potential weak spots.

With the rate of cyber attacks doubling each year, IT security has become a valuable profession

requirements,’ says Jay Bavisi, President of International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC-Council), an organisation that offers, among others, CEH, the Certified Ethical Hacker certification.

‘White hats’One such specialist is the ‘ethical hacker’ – another name for what is also known as penetration tester (note that there has been much debate on whether the term ‘ethical hacker’ is appropriate, with some claiming that it is a contradiction in terms – in this article, the terms will be used interchangeably). With the rate of cyber attacks doubling every year, IT security has become a valuable profession, and many in the role of ethical hacker now demand a six-figure salary.

An ethical hacker is usually someone who is employed by an organisation and can be trusted to penetrate networks and/or computer systems using the same methods as a hacker would. The purpose is to find, and then fix, computer

Ethical hacking Certification


A report found that over 80 per cent of companies believed that cyber criminals were innovating at a quicker pace than their security measures

security vulnerabilities. While illegal hacking is a crime in most countries, penetration testing or hacking done by request of the owner of the targeted system or network is not.

Ethical hacking in this sense came about in the 1970s, when the US government started using groups of experts to hack its own computer systems, and then became increasingly widespread outside the government and technology sectors. An ethical hackers is sometimes also called a ‘white’, a term that comes from old Western movies, where the ‘good guy’ wore a white hat and the ‘bad guy’ wore a black hat.

Risk detectionWhile there is growing awareness of the threats of cybercrime, ignorance or maybe carelessness regarding security issues still seem to pervade both the world of private and corporate IT. This is shown in the BAE Systems report referred to above, which also found that companies were still confident about the traditional tools they used, such as firewalls, anti-virus programs and

Certifications

The Council of Registered Ethical Security Testers (CREST) is a non-profit association created to provide recognised standards and professionalism for the penetration testing industry.

For organisations, CREST provides a provable validation of security testing methodologies and practices, aiding with client engagement and procurement processes and proving that the member company is able to provide testing services to the CREST standard. It offers three certifications: CREST Registered Tester, CREST Certified Tester (Infrastructure) and CREST Certified Tester (Web Applications). It also certifies companies.www.crest-approved.org

The Information Assurance Certification Review Board (IACRB) manages a penetration testing certification known as the Certified Penetration Tester (CPT). The CPT requires that the exam candidate pass a traditional multiple choice exam, as well as pass a practical exam that requires the candidate to perform a penetration test against live servers.www.iacertification.org

SANS provides a wide range of computer security training arena leading to a number of SANS qualifications. In 1999, SANS founded GIAC, the Global Information Assurance Certification, which, according to SANS, has been undertaken by over 20,000 members to date. Two of the GIAC certifications are penetration testing specific: the GIAC Certified Penetration Tester (GPEN) certification and the GIAC Web Application Penetration Tester (GWAPT) certification.www.giac.org

Offensive Security offers an ethical hacking certification (Offensive Security Certified Professional). The OSCP is a real-life penetration testing certification, requiring holders to successfully attack and penetrate various live machines in a safe lab environment. Upon completion of the course students become eligible to take a certification challenge, which has to be completed in 24 hours. Documentation must include procedures used and proof of successful penetration including special marker files.www.offensive-security.com

The Tiger Scheme offers two certifications: the first is Qualified Security Tester (QST), an entry-level qualification that is obtained after successfully passing a written examination set by the Examining Body or by submitting evidence of a recognised qualification (e.g. certain MSc courses). The second is the Senior Security Tester (SST), which requires the candidate to pass a practical examination demonstrating network security vulnerability analysis skills and to successfully pass an interview in order to demonstrate both their understanding and their ability to communicate their findings. www.tigerscheme.org

The International Council of E-Commerce consultants certifies individuals in various e-business and information security skills. These include the certified ethical hacker course, computer hacking forensics investigator programme, licensed penetration tester programme and various other.www.eccouncil.org

14 IT Training Spring 2011 www.bcs.org/ittraining

Certification Ethical hacking

web filters. The report noted that ‘such a high degree of confidence in existing defence systems was surprising’, adding that ‘it suggests that the reality and impact of the threats are not visible to business or that attacks are already happening below the radar of their traditional defences.’

Robert Chapman, CEO of Firebrand Training, which has been running Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) courses for several years now, sees the same worrying signs: ‘Firebrand has trained hundreds of ethical hackers over the past decade. However, major companies – and indeed individuals – still refuse to see the very real threat of cybercrime. The biggest concern is that hackers can threaten national security, and cripple major organisations. A company is only as strong as its weakest link, and if its employees are not aware of the potential pitfalls, that company could be destroyed with one moment of carelessness.’

Ensuring ethicsAs ethical hacking can easily reveal sensitive information about a company, many security firms take care to show that all their employees adhere to a strict ethical code, and there are a number of professional and government certifications that vouch for a company’s trustworthiness and conformance to industry best practice (see box out).

‘The role of an ethical hacker comes with responsibility,’ stresses Robert. ‘Before we begin our five-day course, every student must sign an agreement to ensure that they don’t use their new skills illegally.’ Only once they have signed the agreement form do students receive the course pack, which contains, among other things, manuals, DVDs with self-study material and a large selection of tools. The second module of the course itself then covers hacking laws in the UK, the US, in Europe and various other countries.

Certifying skillsEthical hacking certification programmes aim to equip people with the ability to understand and know how to look for the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in target systems, using the same knowledge and tools as malicious hackers. Much is based on offering students practical experience in a hands-on environment where they can scan, test, hack and secure their own systems.

Mark Rouse, Director at FTI Consulting, who took the CEH course with Firebrand Training, found one of the most interesting elements of the course was discovering how readily available hacking tools were. ‘The reason I took the qualification was to get a comprehensive grounding and understanding of the different tools and techniques that could be used by a fraudster to hack a corporate database system,’ he says. ‘Up until then, my primary focus was in using technology and techniques to uncover the hidden and usual patterns, relationships and anomalies in data that are

symptomatic of potential fraud. Studying for the certification has allowed me to explore a further avenue of hi-tech fraud investigation, that of database intrusion and compromise detection.’

Others look at certification as a stepping stone in their careers development. Scott Dougherty, for example, decided to take the CEH course with Firebrand as part of his career goal of working in the computer security field. ‘I took a number of certification courses from 7Safe, and during these courses I met various people who had done the CEH course and they commented how their employer had specified this course as a prerequisite for security jobs,’ Scott explains. ‘The other qualification that was mentioned was CISSP.’

‘I found the whole experience very rewarding,’ he adds. ‘There was a lot of information to take in and a lot of tools to get familiar with. The breadth of the tools presented allowed me to refine my “toolkit” to be used in penetration testing.’

Every student must sign an agreement to ensure that they don’t use their new skills illegallyRobert Chapman, Firebrand Training

SFIA Conference


BenefitsUsing the framework also enables individuals to create their own development plans. ‘We now have a basis on which to build future talent management programmes,’ says Gene. Picking two or three subcategories per job description, the team found the process useful to see where other IT departments overlapped as well as where the skills gaps were.

