Gary Drumm - PMP, ITIL v3-F

Starting a New Blog

2010-12-10T00:04:00.001-06:00

So I'm starting a fun new blog detailing my attempt to go 100% paperless in my home office. Come check it out at http://paperlessgeek.blogspot.com/.

Moving Back to Blogger... For Now

2010-06-03T14:57:00.000-05:00

So for most of the last year I've been running my blog on my own personal Wordpress system. It's been pretty cool, but with school, work, family, and the 10,000 other things I have going on, I really don't have the time to dedicate to teaching myself WordPress right now. Well, that and tired of all the spammers posting comments 50 times a day, so I've decided to move GaryDrumm.Com back over to Blogger, at least for time being.

Since I am gearing up to begin providing IT consulting services to small and medium-sized businesses, at least on a part time basis, I will be developing a more robust website that goes into great detail about myself, my background, and my services, but I think that's several days out.

At any rate, GaryDrumm.Com will be going through some changes over the next several days, so don't be too surprised if you hit my site and something magical appears on your screen.

MakerBot CupCake Transformer is 1000X awesome

2010-05-05T17:37:00.001-05:00

via blog.makezine.com

Great. Now I have to get a MakerBot.

Posted via web from Gary Drumm - PMP, ITIL

Return of the Geek!

2010-04-27T14:42:00.001-05:00

It's been a while since I've done any geek stuff on my blog, so I thought I'd announce a few things. 1) I just install Ubuntu on my desktop PC at home. I'm looking to just play around with Linux again, since I'm kind of bored with Windows. 2) My dad found an old iMac G3 this weekend at a garage sale for $10 and bought it for me. So now I have this really OLD iMac sitting on my desk. It's running OX 9.5. It's quaint, but not really usable so I don't think it's going to stay long, however; it did get me thinking... perhaps I could purchase a 20" G5, used, and put that on my desk. That would give me three different operating environments to play with simultaneously, how cool would that be?

Posted via web from Gary Drumm - PMP, ITIL

Don't Put This In Your LinkedIn Profile - From Gizmodo

2010-04-20T18:02:00.001-05:00

How Apple Lost the Next iPhone

The Gourmet Haus Staudt. A nice place to enjoy good German lagers. And if you are an Apple Software Engineer named Gray Powell, it's also a nice place to make the honest mistake of losing the next-generation iPhone. UPDATED

Gray Powell—a North Carolina State University 2006 graduate and talented amateur photographer—is an Apple Software Engineer working on the iPhone Baseband Software, the little program that enables the iPhone to make calls. A dream job for a talented engineer like Powell, an Apple fan who always wanted to meet Steve Jobs.

On the night of March 18, he was enjoying the fine imported ales at Gourmet Haus Staudt, a nice German beer garden in Redwood City, California. He was happy. [UPDATED] After all, it was his birthday. He was turning 27 that very same day, and he was celebrating. The place was great. The beer was excellent. "I underestimated how good German beer is," he typed into the next-generation iPhone he was testing on the field, cleverly disguised as an iPhone 3GS. It was his last Facebook update from the secret iPhone. It was the last time he ever saw the iPhone, right before he abandoned it on bar stool, leaving to go home.

It a simple, honest mistake in the middle of celebration. Something that anyone, from Steve Jobs to Jonathan Ive, could have done. Knowing how ferocious and ruthless Apple is about product leaks, those beers may have turned out to be the bitterest of his life.

(Almost) Impenetrable Security

Until now, Apple's legendary security has always worked perfectly. Perhaps there was a blurry factory photo here, or some last-minute information strategically whispered to some friendly media there. But when it comes to the big stuff, everything is airtight. At their Cupertino campus, any gadget or computer that is worth protecting is behind armored doors, with security locks with codes that change every few minutes. Prototypes are bolted to desks. Hidden in these labs, hardware, software and industrial-design elves toil separately on the same devices, without really having the complete picture of the final product.

