Collaborative Working with Mind Manager

I am a huge fan of mindmapping on paper as well as and 'mindmapping' electronically using Mind Manager by Mindjet. A few weeks back I was pleased to get an invitation to try out 'Mind Manager Connect' - their solution to collaborative working.

I've had a bit of a play with some of my work colleagues and it would actually address some immediate issues for us. Due to the nature of partnership working we frequently waste time travelling between sites for meetings (although there is a lot to be said for face-to-face communication). The solution from Mindjet could enable us to be more effective (as well as helping to convert a few more people to the benefits of the tool ;) ). I did notice that it makes use of NetViewer for elements of the collaborative platform (why design something from scratch yourself when you can make use of another industry solution?).

The main issue I see at the moment is companies not necessarily wanting to have their data hosted on external servers (although this attitude is changing with so many SAAS software-as-a-service offerings nowadays). When I asked Mindjet about this, they did suggest that there would be an internal hosting option available, although not at release.

Anyhow, here is an extract from their FAQ to further whet your appetites:

What is Mindjet Connect?
Mindjet Connect helps individuals and teams to work faster and more effectively using a dynamic, flexible online environment.

Combined with MindManager Pro 7 SP2 Beta or MindManager Web (coming soon), Mindjet Connect organizes, simplifies and streamlines the way people interact and share information they need - through secure workspaces, real-time collaboration and web conferencing.

Mindjet Connect helps to establish the context captured in visual maps while providing a collaborative platform for sharing and contributing information in secure workspaces.

People can co-edit visual maps in real-time, chat and launch web conferencing to present maps and other documents. The result is a high performance workplace where teams can work more productively anytime or anywhere.
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How can Mindjet Connect help me work more effectively in teams?
The speed of today’s business requires disparate teams to work together to accomplish more, faster. Mindjet Connect can help your team achieve more with every minute, and work together to accelerate success – productively.
Improve meeting efficiency

* Save time preparing for meetings by keeping all of your important files at your fingertips. Organize project workspaces with dynamic links to files so you always have the most up-to-date version.
* Get the right team members involved with an instant online meeting and collaborate with team members no matter where they are located.
* Brainstorm and Innovate. Enhance strategic thinking and facilitate quicker project planning by white boarding and co-editing visual maps with your team members, simultaneously. Your team can now share the same map and add topics, details, notes and attach file resources.

Manage projects to achieve more in less time

* Align objectives and actions, clearly. Create an environment where everyone can see and understand the relationship between themselves, resources and actions to the objectives of the project – helping achieve clarity and avoid wasted time.
* Foster participation and strategic thinking. Provide a common environment that makes it easy to capture and organize the best ideas, techniques and approaches to accomplish anything – with visual maps that are quickly understood and easily shared.
* Simplify and streamline business and interactive work processes – from one or two individuals to entire organizations.

Create context for information management

* Keep everyone on the same page by creating workspaces where Microsoft Office™ files and web content can be linked, stored and shared so everyone can access and use information more productively.
* Keep track of revisions and version history. Files can be checked out / checked in so everyone is on the same page, and fully up to date.
* Set access controls for who can be an owner, author or reader within a workspace.

Collaborate & communicate effectively

* Communicate in real-time with the ability to see who is online, view work being done by others on a map in real-time, and interact through a variety of online tools.
* Host web conferences to share any kind of file or application.
* Edit maps with your team members, simultaneously. Your team can share the same map and add topics, details, notes and attach file resources.


What are some of the notable features of Mindjet Connect Beta?

Co-editing visual maps - One of our most exciting new features. Co-editing allows multiple users on different computers in different locations to work on the same map at the same time. It’s true real-time collaboration over the Internet.

Instant Meeting - You can experience true virtual collaboration through the integration of web conferencing and white boarding sessions.

Secure Workspaces - Create new workspaces when you need them, for new projects, new teams and new clients. Then tailor your workspaces with access controls for invited members, locking and versioning of documents, integration with e-mail and importing of maps and secondary documents.

MindManager Web (coming soon, not available for beta) - Access your workspaces and collaborate anytime within a standard web browser. You’ll have access to your data, even when you aren’t at your own computer.

Other reviews:
The Mind Mapping Software Weblog
CABRE - Applications of Mind Manager

Girl Geek Dinners

Anyone who reads my blog knows that I am pretty passionate about women working in IT and that it is a little demotivating to hear stories about people leaving the profession and the number of girls who are not opting to study computing in it's various guises.

Thanks to a fellow woman referencing it on the BCS Women's discussion group I came across this article (website | PDF) in the Guardian about 'Girl Geek Dinners'.

Created by Sarah Blow, from what I can see it's another networking group that seeks to raise the profile of women working in IT. They have groups all over the world - perhaps it's time that this geeky imp checked them out ;)

SFIA v4 Update - have your say

ITIL refresh... Prince 2 refresh... let's add another one to the list with SFIA (Skills for the Information Age)! This just in today from e-skills:

This is to let you know that consultation has now begun on the development of version 4 of the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). IT professionals, their employers and those responsible for their education and training are invited to participate by visiting ...

http://sfia.textmatters.com/

Everyone who has an interest in IT skills can comment on the existing skills definitions and make suggestions for new content. If you need any guidance on what is needed, you can see some notes on the SFIA web site at ...

http://www.sfia.org.uk/cgi-bin/wms.pl/1711

... and there is a link from there to the Update site.