Recruiting has also been made easier, as Gene explains: ‘With detailed job descriptions and a strong L&D strategy in place, we can recruit more effectively into our team and maintain the good work we have done in the future.’

For more information on SFIAplus, call 01793 417 747 or go to www.bcs.org/sfiaplus

SFIAplus allowed us to standardise roles and tailor them to the specific needs of our customersGene Bernier, Kimberly-Clark

BCS remains an active member of the SFIA Foundation, and its standard, SFIAplus, offers greater detail on the skills required for each role and the necessary development to progress through the ranks. The Institute is planning to update the standard in line with SFIA version 5.

At the conference, multinational health care company Kimberly-Clark presented how SFIAplus helped them to develop their in-house IT talent.

Why SFIAplusKimberly-Clark’s strategic focus on growing talent coupled with rapidly changing technology and increasing demand to contain spend meant that SFIAplus offered good value for money. Employees were seeking clearer understanding of their roles, so the need to move fast with the L&D standard was ever growing.

One of the reasons for using SFIAplus was that it enables users to build job descriptions quickly and the descriptions can be edited and added to so that they fit the organisation. Once job descriptions have been created, staff skills gaps can be analysed, necessary skills be identified and development plans be created and managed.

Approach and challengesThe multinational decided to roll out SFIAplus using a pilot test first. They focused on building comprehensive role definitions including skills and technical requirements at specific job levels.

‘We found it a challenge aligning our organisational role structure with the SFIA job levels,’ says Gene Bernier, Director of Integrated Solutions Delivery. ‘Having professional consultants really helped us to overcome this and build a sustainable model.

‘Also standardising some of the roles in our company proved difficult at times. However SFIAplus offered the flexibility to tailor roles to the specific needs of our customers,’ he added.

The event hosted presentations on technological trends such as green IT, the use of social media in business and the challenges of ensuring business has the skills it needs for tomorrow. SFIA is a skills framework for benchmarking IT skills. It was created over 20 years ago from information donated by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.

The SFIA framework is regularly updated by academics and industry to represent the current skills and responsibilities IT staff require. The most recent update, which will be released in December 2011, has seen sustainability skills introduced to reflect this growing area in IT. Backed by the UK government and translated into several languages, the framework is used all over the world.

Building skills

The tenth annual SFIA conference took place on 1 December last year. Here are some glimpses of the day.

Dos and Don’ts

• Do couple SFIAplus job development with your organisation’s talent management initiatives.

• Do get the buy-in of senior IT and HR management from the start as successful implementation is key.

• Do invest in change management and good communication once job descriptions have been created.

• Do invest in expert advice when implementing SFIAplus to ensure you fully understand the impact of your decisions and you get it right first time.

• Don’t roll out SFIAplus to the entire IT department if you are a large organisation without running a pilot scheme.

• Don’t embark on building skills into the job description before you agree the role structure.

• Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good progress.


Conference SFIA

A large number of IT graduates enter the workforce at a high academic level, only to attend lower level training courses throughout their careerKevin Streater, OU

The start of 2011 has seen concern about imminent skills shortages in the IT industry continuing to grow. The latest e-Skills UK report predicted IT sector growth up to five times faster this year than the UK industry average, with estimates of more than 100,000 new jobs. However this was accompanied with strong concerns that, without urgent changes to the way we develop our IT professionals, the falling number of IT graduates will starve the industry of talent and create serious skills shortages.

Higher level skillsFrom talking to employers it seems a large number of IT graduates enter the workforce at a high academic level, only to attend lower level training courses throughout their careers. As a result there are far fewer postgraduate qualifications amongst IT professionals than in other sectors like medicine, engineering, accounting and law. Increasingly, IT departments are operating in an environment where graduates are frustrated at the standard and relevance of their personal development and employers are concerned that the graduates they take on lack the skills and experience to transfer their understanding of IT into the workplace.

Speakers at the SFIA conference described greater collaboration between industry and education as the first step towards a more sustainable future. It’s up to us in the education sector to better understand how the courses we offer fit within the structures of the

real business world. This means dispensing with the traditional course brochures and starting to speak the industry language of IT skills and competency rather than certifications and accreditations.

Recipe for successThe SFIA framework is the best example in the UK of bridge-building between industry and professional development. Over the past year there has been greater emphasis on harnessing business expertise in the development of accurate IT job profiles that meet the capability requirements of modern business. These have been put together in association with employers and break down the business-driven competencies for each role into a selection of skills elements. From this analysis we see a change in skills demand as you work your way up the IT ladder, where an initial focus on technology skills gives way to an emphasis on building interpersonal and management competency.

These component skills can then be mapped to a programme of learning solutions that will transform staff performance. In the longer term CIOs and IT managers can be enabled to create a skills development path that will put in motion a conveyer belt, turning entry-level staff into the company’s future senior management.

Sustainable growthBy working in partnership with IT education specialists to develop a professional development programme that incorporates short courses and higher level education within a qualifications framework, organisations will see improved IT capability and will ensure that capability is transferred into real work situations. Whatever the uncertainties around the

economic climate, one thing that is increasingly clear is that the fate of the IT and telecoms sector will be central to the UK’s economic recovery.

The e-Skills UK report predicted the UK economy could be boosted by £50bn over the next five to seven years by exploiting the full potential of the technology sector. But as we have seen from concerns over imminent skills shortages, the assumption that we have the workforce to fill a widening job market is far from assured. If we are to realise the potential role our sector can play in the UK’s economic recovery, then we need industry to get on board with this new learning approach.

In doing so we can create clear career paths up to well paid senior management roles that may even help reverse the declining interest in IT as career option for school-leavers. A recent study by High Fliers Research suggests that just three per cent of the 16,000-plus graduates it surveyed in 2010 want to work in IT, down from 12 per cent of graduates in 2000.

From our experiences working with students and employers, a lot of this dissatisfaction comes from perceived barriers to the senior management roles that offer the greatest financial rewards. If companies want to attract and retain the best talent coming out of university into entry-level positions, they need to demonstrate clearer career pathways supported by intuitive and strategic staff learning.

With this change in IT education underway, the onus is now on industry to commit to this new vision for producing and developing our well-rounded IT professionals. 2011 could see unprecedented growth in UK IT with far-reaching benefits across our commercial, government and public sectors.

Kevin Streater, Executive Director, IT and Telecoms at The Open University (OU), looks at how the university is helping employers tackle the IT skills shortage through SFIA.

A framework for the future

The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England and Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).

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INSPIRING LEARNING

So this morning they promoted you to global CIO and the glass of champagne you permitted yourself at lunch is still fizzing


round your system pleasantly. Then they told you that as a result of an unexpected merger you now run a global team of hundreds of staff

Skills Virtual leadership


Leading – virtually

They’ve just given you a team of hundreds who mostly are gone to bed before you’re logged in. So what are the secrets of creating real team spirit and effective leadership when your meetings literally straddle the globe, asks Gary Flood.

in three different time zones and in at least two cultures you’ve no experience of. Time to hand back the promotion and scarper?