And hidden in every corner, the Apple secret police, a team of people with a single mission: To make sure nobody speaks. And if there's a leak, hunt down the traitor, and escort him out of the building. Using lockdowns and other fear tactics, these men in black are the last line of defense against any sneaky eyes. The Gran Jefe Steve trusts them to avoid Apple's worst nightmare: The leak of a strategic product that could cost them millions of dollars in free marketing promotion. One that would make them lose control of the product news cycle.

But the fact is that there's no perfect security. Not when humans are involved. Humans that can lose things. You know, like the next generation iPhone.

Lost and Found

Apple security's mighty walls fell on the midnight of Thursday, March 18. At that time, Powell was at Gourmet Haus Staudt, just 20 miles from the company's Infinite Loop headquarters, having his fun. Around him, other groups of people were sharing the jolly atmosphere, and plenty of the golden liquid.

The person who eventually ended up with the lost iPhone was sitting next to Powell. He was drinking with a friend too. He noticed Powell on the stool next to him but didn't think twice about him at the time. Not until Powell had already left the bar, and a random really drunk guy—who'd been sitting on the other side of Powell—returned from the bathroom to his own stool.

The Random Really Drunk Guy pointed at the iPhone sitting on the stool, the precious prototype left by the young Apple engineer.

"Hey man, is that your iPhone?" asked Random Really Drunk Guy.

"Hmmm, what?" replied the person who ended up with the iPhone. "No, no, it isn't mine."

"Ooooh, I guess it's your friend's then," referring to a friend who at the time was in the bathroom. "Here, take it," said the Random Really Drunk Guy, handing it to him. "You don't want to lose it." After that, the Random Really Drunk Guy also left the bar.

The person who ended up with the iPhone asked around, but nobody claimed it. He thought about that young guy sitting next to him, so he and his friend stayed there for some time, waiting. Powell never came back.

During that time, he played with it. It seemed like a normal iPhone. "I thought it was just an iPhone 3GS," he told me in a telephone interview. "It just looked like one. I tried the camera, but it crashed three times." The iPhone didn't seem to have any special features, just two bar codes stuck on its back: 8800601pex1 and N90_DVT_GE4X_0493. Next to the volume keys there was another sticker: iPhone SWE-L200221. Apart from that, just six pages of applications. One of them was Facebook. And there, on the Facebook screen, was the Apple engineer, Gray Powell.

Thinking about returning the phone the next day, he left. When he woke up after the hazy night, the phone was dead. Bricked remotely, through MobileMe, the service Apple provides to track and wipe out lost iPhones. It was only then that he realized that there was something strange that iPhone. The exterior didn't feel right and there was a camera on the front. After tinkering with it, he managed to open the fake 3GS.

There it was, a shiny thing, completely different from everything that came before.

He reached for a phone and called a lot of Apple numbers and tried to find someone who was at least willing to transfer his call to the right person, but no luck. No one took him seriously and all he got for his troubles was a ticket number.

He thought that eventually the ticket would move up high enough and that he would receive a call back, but his phone never rang. What should he be expected to do then? Walk into an Apple store and give the shiny, new device to a 20-year-old who might just end up selling it on eBay?

The Aftermath

Weeks later, Gizmodo got it for $5,000 in cash. At the time, we didn't know if it was the real thing or not. It didn't even get past the Apple logo screen. Once we saw it inside and out, however, there was no doubt about it. It was the real thing, so we started to work on documenting it before returning it to Apple. We had the phone, but we didn't know the owner. Later, we learnt about this story, but we didn't know for sure it was Powell's phone until today, when we contacted him via his phone.

Gray Powell: Hello?

John Herrman: Is this Gray?

G: Yeah.

J: Hi, this is John Herrman from Gizmodo.com.

G: Hey!

J: You work at Apple, right?

G: Um, I mean I can't really talk too much right now.

