Training for certification or training for organisational needs?

It has been a while since my last post. I thought it would be good to get January out of the way before I got back into the "blog" thing again and wow did it fly by. January was another busy month at Practice-IT Training Services, as a distraction from normal activities we decided to exhibit at the Learning and Skills show at Olympia. This gave us a chance to meet some new people and get some feedback on our services.

On day 2 I met an interesting gentleman who came and spoke to me on the stand; after I gave him the "pitch" about what we do he said something quite interesting to me. He said that in his opinion and I quote “All It professionals want out of their training is a vendor certification " (incidentally I didn’t agree with his statement).

This got me thinking about the about training for IT certifications vs. training for the organisation needs. I am not talking about certifications for people who are new to IT or those people that are cross skilling from other professions, it goes without saying that certifications have benefits to this group. I am talking about certifications for the seasoned IT professionals up and down the country who are running our IT departments.

Here are my thoughts on the subject:

Benefits of certification based training

There are many companies that pride themselves on the number of certified engineers they have and go to a lot of effort to ensure that is maintained. It can provide a good baseline to measure your workforces’ technical competency. So from a marketing perspective it is great to tell clients (internal & external) that you have a number of industry certified professionals working in the IT department and you have a recognised level of competency. This also has some major financial benefits for the solutions providers that sell equipment in to other organisations, the more certs you have on your books the more of a discount you get.

Drawback of certification training

There are ways and means and means of achieving certifications without having any technical or practical ability. I think that is why certifications have devalued somewhat in the past with the large number of “paper” engineers produced. It looks like the vendors are trying to change that, but I think it will always exist. This makes it difficult to judge a person’s technical ability by their certifications alone. The other down side to certification training is that not all the content covered in a course actually relates to an organisation’s needs. For example, an engineer may go on a 5 day course and only a proportion of the subject matter is relevant to the organisation, this not only wastes time but is costing the company money to have you out the office learning “stuff” that is never likely to be used.

Benefits of organisational Needs Training

By identifying the skills gaps in an individual or team and then training specifically to cover these areas has much more of a business value. Training this way has real benefits to the business as “risks” are reduced due to lack of skills in key areas where they are required. This also allows you to maximise your training budget by allocating it to areas that have been identified as needing attention. Generally this type of training would include a number of individuals from the same team so it can be cost effective and provide consistent level of knowledge amongst the individuals.

Drawback of organisational needs training

One of the biggest drawbacks of this type of training is making staff available to attend the training. To be cost effective, normally the team would have to be trained together as a group so some creative scheduling would be required to make this happen. Also it can be difficult to identify what areas actually need targeting without some assistance.

So where is the balance?

This is not meant to identify which solution is better than the other. It comes down to a number of different factors in determining which type of training best fits the organisation and individuals. However the key point is to try and reduce the drawbacks from either solution and maximise the benefits. As IT departments are asked to get the best value from their operational budgets the same efforts should extend to the training budget. Don’t just send the someone on a course for the sake of it, make sure there is a real requirement first.

 

Ricky Doyle
http://www.practice-it.co.uk/
Twitter: www.twitter.com/pittraining
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/company/1516440

Practice-Labs Overview

For anyone interested I have just created a short video overviewing our Practice-Labs platform. Practice-Labs are the foundation to our practical hands-on skills development enabling users to access real live equipment in a safe test environment.

As the labs are online they can be easily accessed from anywhere and at anytime, ensuring that distributed teams can all develop simultaneously.

Ricky Doyle
http://www.practice-it.co.uk/
Twitter: www.twitter.com/pittraining
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/company/1516440

Has working in IT become boring?

I was reading an article from ServiceDesk 360 last week which was about how IT departments need to become "profitable" to the business. Obviously this is not in monetary terms but by adding value to the organisation. I agree fully with this concept, however some changes to the running IT departments needs to happen first. If you want your teams to be embrace this idea they are going to need support from the business to be allowed to think outside the box and watch out there may be some mistakes along the way too. I know many people who have got a bit disillusioned with the industry saying it has become boring.
The red tape surrounding the IT department has certainly bred an attitude of "there is too much hassle to get that change made", in my opinion let’s start evaluating the real risk of changes and not the perceived risk.

If we give these engineers, professional, call them what you will to add value to the business we need to give a little breathing room to explore & experiment and I am positive you will reap the rewards.

Ricky Doyle
http://www.practice-it.co.uk/
Linkedin
Twitter

Practice-Lab, I don't need to practice...