The reality is that many IT leaders find themselves in just this sort of situation, especially in today’s increasingly interconnected world, with the management of widely distributed, heterogeneous teams a necessity for a growing number.

More than technologyWhile PowerPoint, email and instant messaging have always been part of the virtual manager’s armoury, along with the good old daily international mass conference call, the rise of virtual collaboration tools such as WebEx and Microsoft Lync have created a new vision. Add a bit of telepresence, SharePoint, a soupcon of social media and all is well, surely?

The temptation is to assume that technology is all that is needed here. However, that is just where new virtual team managers make their first mistake, say both experts and veterans. It turns out that making a team work where it may involve individuals you’re very likely to never meet in real life is a lot more complicated – and may even take formal training to get right.

‘Technology can shrink geographical distances, yes. But it can’t make people feel closer unless you work on that, too,’ says Liz Timoney-White, learning giant QA’s Learning Programmes Director for Professional Development.

‘It’s more than being able to see your face across a thousand miles,’ adds Ian Mills, Chief Executive of performance improvement consultants Transform People International, a firm that has trained managers in just this issue for corporations like Cisco and American Express. ‘It’s also about etiquette, knowing that your “pants” is your American peer’s “trousers” – and having real

It’s more than being able to see your face across a thousand milesIan Mills, Transform People International

Virtual leadership Skills


Flexibility is key, especially where new technology and regional differences are concernedKevin Addington, Global Knowledge

insight into some basics of human psychology and team dynamics.’

Attention to contextThat’s not to say technology has no role to play – far from it, it is central, as we’ll see. But practitioners counsel that attention paid to the context of whatever communication technology you will use is vital, or you’ll end up with a collection of people in different offices, not the global team you are aiming for.

‘Leading geographically dispersed teams effectively requires both technological enablement and some clarity on working practices that reinforce/support the required leadership style and team culture,’ warns David Smith, CTO and CIO for IT services supplier Fujitsu UK & Ireland. ‘In my experience, there is ultimately no substitute for having a team spend time face-to-face in the same location as that interaction enables the team-forming process. If you can’t do that, it’s still perfectly possible to create a high-performing team that collaborates and works smoothly together, enabled by technological solutions.’

‘As a CIO, it’s important to be able to inspire your virtual group and team leaders by providing clear and positive communication. But it’s vital to never become autocratic and misunderstand the difference between “business” and “personal” communication – both are vital to make this work. In fact, the best thing you can do, if you find yourself in this sort of position, is to go to the other extreme and start off by “overcommunicating”,’ adds Allan Pettman, UK MD of training firm Global Knowledge.

Culture changeIndeed, Pettman’s company is, in the context of this article, not a supplier of training for CIOs in this position, but a case study, as he has to do this every day. Or rather, his colleague Kevin Addington, the firm’s European IT Director, who

Top tips for virtual management

‘Make your information environment as rich as possible. Regularly scheduled Skype calls, video conferencing and advanced mobile applications have made remote management a painless task. Our success is due in part to our superior technology, but mainly to the enthusiasm of our people. Here we have an intranet that links all our hundred developers with email, documents, PDFs, videos, sales engagement forms, CRM, down to people’s birthdays. It all helps to make people feel they are part of a real global family.’ – Helmut Reketat, Global Sales Leader at German IT security firm G Data Security

‘Processes and governance are also very important to make a global team work as one. Consistency and clear communication of what I expect from my 600 employees is vital. As leader, I think that’s very much part of what you have to reach out and establish from the start.’ – Mandy Edwards, CIO of Sitel, a global outsourced call centre specialist

manages a team across multiple regions including Europe and the Middle East, does.

Addington says that managing a virtual team has had a direct impact not only on the way IT systems are being managed, but also onthe tools that are being used as part of everyday working life. The merging of roles is an inevitable consequence of smarter and more efficient IT systems – a cultural change aspect that needed careful handling to get accepted.

‘What would have originally taken a team of 14 can now be done by one person,’ Addington continues. ‘As an IT director, it’s important to be aware of the consequences and manage these changes effectively from region to region.’

Moving to a virtual team basis of over 750 staff has brought some inevitable challenges, he says – but has also made some outstanding contributions, prompting both organisational and team success.

‘From my perspective, flexibility is key, especially where new technology and regional differences are concerned.’ he explains. ‘That’s been revolutionary in bringing the team closer together and boosting morale – it’s as simple as walking

over to someone’s desk. The country managers and home workers now feel more connected to the office, which in itself has dramatically reduced communication barriers. For example, we recently deployed a cross-country IT team for an important system upgrade. Microsoft collaboration technology was key in creating a quick team dynamic, giving us agility and breaking down barriers in team discussions. As a result, we were able to deliver meaningful changes over a short implementation period.’

It’s worth pointing out at this point, by the way, that we’ve assumed that your difficulties will mainly lie in making people coalesce as a team who don’t speak English as their first language. However, actually there may be people who speak the Queen’s English and who work downstairs you also may find a bit opaque, as Fujitsu’s David Smith notes: ‘GenYers [young people between 16 to 25] do have a different set of expectations coming into the workforce and so present different leadership challenges – mix that with the stereotypes or cultures that value face-to-face interaction and it becomes an interesting skillset to mould all this into a high-performing team.’


Skills Virtual leadership

You need to think about ways to foster cooperationLiz Timoney-White, QA

Resources

Transform People International, based in Newbury, which specialises in learning and development consultancy in the areas of leadership, management, sales, collaboration and communication, says it recently trained 4,000 IT staff at Royal Bank of Scotland in remote working skills www.transformpeople.com

Confronted with the need to understand some of the subtler cultural clues of the way people work in other countries? You may find these sites usefulwww.kwintessential.co.uk/cross-culturalwww.worldbusinessculture.com/

At least two organisations offer specific training and/or mentorship to CIOs faced with global team integration and leadership responsibilities. Go here for the QA course, but note that it tends to be run as a bespoke course, hence there are not many public dates: www.qa.com/mpdlvt

‘Overcommunciation’The task, then, is not just making sure all your team have as much connectivity software on their desks as they can to see other members via webcam, to share project resources and so on. It’s also about putting a priority on people skills – what Pettman means by ‘overcommunication’.

Expert virtual managers thus need to have – or need to be coached in and encouraged to develop – solid skills around awareness of self and others. ‘It can be as subtle as taking time to explain the unspoken things in your office, as much as establish the lines of hierarchy and communication,’ suggests QA’s Timoney-White. ‘When do people leave the office in London? Do people eat at their desks? If you’re in Bangalore, that kind of thing can be very useful to know, as you’ll know if you have any chance of finding someone at a specific time to ask a question. You may also need to be explicit that it’s OK to ask your

boss’s boss things, which in his culture may not be allowed.