J: I understand. We have a device, and we think that maybe you misplaced it at a bar, and we would like to give it back.

G: Yeah, I forwarded your email [asking him if it was his iPhone], someone should be contacting you.

J: OK.

G: Can I send this phone number along?

J: [Contact information]

He sounded tired and broken. But at least he's alive, and apparently may still be working at Apple—as he should be. After all, it's just a stupid iPhone and mistakes can happen to everyone—Gray Powell, Phil Schiller, you, me, and Steve Jobs.

The only real mistake would be to fire Gray in the name of Apple's legendary impenetrable security, breached by the power of German beer and one single human error.

Additional reporting by John Herrman; extra thanks to Kyle VanHemert, Matt Buchanan, and Arianna Reiche

Update 2: I have added the bit on the $5,000 (in italics) and how we acquired the iPhone, as Gawker has disclosed to every media outlet that asked.

The Complete Lost iPhone Saga

• How Apple lost the next iPhone

• All the details about the device

• And finally, how Apple asked for their phone back

To stay up to date on all things Gizmodo...

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Send an email to Jesus Diaz, the author of this post, at jesus@gizmodo.com.

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Posted via web from Gary Drumm - PMP, ITIL

Ning: Failures, Lessons and Six Alternatives

2010-04-19T00:16:00.001-05:00

via feeds.mashable.com

And in other news, Ning, the so-called "network of social networks" decided to manage itself out of business today by telling it's clients "f-you, pay me!" Not a very intelligent move on the part of a web 2.0 model business. The name of the game, guys, is ad revenues. And you get ad revenues by getting large volumes of traffic. Ning apparently doesn't have large volumes of traffic, so they rely on the customer to pay for everything. Personally I was never all tht impressed with Ning anyway, so it'll just end up on the social network pile like Friendster and AOL. Just in case you want to visit, I'm setting up the ITIL Sage Network over on socialgo.com, you should come check it out! http://itil.socialgo.com

Posted via web from Gary Drumm - PMP, ITIL

Let's not kid ourselves about how innovative we are.

2010-04-18T21:33:00.003-05:00

via betterprojects.net

This is just too cool! How close we are to this reality today... it's almost like someone was planning it the whole time.

Posted via web from Gary Drumm - PMP, ITIL

Should the CEO stay out of technology?

2010-04-18T21:33:00.001-05:00

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

George Colony (CEO of Forrester) offers some interesting insight he gained during a private dinner with 15 Chief Information Officer’s during the recent Forrester IT Forum in a post titled “CIO’s to CEO’s: Stay out of Tech“.

During this meeting, Colony and his team asked the CIO’s the following question:

How do you raise the tech IQ of your CEO?

The response from the attendees were surprising. Colony reports that the majority of the CIO’s he spoke with agreed that CEO’s should ’stay ouf of tech’. Colony provides three key statements from the participants:

1) “The CEO should trust IT to get it right.”

2) “CEOs are about making the company successful — not on the minutiae of tech.”

3) “The CEO is about results, not tech.”

These are interesting statements…and if you’ve been a CIO or around CIO’s for any length of time, you might agree.

But, like Mr Colony, and with the utmost respect to these 15 CIO’s Mr Colony spoke with, I disagree. Brian Blanchard provided a great response to these statements while trying to answer “Should CEO’s stay out of IT?” Rather than argue what Brian has already done a wonderful job of arguing, I’ll let you jump over and read his response…but an

An interesting piece from Blanchard’s response:

In today’s market, business leaders, much like the consumers they serve, understand the benefits and the risks of technology. In the digital age, these stakeholders often have the technical IQ required to partner with the IT organization to affect true innovation and produce sustainable business value. However, this requires the CIO to evolve. The CIO must open their team to partnerships that generate success and results. These new opportunities and partnerships require CIOs to make a paradigm shift away from types of statements made in your meetings.