I sometimes come across IT engineers who tell me that they don't need to practice IT (that is not a play on words by the way), which is utter nonsense. The truth is we cant remember everything that we have done in the past, we may need a refresher on how to do it again; like a "practice" run. Imagine a premiership footballer saying to the manager "I don't need to practice just let me play", it would not happen.

I think if you want to keep your skills sharp, learn new things or test "what if scenarios" you need to practice it (now that is a play on words). How you do this is up to you, whether it is in your test lab, home server or virtual environment get stuck in and get your hands dirty. This is why we built Practice-Labs so that all you need is an Internet connection to access real kit, the idea actually came to me when I was working with a guy called Winston Cheung. Winston came and asked me how to create an A record in DNS. The conversation went a little something like this:

Winston: "How do I actually create an A record?"
Ricky: "Jump on the sever or do it through the DNS admin console."
Winston: "I don't have the rights to do that."
Ricky: "OK, well build a server at home and play around with DNS."
Winston: "I don't have any spare kit." (and this was the days before virtualisation software was freely and easily accessible)
Ricky: **light bulb moment** "If I could give you access to a server online to play with would you use it."
Winston: "Defo"

Something like that; this is the story I tell and how I remember it anyway. Thanks Winston, you are the seed of Practice-Labs.


Ricky Doyle
http://www.practice-it.co.uk/
Linkedin
Twitter

Of course we can! Lets get SMART

When I used to go to meetings to discuss IT training requirements I would ask the IT manager I was meeting to tell me where his teams skills gaps were. Based on that information we would provide a training solution to address these. Just like most any other training company I expect, until one meeting I was in the head of IT asked  me "why don't you tell me where my skills gaps are?" Of course we can I said, I think we have a web interface that we could use.

I went back to the office to tell the development guys what I had just promised, as you can imagine they were well please with me. But this little zealous behaviour has turned out to be one of our key services we now provide in our training approach. SMART (Skills Matrix Assessment Resource Tool) as we have called it has the ability to identify those weaker areas quickly, consistently and accurately. We use it as standard in all of our engagements to baseline knowledge before training and as measurement of the success of the training once completed.  

This may come accross as a bit "salesy" but in my opinion this has always been the problem with IT training. When I was in an IT support role there was never a constructive way to detemine what training I needed, my managers wanted to send me on training but because they were not that technical they did not know what courses were best so it was either left up to me to choose or simply I did not go on one. So whether it is SMART or another solution try to indentify where best to allocate your training budgets so that your IT teams get the training they actually need and not the training they think they need.   

Have a look at SMART in action!

Ricky Doyle
http://www.practice-it.co.uk/
Linkedin
Twitter

Practice-IT US Visit

Having made a few contacts in the States it was time to make a visit over there to show our friends what services we actually offer. On "display" were Practice-Labs and SMART, we actually had a proto-type of 3g as well. The people we met there are interested in re-selling these services along side their existing content portfolio.

The visit was very positive and we have signed 1 re-seller agreement since returning and some others looking very promising.

Who know we may have to move over there and change the name to Practice-US......


Ricky Doyle
http://www.practice-it.co.uk/
Linkedin
Twitter

Practice-IT gains IITT External Service Provider Accreditation

The Institute of IT Training has accredited Practice-IT as an external service provider. The company has demonstrated a high standard of excellence in the services it delivers and commitment to the appropriate code of practice. The accreditation adds weight to the company’s solutions as being viable proposition to the IT training industries needs.


East Sussex, June 2008: The IITT review of Practice-IT by the accreditation consultant took place on the 12th of June 2008. The review process is not only to ensure that the company complies with the code of practice set out by the IITT. It also addresses the current state of the IT training industry, current buying trends and business review. For any small business this information is vital for development and change to meet markets needs. The outcome of the review suggested Practice-IT Practice-Labs are well positioned in the current climate to offer benefits to the business and end user alike.


About Practice-IT

Practice-Labs is a unique hands on learning platform that gives users controlled access to real server and network equipment to develop their practical IT skills at all levels. The solution provides an affordable on-demand platform to learn, explore, evaluate and perform; all through the convenience of a web browser.

By working with our approved training and e-learning providers we are able to deliver a solution that supplements their existing offerings with in depth practical exercises. As part of our service to our partners, we provide:

· Portal company branding
· Shared labs for mentoring
· Reporting
· Support documentation branding
· End user support

For further information about this story, please contact:
Contact name:

Ricky Doyle
Contact e-mail:

Ricky.Doyle@practice-it.co.uk
Contact telephone:
+44 (0)845 389 2153
Web site:

http://www.practice-it.co.uk/