‘You need to think less about telling and controlling, basically, and think more about ways to foster genuine cooperation and sharing.’

So – no need to panic and run out of the building. You can manage that virtual team of hundreds in

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SPARK NEW IDEAS TO SOLVE YOUR L&D AND TRAINING CHALLENGES

all those exotic parts of the world. But don’t even start until you have assimilated some best practice on making bonds work through technology, boned up on some cultural awareness and acquired a commitment to make a real mini online community of your new team.

In the last issue I set out some strategic planning assumptions for 2011 and sought collaboration on them. There were twenty planning assumptions in all; and people found most of them generally acceptable. However, there was one area in particular that attracted a lot of debate – the issue of budgets.

In researching this issue it has become clear that there is an enormous level of variation – far more than I had anticipated in the last article – and that has led me to develop a model that explains the way in which budget expectations in different sectors are moving.

Market modelTo make sense of this massive variation, I have developed the following model that looks at the range I was hearing about in the collaboration exercise we followed.


The model starts with an obvious split – the public sector and the private sector (I accept that there’s an argument for charities and others to be referred to as the third sector – but, for simplicity, I’ve treated them as ‘quasi-government’).

Figure 1 highlights the spread that I have been hearing of from the different sectors – the upper figure in the table represents the top 10 per cent and the lower figure is the lower 10 per cent. So, to check how you did, simply pick your cell.

Admittedly, this is a very simplistic model as it ignores criteria such as the size of your organisation or the market sector in which an organisation operates. Those factors will skew your eventual budget to one end of the range, but it’s interesting to see that a company’s performance profile seems to be the key determinant.

Strategy Budget


Moving forward in 2011Do you have your new budget yet? If you do, then how did you get on? And if you haven’t, then what should you expect? Alan Bellinger sets a framework.

Public sectorI’ve split the public sector into the conventional central and local government; but the third sector here is something of a misnomer. Although I’ve used the term ‘quasi- government’, I’m not referring specifically to quangos. Rather, I have included organisations like the emergency services and organisations that are close to the public sector and are largely dependent on the public sector for their funding.

From all the people I’ve spoken to over the last couple of months, it’s clear that the public sector is having a very hard time at the moment. However, although initially there was a fair level of doom and gloom, that soon changed and I’ve noticed now that there is a far more positive view emerging across different types of organisations in the public sector.

This positive attitude is almost totally dependent on the approach that the public sector operation is taking to the budgetary constraints. It ranges from ‘better skills leads to efficiency savings’ to ‘we can’t afford any training.’ However, the number of organisations that are turning towards the first approach (skills equals savings) is growing significantly.

Now that’s not to say it’s business as usual; the focus is much more on enabling staff to work smarter rather than bringing back lots of training schedules. But it’s certainly a case of finding critical areas in which focused training can lead to productivity enhancements. In short, the performance mindset rather than the training mindset.

I found that this performance mindset was especially prevalent among police forces, where there is a strong focus on operational capability and the effectiveness of back-office services, and among local government, where the centre of attention for IT training tended to be application readiness. What an interesting move – from ECDL

There was one area in particular that attracted a lot of debate – the issue of budgetsAlan Bellinger

Budget Strategy


I firmly believe that the IT department is one of L&D’s key challenges in 2011Alan Bellinger

as the evidence for IT capability to a clear focus on applications and what they represent in terms of service to the citizen.

ABC modelThere are many ways to classify operations in the private sector, and I have chosen to ignore the two most popular. Firstly, while the sector in which they operate (e.g. retail, telecoms, finance etc.) is certainly the most popular method of classification, I couldn’t find much commonality in that classification. The second classification is based on size, and again, there was little commonality in budget expectations and size of the operation.

The Gartner Group use the ABC model to define organisations’ approach to new technology adoption – the As tend to adopt it rapidly, the Cs are the laggards and the Bs fit in between. I have adapted this model to refer to high, medium and low performing enterprises. For example, if we take the recently reported sales figures over the Christmas period, Ocado reported superb results and would clearly be in the As. Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s results were pretty good and therefore they’d be in the Bs. And HMV would clearly be in the Cs.

There was a very high correlation between the ABC classification and the way that budgets were trending, and this is what I’ve shown in the table above.

Private sectorThe A organisations were setting extremely challenging goals for 2011. In the vast majority of cases there was a strong focus on performance objectives, and the skill sets that were being defined were all closely mapped to the organisation’s specific needs. The idea that training has become a commoditised service was long gone.

I believe that this is symptomatic of the role of leading-edge organisations in 2011; the idea that L&D can pick solutions from

a smorgasbord of options from a range of providers is somewhat past its sell-by date. As a consequence, training providers that are able to advise on different approaches, adapt their content to the specific needs of the client and support the business in the deployment process are the ones that are having a better time at the moment.

The B organisations also tend to look for specific solutions, but are likely to go for standard options (specifically scheduled courses) if there is a small audience. Among those I have spoken to, B organisations tend to be rather more risk-averse and seek comprehensive justification for their actions before commencing. In this group, there is a higher focus on compliance and on successful technology roll-outs.

L&D in C organisations tends to be very conservative and the approach is limited to the basics only – especially compliance and risk avoidance. As new system roll-outs tend to be on hold or delayed, they do not figure prominently in the L&D organisation’s plans; and usually there aren’t many new employees who need induction.

However there was one approach that was common across most of the L&D organisations in the private sector – the need to adopt new ways of looking at the whole issue of skills development in the organisation. There was a clear focus on saving money and ensuring the effectiveness of L&D’s interventions.

Management expectationsAlthough it could be argued that management is not being terribly generous towards L&D at the moment, it is no less demanding that it has been in the past. The one cry I came across more than any other was the need for L&D to be closely aligned to the needs of the business and, specifically, to initiatives that were critical over the next 12 to 24 months.

In addition to alignment, the other pressure was to be able to demonstrate value. The soft argument – namely, that incremental skills lead to higher motivation and commitment to the organisation – simply won’t wash in today’s high pressure business environment.

L&D challengeThere was an interesting blog over the Christmas period saying that the CIO should be referred to as chief innovation officer rather than chief information officer – and what an interesting thought that represents. I firmly believe that the IT department is one of L&D’s key challenges in 2011 and there is no way that L&D can deliver on its commitments without close collaboration with IT. It’s true that cloud-based services have reduced that dependency, but only to an extent.

However, if the CIO focuses on innovation and L&D is the key agent of change, then 2011 really will be a case of shared destiny.

Figure 1: L&D budgets

Public sector Central government

Local government **

Quasi-government

Private sector A’s ****

B’s **

C’s *

Nothing is ever likely to get more heated debate in IT circles than Microsoft versus open source (ok, don’t mention Mac versus PC). Here we are going to take a look at the long-term skilling trends in operating systems, databases and development environments by examining a slice of book sales over the last decade (2.5 million data points).