Agreed…this is exactly what Gene and I have been saying for years and formalized in our Cutter IT Journal paper titled ”The Futureproof CIO” (shameless plug).

Rethinking the Question

Rather than rehash what Brian has said in response to the CIO’s statements, Let’s take a second to recast the basic question “Should the CEO stay out of technology?”

Let’s think about how this question would sound if we changed ’technology’ with other areas of the organization.

Finance: Should the CEO be involved in Finance?

Sales: Should the CEO stay out of Sales?

Operations: Should the CEO stay out of Operations?

If you’re anything like me, you’d answer a big fat NO to all three questions. The CEO should NOT stay out of any of these areas. So why should they stay out of IT/Technology? They shouldn’t.

Now…the CEO shouldn’t necessarily be involved in the day-to-day operations of any of these areas but she has to know what’s happening and understand the basics of each aspect of the business.

The role of the CEO, as Colony states, is:

Tech is changing your customers, and your customers will change your company. It’s a dynamic that CEOs must wade into up to their hips — it can’t be left to marketing or to IT/BT. Only the CEO has the wide view to make the connections between external tech change and the company, and the power to ensure that the company responds in a way that benefits its customers.

While I disagree with the idea that “only the CEO ha the wide view to make the connections…”, I do agree with the overall premise. The role of the CEO today is to combine all the strengths of the organization into a cohesive strategy to move the company forward.

If the CEO were to ’stay out of technology’, an extremely vital piece of the overall strategy would be missing. The role of the CIO today should be to open up the IT/ Technology world to the rest of the organization so that all aspects of technology can be used to grow the business.

Today’s business IS technology. Even if your organization makes paper, your business revolves around technology. You’ve got technology in the manufacturing area, technology in the IT space and technology in the marketing/sales area.

The CEO needs to be as knowledgeable and involved in technology as in any other area of the business.
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Tagged as: business, CIO, IT, Leadership, management, Technology

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I've followed Eric's blog for several years. He has some fantastic insights. One thing I would say in response to this post... If the CEO is having to get into the IT area, then he doesn't have a very good CIO, and he certainly doesn't have a CIO he can trust. So if you can't trust your CIO to handle your IT initiatives and projects, why not get a new CIO?

Posted via web from Gary Drumm - PMP, ITIL

Baby's First Cubicle: The Most Depressing Toy Ever? [Bad Ideas]

2010-04-15T01:04:00.001-05:00

Baby's First Cubicle: The Most Depressing Toy Ever?

It's all about expectation management, you see. If you make your kid think he can be president, he will grow up disappointed. Tell him he's headed for a life as an office drone and at least he'll be mentally prepared.

For a mere $2,500, daddy's little office drone gets all of this:

Furniture features:

* Flat desk area
* Left and Right built-in mouse pads
* Bench seat that fits two children and offers storage inside for supplies
* Two locking cabinet doors
* Computer wiring stores safely inside ventilated cabinet.
* Locking castors keep unit from rolling during use.

Computer equipment features:

* Think Centre PC
* Internal DVD-ROM
* 1GB RAM (minimum)
* 160GB Hard Drive (minimum)
* 10/100 Ethernet
* Microsoft® Windows
* Sound Card and 2 External Speakers
* Surge protector
* 19" Widescreen Flat Panel LCD Monitor
* Custom Little Tikes Learning keyboard and Tiny Mouse (colors are subject to change without notice)

Computer Warranty: 1-year parts and labor.
Pre-loaded educational software:

* Millie's Math House®
* Sammy's Science House®
* Bailey's Book House®
* Trudy's Time and Place®
* Thinkin' Things®

Boy, I really missed out on these 21st century toys when I was a kid! [Young Explorer via Dvice]

Send an email to Adam Frucci, the author of this post, at adam@gizmodo.com.

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Came across this on Gizmodo and thought it was pretty funny.