Round one – server operating systemsTo make the comparison valid, we have included UNIX and virtualisation and have also assumed that Linux is predominantly a server


OS rather than a desktop one (not of course strictly true).

Windows server has peaks after the release of the new versions in 2004 and 2008 (not really a surprise there), but interestingly started and ended the decade with 36 per cent share of the market.

In comparison Linux has not performed quite as brightly, having dropped to 28 per cent from a 35 per cent opening. There is the peak of nearly 44 per cent in 2003, this being partly attributed to the Red Hat versions 8 & 9. Consideration must be paid to the fact that demand for skills does not necessarily match the software demand. According

Skills Trends


to the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) they are seeing exponential growth in deployment of enterprise Linux offerings, most notably Red Hat 6 (5 per cent of all Linux book sales last year) and Novell Suse.

However, the real surprise was the rise in virtualisation. This is predominantly from the growth of VMware, so clearly this is a growing trend that cannot be ignored.

Round one result – A DRAW… but watch out for virtualisation skills!

Round two – databasesThis is more clear-cut as Microsoft have done an excellent job in promoting SQL server as a true enterprise database, which resulted in a real growth spurt after the release of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 to nearly two thirds of the total market. The loser here is in fact Oracle, which is down to 28 per

Note that demand for skills does not necessarily match software demand Paul Savill, C.B.Learning

Microsoft versus open sourceIn the second edition of IT Training Skills Watch Paul Savill, Director of Marketing at C.B.Learning, takes a look at the long-term skilling trends in operating systems, databases and development environments.

Trends Skills


cent from 50 per cent at the start of the decade. Open source databases (90 per cent of which are MySQL or PostgreSQL) peaked at 20 per cent during 2003 and 2004 and now account for just about 10 per cent. However in terms of skills, we believe that, of the 50 or so open source databases, the community has greater involvement in enabling the deployment rather than through more formal books or indeed courses.

Round Two result – WINNER Microsoft …no contest really!

Third and final round – development environmentsThis is probably the area with the fiercest rivalry. Database connectivity means that you can work in your favourite integrated development environment (IDE) and connect to any database you need to. But again, like server OS, there is a usurper in the ranks …

For the purposes of this analysis we have put generic C/C++ books

into their own category and have grouped together a number of technologies around mobile (iPhone, Android, Objective C , Windows Mobile, etc).

Microsoft is still dominant, certainly when compared to the traditional open source groups like Java, though it dropped below 40 per cent for the first time last year, having grown to nearly 55 per cent in the middle of the decade. The growth in mobile could be a factor contributing to the drop in share for Microsoft, as Microsoft programmers seem to be adding mobile technologies to their skill sets.

Open source has had a gradual decline in share from 38 per cent down to 28 per cent and does not seem to have been affected by mobile in the same way.

Currently dominated by the iPhone, mobile holds over 20 per cent of the development market. However, as we commented on last time, Android is growing rapidly and with the release of the

Windows Phone 7 and the rumoured release of the new iPad, 2011 is set to be an exciting year for this fast growing area.

Round Three – WINNER Microsoft … just and on points.

ConclusionMicrosoft is the winner of the contest in terms of the overall numbers. However the analysis has identified a shift in computing, with virtualisation and mobile programming both growing at a remarkable rate.

The debate will continue over Microsoft versus Open Source, but, with the nature of computing rapidly changing again as the analysis highlights, it could be argued that this rivalry may now be a little anachronistic. It really is the age of computing anywhere…. cloud anyone?

In the next issue we will be looking at certification trends and which ones are growing rapidly and which seem to be in decline.

The growth in mobile could be a factor contributing to the drop in share for Microsoft Paul Savill, C.B.Learning


Case study ITIL

Launching ITIL

Improving processes and creating crisis-proof IT service management were the objectives of introducing ITIL principles to the informatics department at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

ITIL Case study


ObstaclesThe first workshop session, ‘An Introduction to ITIL,’ didn’t go as well as expected. ‘There was an initial degree of scepticism that a best practice methodology adopted principally by traditional IT departments in the private sector would bring benefits to an informatics group who were largely non-IT, particularly in the specialised environment of an NHS Trust,’ Stuart Sawle, Founder and Managing Director of Sysop, explains.

‘I think one of the main problems was that we didn’t have a proper discussion about what we, as a department, actually did,’ adds Richard. ‘Most of the examples used were IT helpdesk-related, which is more relevant to the other branch of our IT department, and people were slightly bemused, wondering what this had to do with their jobs. Of course there were some people who were rapid converts, but from some it was quite difficult to get the buy-in.’

Establishing valuesAfter this first experience, many members of the team weren’t too enthusiastic about attending the second workshop, which aimed to set out common values and see where the department was in terms of ITIL best practice.

‘There were some positive outcomes from this workshop,’ says Richard. ‘It highlighted that we did have some structure, but that a lot wasn’t joined up. However, people still struggled to see what the vision was and where we were going.’

‘It took a lot of energy to recap essential learning points before we could have a fruitful discussion,’ Stuart agrees. ‘Still, there was major progress in the area of team building and cooperation, and we managed to agree a common set of values.’

The agreed values were:• making a difference;• achievement;

The workshop highlighted that we did have some structure, but that a lot wasn’t joined upRichard Long, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

and workshops for all senior level informatics staff.

Mapping the purposeThe purpose of the programme was

• to introduce the team members to the concepts and benefits of ITIL best practice;

• to identify current strengths and weaknesses drawing out pain points and identifying/qualifying the impact of problem areas on the services provided internally and to the organisation as a whole;

• to formulate and articulate a vision of the goals and end-plan of a service improvement project – creating a coherent understanding of where the department ‘needs to be’ in three to five years time;

• to define and outline a plan of the steps to be taken and priorities attached to reach the agreed goals; and

• to engage and motivate team members to embrace the twin pillars of ITIL best practice and the philosophy of continual service improvement.

Using a combination of training events, facilitated workshops, mentoring and guidance, Sysop consultants facilitated discussions and exercises to help and encourage the team members to contribute towards the objectives.

At the end of each workshop, discussion points were collated and summarised. These then formed an essential review element for the following workshop, so that each built on the other.

As staff were very busy and the workshops usually lasted around five hours, it was necessary to hold the sessions on a monthly basis. ‘It wasn’t ideal, but it was difficult to take people out for a whole day. We ended up taking about five months for four training sessions,’ says Richard.

Service and process improvement were on the agenda for the Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust informatics department when Alison Dailly took over as director of the department in 2009. In a bid to improve service and bridge gaps between various elements of IT, the department decided to look at ITIL best practice as a catalyst and enabler to implement a service improvement project.

The informatics department at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, one of the biggest Trusts in the UK and home of two of the largest teaching hospitals in Europe, is split into various parts, most notably between IT in the traditional sense, i.e. infrastructure, servers and so on, and informatics, which is mostly concerned with the delivery of reporting.

‘It’s an artificial split, really, but there were also problems within the informatics department,’ says Richard Long, Technical Information Manager at the Trust. ‘It didn’t quite gel, and our new director was looking to move the department forward.’

Problem areasSome of the areas that Dailly, who had come in from a different trust, identified was that the department seemed too busy, but at the same time it was difficult to see why that was the case. Another problem was that it was very much structured in silos and there was not much communication happening between the different areas. So the question was, how do you break down silos and encourage interoperability?

Richard, who had taken part in a taster session on ITIL before, suggested bringing in a consultant to look at processes and structures in the department and at ways of introducing ITIL best practice to improve services.

They decided to bring Sysop on board, an ITIL training and professional services company, to run a series of training events


Case study ITIL

• challenge;• respect; and• humour.Once these values were

established, it was possible to move on to discuss, in ITIL service management terms, areas of concern within the department as well as looking at areas that were managed well.

Still, problems remained: ‘Most team members could not relate to the relative abstract concept of a “process” being applied to their function,’ explains Stuart. ‘Their thinking and mindset was still very much on what they did, rather than on the how.’

Tackling the problem‘It was a matter of converting ITIL language into a language that was meaningful to our department,’ explains Richard. ‘So Stuart decided that he needed to gather more information about roles and responsibilities of the team members and he spent a lot of time talking to senior people to find out about their job and how things fitted together.’

This investment brought the breakthrough in the next session, which was made up of elements from Sysop’s Apollo 13 simulation. Apollo 13 is an exercise that has teams building a communication system for the launch and flight of a rocket. When the rocket is ‘launched’, the team encounters various problems that test the communication system and the processes that have been put in place.

‘It’s a demonstration of what would happen if workloads were stress-tested without adequate management controls and how this would improve if these controls were better managed,’ explains Stuart. The team had 30 minutes to design the system and, after the rocket crashed at the first attempt, it got together again to reflect on how it could build a better process and redesign the system.

Even though the rocket also crashed the second time, the team learned valuable lessons from the exercise, found Richard. ‘The point was driven home that, in the normal run, we coped, but when the pressure was on, to the point of a crisis, we didn’t.

‘A lot of what we did was done on goodwill and mostly we couldn’t provide evidence for what we were doing,’ he continues. ‘It also meant that we weren’t very good at coping with big new projects because we didn’t have a process to deal with anything extra while maintaining the standard service we provided.’

Stuart adds: ‘From the comments made by team members, it was clear to us that they are extremely able in the delivery of their functions to the trust, but lack effective management controls to, for example, help determine priorities, measure effort, manage capacity or predict and manage delivery timescales. What was particularly concerning was that it was only the dedication and values of the team members that allowed them to deliver an acceptable level of services despite the lack of control processes.’

Knowledge managementThe objective of workshop session four was to gain agreement that correctly implemented service desk functions were critical to successfully improving services and to work out how this could be achieved. In ITIL terms, the emphasis should be on request fulfilment rather than incident management - the usual key driver for an IT service desk.

Knowledge management was considered to be a key factor. It was recognised that there is a lot of knowledge and experience within the department and controlling, centralising and accessing this knowledge would be key for a successful service desk function. Standard operating procedures were given as an example, as each

team has operating procedures at one level or another, but they are neither adequately documented nor shared or, in many cases, do they even work.

‘Requests usually come in through various routes, they are dealt with in different ways and there’s no agreement on how the service will be provided,’ explains Richard. ‘There was no systematic way of working. So we had to ask ourselves the question “If you want to change the way you work, what would it look like and what part of ITIL would you want to look at first?”’

The session delivered very important results, in particular through providing a common level of communication. While in the beginning, many of the senior staff felt that ITIL was not relevant to the public sector and, more specifically, their role, they now saw the benefits of implementing ITIL processes, even though they were not a ‘traditional’ IT department as such.

ImplementationThe next phase of the project, namely the implementation of ITIL best practices, was scheduled to take place over 12 weeks starting from November. Additionally the trust has agreed 12 consultation days with Sysop to give guidance and advice throughout the implementation and review process.

After agreeing what to implement first, the team initially got together to define the services it provided and work out a hierarchy of importance, define request processes, both current and new ones, and catalogue services.

The next step then is to set up a communication strategy and plan for the rest of the organisation, to inform key people of the changes and also to define key performance indicators. The 12-week cycle will finish with a review, and then there will be the ongoing work of rolling out the principles to all services.

It was clear that team members were extremely able in the delivery of their functions, but lacked effective management controlsStuart Sawle, Sysop

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This book is a key resource for any computer science student. The updated third edition delivers the key concepts of programming languages and their implementation in a concise and intuitive way, illustrated with clear explanations and examples.

In addition to the coverage of traditional language topics, Scott’s book delves into the sometimes obscure, but essential, details of programming artifacts. The descriptions of language theory, along with concrete implementations of how to realise them, are presented in a language-agnostic fashion. And therein lies the strength of this book: whilst the main examples have been updated, it provides an organisational framework for learning new languages, irrespective of the paradigm.

Over 50 languages are discussed, illustrating not only

Self study


Book reviews Our IT experts review a selection of recently published books covering an array of subject areas. For more reviews, see www.bcs.org/bookreviews

The CIO Edge explores what it is that makes CIOs successful. The findings are that IT knowledge and technical skills are of secondary importance – it is soft skills (the building of relationships and the ability to communicate in all directions) that distinguish a great CIO.

Some of the enduring messages from the book are the importance of human relationships; the importance of staff development; the need to lead by example. Throughout the book a key theme is that anything of value is only ever achieved ‘through people, by people and with people’.

The book is based on extensive research and interviews with CIOs from a number of large organisations. The authors present the information they collated in the form of seven key principles:

the theoretical underpinnings of the languages that we use, but also the way in which they have been guided by the development of the computer architecture. This trend continues with the challenges of exploiting multi/many-core architectures, with a new chapter devoted to concurrency. Further updates in this new edition include virtualisation, run-time systems, dynamic compilation and binary translation.

While this may be heretical to some, Programming Language Pragmatics provides a more accessible introduction to many of the key topics than the classic Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools by Aho et al. (a.k.a. the ‘Dragon Book’) and provides a deep appreciation of the design and implementation issues of modern languages. The material is aimed at an undergraduate computer science level, but is also suitable for self-study. Topics are often independent of previously presented material, making it easier to pick and choose areas for study. This is also supported by additional in-depth material and advanced discussion topics on the companion CD.

In summary, this new edition provides both students and professionals alike with a solid understanding of the most important issues driving software development today – an essential purchase for any serious programmer or computer scientist.

Reviewed by Tom Crick MBCS

The CIO Edge: Seven Leadership Skills You Need to Drive ResultsGraham Waller, George Hallenbeck, Karen Rubenstrunk, 256ppHarvard Business Review Press, £21.99ISBN 978-1-4221-6637-6Rating

Programming Language Pragmatics (3rd ed)Michael L. Scott, 944ppMorgan Kaufmann, £47.99ISBN 978-0-123-74514-9 Rating HHHHH

1. Commit to leadership first, everything else second.

2. Lead differently than you think.

3. Embrace your softer side.4. Forge the right

relationships, drive the right results.