Posted via web from Gary Drumm - PMP, ITIL

THIS BLOG HAS MOVED

2009-05-19T12:18:00.002-05:00

This blog has moved to it's new home at http://www.garydrumm.com. Come on over, we're having a great time!

Some of the recent articles you've missed:

What's On The Agenda?
Dr. W Edwards Deming's 14 Points
The Mushroom Theory of Management

Moving My Website/Blog

2009-05-16T11:19:00.001-05:00

Well, the day has finally arrived. I am moving my blog to my own official website. Once propagation has been completed, GaryDrumm.Com will point to my brand spanking new WordPress blog site, hosted on my own server. Part of the reason I've decided to do this move now is, simply put, I have the time to get it done.

I'm still playing around with the layout and overall look and feel of the site but I've already imported my old Blogger posts to the new location. This is also good because it will give me a little more control over the site's design elements and I can add a remove custom features that just were not available to me through Blogger. I will keep the Blogger site up for a while, just so people can learn about the new location and to keep my name in the search results.

The new site will be http://www.garydrumm.com, or http://www.drummnet.net/wordpress. So come on over to the new site! :-D

Preparing for ITIL

2009-05-15T14:06:00.003-05:00

OK, I know I've been talking about ITIL for a while now. Specifically I've been talking about taking the Foundation certification exam. Well, I decided that enough is enough, so I stopped procrastinating, pulled out my credit card, slapped 165 bucks on it and scheduled my test today.

I find that actually putting my money on the table motivates me to get things done. So, I'm going to finally finish up my CBT and go get certified. After 17 years in IT, I feel pretty confident I'll get it done the first time out.

Took The Gateway Back

2009-05-08T13:27:00.002-05:00

Did you ever make one of those decisions where you just knew it wasn't a good idea but you convince yourself that it was OK and did it anyway? Well, the Gateway was one of those decisions. It's not that the computer was bad, on the contrary, it was actually very nice for the price and specifications. But I returned it.

Why you ask? Because upon further reflection, it wasn't what I really wanted. What I really want is a Dell XPS and Mini 12. Now, the price for these two systems is considerably more than the Gateway, a price I'm certainly not willing to pay at this particular moment in life, but that I'm sure I'll be able to do in the very near future.

Bought a New Computer Today

2009-05-04T22:50:00.003-05:00

OK. Any of you who have read my blog in the past will think this is pretty funny. Today was my last day at where I was working as their VP of Network Operations. I won't go into the details except to say that we had a parting of ways that's kind of been coming for the past several months.

Now, as part of my employment at the company I had access to a lot of computer equipment, all of which now must be returned to the company, which left me without a computer. So, I went computer shopping. At first I was thinking about a Toshiba L305 laptop for around $500. But the store didn't have them in stock, so I headed on down to Fry's Electronics to see what kind of deals they had going on.

To my surprise, they were running a "Manager's Special" on the Gateway T-6345u laptop. Now, I know I mouthed off about Gateway a few months back, but I've always kind of liked their computers. And for $450, this was a pretty darn good deal.

The system specs:
- Intel T 3400 2.16GHz processor
- 2 GB DDR2 RAM
- 250 GB HDD
- Intel Wireless NIC
- Windows Vista Premium

That's pretty descent specs for $450! So, I bought it right away. Now, I know what you're thinking "Gary, you just left your job, how can you go buy a computer?" Well, I can sum it up for you in one word: Volume. :)

No seriously, I left with a pretty darn good package, and I have some good savings, so it's all good. Besides, I have to have a computer, otherwise I'd be a computer guy without a computer. And we all know how tragic that would be.

Follow Me On Twitter

2009-04-29T21:59:00.003-05:00

Yep, I'm now on Twitter (http://twitter.com/garydrumm).

Happy Birthday To My Blog

2008-10-09T09:30:00.002-05:00

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

At any rate, happy birthday blog!