5. Master communications: always and all ways.

6. Inspire others. 7. Build people, not

systems. The concepts highlighted

are relevant to anyone in a leadership role. It is packed with inspiring and insightful examples and testimonials from highly respected CIOs; many of which are refreshingly open about the mistakes they have made and what they have learnt along the way.

The book feels contemporary as it makes relevant references to the ever-changing nature of the CIO role and the need to respond to an increasingly connected and socially integrated world – all of which has implications for the CIO and the wider enterprise.

The book is approachable and a very enjoyable read. Each of its seven chapters includes a summary and a set of steps and activities to support development of the skills described. The principles of leadership described in this book are universal and despite the title, this book would be a very worthwhile read for anyone in a senior management position.

Reviewed by Dean Burnell MBCS CITP

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For further information on these

books please contact the sales team

at C.B.Learning.

Tel: 0121 702 2828

Fax: 0121 606 0478

[email protected]

This book is a comprehensive, up-to-the-minute compendium of the state of the IT industry with respect to these new concepts and ideas. And in this respect it is brilliant. It provides an incredibly accurate account of the meaning behind the terms cloud, SOA, BPM, SaaS, social networking, tweets and a dozen other buzzwords.

How it manages to draw upon so many different viewpoints, from so many experts and SMEs, and bring all of this information together to form a cohesive whole is impressive. But it does so, and captures how the IT industry is and will evolve around these issues at a strategic level.

If you are a business leader wanting to see into the future, then the only thing that would make this book better is if it was spherical and made out of solid crystal.

Reviewed by Adrian Rossi

Shon Harris is synonymous with CISSP exam preparation material. She is the author of numerous CISSP training courses and exam preparation guides, with over 10 years experience in this area. This new book is a great way to supplement other CISSP training material and prepare you for the exam.

There is no preamble to the CISSP and the author dives straight into exam questions, so don’t expect this to be a complete training guide.

There is one chapter for each of the ten CISSP domains, each containing 25 questions. In addition to giving a lengthy description for the correct answer the author explains in detail the incorrect answers and why the answer is incorrect. This is useful because one of the ways of determining whether you are ready to take the exam is by not only being able to determine the correct answer, but also being able to understand and explain why an incorrect answer is incorrect.

A great bonus included with the book is online access to training material. This

includes 30 hours of MP3 audios covering concepts and review sessions, as well as over a thousand online questions. Although the audio courses are a little dated, they are still relevant. Be aware that access is limited to 90 days from the date of first registration.

The book can be used a number of ways, for example, before studying in order to determine the areas you need to focus on and/or use it prior to the exam as a final practise.

Overall another winner from Shon Harris.

Reviewed by Mehmet Hurer MBCS CITP

Self study

Aspiring bloggers will find much in Blogging All-in-One for Dummies to fire them up for launch into the blogosphere. If that’s you, then buy one now. If you’re suffering from bloggers block, do likewise. If you’re a seasoned campaigner and want to check your skills or improve your ad hits, then take a cruise through a library copy. You will be rewarded. Librarians, this is an ideal title as it meets a variety of needs.

The book’s secret and appeal is that it’s a pick n’ mix of eight mini-books. Each focuses on a specific topic, so you have titles such as ‘Joining the blogosphere’, ‘Business blogging’ and ‘Growing your blog’.

With this in mind, the worst thing you can do is expect to start at page one and read to the end. The scope of the book is too broad for this approach.

Instead, be prepared to organise your thoughts first and then read the relevant mini-books. If you want to know how to get started or what makes niche blogs successful or how to assess your blog’s commercial potential or how to write content or maybe how to create a Vlog or blog with Twitter, it’s all covered.

Treat this book as a reference tool. The author makes it clear that the key to success in blogging is focus – plus a whole lot of other things that are dealt with as well. She doesn’t guarantee success, but her own blogs are testament to her personal success as a blogger.

And she recommends learning as you go along, so consider absorbing the book’s content by setting up a blog and then continuing to read and improve.

Within individual mini-books, the text is often repetitive as the author drills down with more detail, but the tried and tested Dummies format holds good with its icons and highlighting, enabling the reader to dip and dabble as needed.

If you only want to buy one book about blogging, this is good value.

Reviewed by Angela Wheatcroft

before studying in order to

to focus on and/or use it prior to the exam as a final practise.

CISSP Practice ExamsShon Harris, 414ppMcGraw Hill, £29.95ISBN 978-0-071701-39-6Rating

Blogging All-in-One for DummiesSusan Gunelius, 720ppWiley, £24.99ISBN 978-0-470-57377-8Rating HHHHI

Enterprise Cloud ComputingAndy Mulholland, Jon Pyke, Peter Fingar, 260ppMeghan-Kiffer Press, $39.95ISBN 978-0-929-65229-0Rating

Enterprise Cloud Computing

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NEWSwww.iitt.org.uk


course materials (textbooks, manuals, etc.) are very expensive, and no-shows are all too common.

For IT trainers the decision to move out of the classroom and into online learning is an economical no brainer.

Easier said than doneWith the decision to move at least a proportion of your training online a seemingly easy one, most trainers fall down on the delivery as delivering online training requires a completely different skill set from classroom-based training.

Although the growth of online training has been swift, it has undoubtedly been hampered by trainers who believe that installing a webcam and web conferencing software enables them to deliver effective online learning.

Without understanding the change in relationship and mindset that exists in an online environment, training will be clunky, ineffective and leave students feeling short-changed and frustrated. I’ve seen it happen on many occasions and I can’t help but feel sympathetic towards instructors who are clearly operating out of their comfort zone.

We are living in a digital age where the youth of today are already building websites before they leave high school. This advance in education continues to raise the expectation levels of tomorrow’s students and, for IT trainers, the level of expectation weighs heavier on their shoulders.

Mastering interaction is keyIn the 1800s, poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: ‘We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.’ Education has moved on since Emerson’s day, but this type of accusation is still

Online learning is far from a new or emerging trend in the training sector. In fact so much has been written about the benefits of online learning that we could all probably write our own articles on the subject.

We know why online learning works – it’s far more economical than traditional classroom training, it’s more convenient and flexible for the students and the trainer, and the general consensus is that online training yields higher pass rates.

If you compare these benefits against

the demands placed on training managers, who are faced with decreasing budgets and increased pressure to deliver more training, it’s easy to understand why online learning is becoming commonplace across all learning sectors.

In terms of IT training, the online versus classroom debate is even more relevant. Classroom-based IT training courses often require at least one highly paid instructor, administration time to coordinate scheduling of the course and fully equipped training rooms. Printed

It ain’t what you do: it’s the way you do IT

NEWS These pages are produced by the Institute of IT Training

Westwood House, Westwood Business Park, Coventry, CV 8HS, United KingdomTel 0845 0068858 Fax 0845 0068871Email [email protected] Web www.iitt.org.uk


levelled at some classroom-based training. Online learning has successfully shaken off this stigma by promoting student interaction.

In an online environment students are expected to be more responsible and display initiative in accessing the system and contributing to class discussions online. The internet lends itself to user interaction to keep students engaged. As human beings we are designed to learn from one another with both verbal and visual hints in order to retain new knowledge. Harnessing this power of interaction is a vital element in creating a successful online learning environment.

The internet also opens up a new way to introduce and interact with learning resources. Online learning resources are a fraction of their printed courseware equivalents. Interactive videos, games and drawing boards can all be blended into online training courses to enhance the learning experience.

On 10 January 2011 the IITT launched the Learning Year Pass. The Learning Year Pass brings together a host of learning-related benefits including learning technologies, exclusive access to over 100 hours of learning, learning resources, discounts on products and services as well as access to Training 2011 – the IITT National Conference and Exhibition.

The pass is proving popular with training managers looking to ensure that they yield a greater return on their investments in 2011. IITT Managing Director Edmund Monk is confident that the savings made by acquiring the Learning Year Pass will make it popular amongst training professionals across all sectors. He said: ‘We understand

The Learning Survey 2011 will form part of a comprehensive report by the IITT on the state of the learning sector today and the future of the learning community.

The survey has been issued to over 10,000 learning & development professionals and is continuing to gauge opinion on key issues.

If you’re involved in learning & development and would like to add your voice to what promises to be one of the most significant research projects of the year, please complete the survey. To take part simply visit:www.bit.ly/LearningSurvey2011

As a thank you for taking part all completed surveys will receive a summary of the findings.

Ensure your opinion countsIITT launches Learning Year Pass

FlexibilityAnother major advantage of online learning is the ability to deliver training in small ‘chunks’. The accessibility of online learning means no one is locked in a classroom and subjected to a tidalwave of information, of which a large percentage may not be applicable. With online learning, a well planned course will enable students to log on and extract only relevant pieces of information. For example, a student taking an Excel course may only need additional training on pivot tables and IF functions – an online course will enable them to access these specific topics much easier.

Online delivery standardsInteraction and flexibility are two of many facets that make up successful online learning delivery. At the IITT we have recognised the need to support trainers and learning professionals who are considering or may already be delivering

online learning. In October 2010 the IITT launched the Certified Online Learning Facilitator course. The course provides over 14 hours of live online instruction and self-study assignments providing delegates with the skill set needed to deliver successful online learning. At the end of the course these skills are assessed in a live environment, culminating in the award of The Certified Online Learning Facilitator Certificate.

The certificate is awarded by the IITT and validates the holder’s ability to deliver online learning to Institute standards, thus giving student’s confidence that their online tutor has the necessary skills to create a successful online learning experience.

For further information about the advantages and pitfalls of delivering online learning and for details about the Certified Online Learning Facilitator, register for one of the free IITT webinars on www.thetrainingprofessional.com

the economic pressures being placed on trainers and in particular training managers who have seen shrinking budgets over the past few years. As an Institute we are keen to help.

‘With the Learning Year Pass we have been able to negotiate with learning organisations and service providers to bring together an attractive package of learning services at a drastically reduced rate.

Although the pass is still in its early stages we’ve been delighted with the feedback so far and we’re confident that this will benefit many trainers.’ To find out more about the Learning Year Pass visit the IITT website www.thetrainingprofessional.com

E-learning Comment


Clive Shepherd

At the time of writing it is early January and the conference season

is about to get into full swing with Learning Technologies at London’s Olympia. For the cynical among us, it’s easy to think of conferences as rather old hat – top-down and ‘push’ in an era that is increasingly bottom-up and ‘pull’; very un-green when you consider that we face huge environmental challenges; very extravagant when everyone but the Chinese are running out of money. But having spent a fair bit of time recently immersed in the book The Power of Pull by John Hagel III, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison (2010), I’m convinced that conferences will have an important role to play for many years to come.

The reason? Well, conferences provide an ideal setting for serendipitous encounters - discovering what you did not know you did not know/ meeting people you did not know you needed to know. The setting is ideal because everyone there has some commonality of purpose and interest and approaching complete strangers is not only acceptable, it is actively encouraged.

Conferences are primarily networking events – they bring people together and spark off opportunities. The presentations themselves can be useful, but with the exception of a few ‘must-see’ speakers, you’d be better off in most cases accessing the material online. It’s hard to pin down exactly what makes a particular speaker a ‘must-see’, but somehow you know intuitively. Just like there are certain actors, musicians, sportspeople and other performers that you simply must see live at some point in your life, there are certain individuals who are so prominent in your

profession that you get a buzz out of being in the same room as them. No disrespect to the rest, but it’s probably more convenient to watch them on video or read them in print, at a time and pace that suits you.

Of course, not all conference sessions are passive and there is certainly value to be gained by participating in discussions and other activities with fellow participants. This is something we’ve long acknowledged at the eLearning Network, for which I have been Chair for the past three years. We work hard at making the sessions as varied and interactive as possible. We also keep them short, so if a speaker or topic fails to capture your imagination, at least there will be another one along shortly. We took that to an extreme in 2010 with a Pecha Kucha competition. In case you haven’t experienced this format before, each presenter is allowed just 20 slides, each lasting for 20 seconds, with which to make their point. You would be amazed to see what can be achieved in six minutes and forty seconds.

Would people attend conferences without the keynotes and the other formal sessions? Probably not, but perhaps they should, because by far the most important interactivity at any conference is informal. Serendipitous meetings are necessary because they stimulate thinking outside the box. When we know what we don’t know it’s easy – we simply Google it, check out a forum or consult our online networks. But however many blogs we subscribe to or Twitter feeds we follow, we’re always in danger of playing safe, sticking with the people we already know all about.

True, chance encounters can also come through links in blogs, forums and tweets that take you to

unexpected places and people, but still much depends on who’s already in your network – and remember that not everyone who might be important to you is that active or visible online.

Conferences and social networks work in harmony, not competition. Those people you encounter online, you are then keen to meet up with when you do find yourself in the same physical space. And you follow up with the people you meet at conferences by getting their details and befriending them online.

To make effective use of the time and money you spend at a conference requires effort. First of all, make the most of the formal opportunities: select sessions that fall outside your usual comfort area, take notes, ask questions, say ‘hello’ to the speakers, tweet or blog about what you discover. But most importantly, put yourself about. Get out there and meet people, even if you’d prefer to hide yourself away on your computer.

Why we need conferences

Conferences are primarily networking events – they bring people togetherClive Shepherd

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Have I gotthe right number of IT people with the right skillsdoing the rightthings in the right way?Let us help you get them there.

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Leading virtually - bcs.org · NLP for Project Managers This is the only book on neurolinguistic programming written ... Spring 2011 IT Training 03 26. ... contributed to this magazine