Cool Stuff in Google Chrome

2008-09-15T17:23:00.003-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Expandablog - Growing the Gary Drumm Blog Community

2008-09-10T11:32:00.003-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2008-08-22T21:12:00.003-05:00

I'm going to Disney World!

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

Why Is Training Undervalued on Technology Projects

2008-08-13T12:37:00.002-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Any thoughts? Leave a comment.

ITIL Implemenation Best Practice

2008-08-06T17:40:00.002-05:00

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

ITIL Implementation Best Practice (PDF)

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

The ITIL v3 Certification Track - I Think...

2008-08-06T16:43:00.003-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Foundation

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

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

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

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

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

Advanced

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

How much does all of this cost?

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

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

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

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

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

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

How To Survive a BSA Audit

2008-08-06T12:32:00.002-05:00

I've had absolutely no one ask me about this particular subject, so I thought it would be a good topic to post. The BSA is the Business Software Alliance, you know those guys you hear on the radio that tell you to report your employer for software piracy. What they basically do is agressively pursue companies who knowingly and willingly engage in software piracy and fine them for violating the software license of one of their clients.

For example. Microsoft hires the BSA to go after companies who are pirating Microsoft software. Microsoft has every right, regardless of the fact that they have a ton of money, to charge for software that they own, or rather to which they own the intellectual property rights. They have made the investment in developing or acquiring the software, so they get to determine who and how it can be used.

So, when an disgruntled employee leaves your company he or she decides that want you to have a thorough cavity search by the BSA regarding your software licensing. So they submit an anonymous report to the BSA telling them that you grossly and knowingly violate the license agreements for all of your Microsoft software.

The next think you know, you receive a lovely letter stating that it has come to the BSA's attention that your company may be out of compliance and would you kindly submit full and complete documentation regarding your licenses in the next 30 days. Oh dear God, how are we going to respond to this request?!!!

Now, how do you survive this? First of all, don't panic. If you're not intentionally and willingly engaging in software piracy, you really have nothing to worry about. Though the horror stories abound about the BSA sending in it's super agents with their dark sunglasses and sub-machine guns, terrorizing your receptionist and saying "Mam, please step away from the computer", this is rarely the case.

Secondly, take this as an opportunity to get your license management documentation together. If you work for a small to medium sized business, you probably have licensing documentation all over the place. This is a good change to get it all together and put in a single location.

Thirdly, make 3 copies of everything. When I recently went through this experience, I took the opportunity to get all of my license documentation together and make three copies of everything. One copy went to the BSA and supporting documentation for my report. Once copy became the hard copy license book we now keep in our office. And the third copy is a soft copy of all of the license documentation in PDF format.

I also took this opportunity to implement some ITIL best practices with regards to managing software licenses. For example, now all software purchases come through my department, without exception. Why? This provides for a single point of license management enterprise wide. Since my department manages the purchases, we also manage the assets and licenses that go with those purchases. I've already established relationships and accounts with our key vendors, managing the assets that go with those purchases is just logical extension of that function.

So surviving a BSA audit is simple really. Develop a plan, get your house in order, reply to their inquiry, and then use ITIL best practices to keep from having the start from the bottom when it happens again.

Free ITIL Foundation Practice Test

2008-07-30T19:51:00.002-05:00

So, while preparing to take my ITIL Foundation certification in September, I began to research practice tests so I could determine the areas where I needed improvement. I came across a fantastic resource at Berbee.com

They have a free online practice test that looks fantastic! I won't go into my first pass test results, because I'm still "in training", but it appears to give you great exposure to the terminology and concepts they're looking for in the actual ITIL test environment.

Check it out!

http://www.berbee.com/public/learning/webseminar/WS_ITILExam/player.html

PMP Registry Listing

2008-07-29T13:37:00.004-05:00

I just got notice from PMI today congratulating me on obtaining my PMP. This is, without a doubt, one of the most significant accomplishments of my professional life. So I checked and confirmed that I'm now listed in the PMP registry.

This is just too cool!