SFIA provides the most widely-accepted definitions of IT skills and is now used by more than 1,000 organisations to produce job descriptions and role profiles, support resource planning, and improve business effectiveness. It has been translated into Chinese and Japanese.

Quote: "The great strength of SFIA is that it is based on actual best practice in the workplace. Users can therefore be confident that it provides a tried and tested solution to their IT skills management needs."

The consultation will run through to September and SFIA version 4 is due to be released before the end of 2008.

How hard is it to run a forum anyway?

WARNING: this post is nothing but a rant from an unwell blogger who is too tired to think up any real content.

I don't normally rant here but I think this is worthy of an exception. I thought it was a great thing when the itSMF uk announced that they were redesigning their website. On the whole it is a significant improvement on the last one which was stuck in the 90s. That said... what is the deal with their forum? itSMF - it Service Management 'FORUM'. A means for us to gather and discuss all matters relating to IT Service Management right? Wrong. The current web forum is actually worse than the old one in terms of functionality. In a web 2.0 world where we expect a lot from our internet browsing experience, how hard is it to give us a web forum with basic features such as the ability to view new posts since your last visit; to bookmark threads that you are interested in, etc. ? Even the itsmfi have a better forum platform!

I think they do a great job at achieving the forum in terms of the SIGs (Special Interest Groups) and conferences... but where is a decent WEB forum to encourage IT Service Management professionals to interact with one another?

Come on itSMF uk... it's now the 2nd quarter of 2008 - get it together for those of us who can't make it to all your face-to-face events! Who's with me?

I should just add that I have years of experience in running web-based forums and just know that you can do better - no, I don't want to do it for you ;)

Women getting back into IT

As a woman working in a predominantly male industry it can be quite frustrating at times. Particularly when I read articles regarding the continuing imbalance between the genders as regards pay-scales for the same job (although I suspect that local government may do a better job of this than the private sector - I wonder if anyone has sent in Freedom of Information requests to find out...).

At the moment, I'm constantly getting jibes regarding my age and how I shouldn't wait much longer before having children. There is a valid argument behind this. However, like many women I'm pretty career-focused and can't help wondering if I were to take time off to bring up a child whether I may find myself in the same boat as other women trying to return to work after a career break, e.g. less likely to get a promotion or even not getting a job utilising your skills at all! The research (2005) reflects a sad truth. If anyone is aware of any more recent studies that buck the trend I would be very interested in them!

This question published in the Guardian last November is but one example of the reality for women in IT.

For those women who are already on the other side of their break, there is some advice available from the likes of Equalitec (see the ITEC Career Opportunities for Women Returners, July 2005) and BCS Women.

Whitepapers and research

I've been catching up on some reading the past week and wanted to share some links with you.

1. Whitepaper: ITIL® V3 and ISO/IEC 20000 by Jenny Dugmore and Sharon Taylor
This outlines the differences between ITIL V3 and ISO/IEC 20000 from 'the perspective of each clause in the standard where the core 5 ITIL books either do not cover it or cover it differently. It does not cover changes that mean ITIL V3 is closer aligned to
ISO/IEC 20000 than was ITIL V2. The table included within this white paper is an ISO/IEC 20000-1 centric document. It identifies clauses where there are notable differences between ISO/IEC 20000 and ITIL V3 that are not simply due to the different purposes of the two sets of documents.'

As it is only 6 pages are we to infer that there aren't many differences? As I have not yet read a fully copy of the ISO 20000 standard I'm unable to comment. I thought this may be useful for those of you who are going down that route though.

2. The Forrester Wave: Service Desk Management Tools, Q2 2008 by Chip Gliedman
Garner have the 'Magic Quadrant' and Forrester the 'Wave'. This report evaluates 16 products from 13 vendors and presents two waves. One for large enterprises (or those with complex requirements) and one for small enterprises (or large ones with simple requirements). The results are pretty consistent with HP, Remedy, CA, IBM, and Axios solutions classed as 'leaders' for large enterprises. What is interesting is that Infra who were only added to the Gartner Magic Quadrant last time around have also made it into the 'leader' class. Also, the software as a service solution from Service-now.com it only just outside as a 'strong performer'. Interesting times for vendors...

3. Whitepapers from EMC (Infra Enterprise)
Normally I'm not a fan of vendor whitepapers as they are generally a major sales pitch. Spurred on by the Forrester Wave I thought I'd take a look at those from Infra and I was pleasantly surprised. Aside from a few typographical errors and a missing word that changes the meaning of a sentence to the exact opposite in one (immediately obvious to anyone who knows ITIL, so much so that you almost put the missing word in without realising) I thought there were some good ideas in there - particularly the service catalogue. I'd only seen this sort of thing in dedicated products like Newscale.

Moving your ITIL Implementation Forward - part 4

It's here, the final part in the series! This covers the question and answer session from the itSMF e-symposium entitled: 'Moving your ITIL Implementation Forward - what are your next steps?' on 18th March 2008.

Round Table - Questions and Answers
I didn't catch the names of everyone who asked questions, suffice to say it was worthwhile hanging on until the end.

Q1. How do we measure the ROI of ITIL v3 adoption?
A1. Rob Stroud observed that the last 60 days have seen a massive move to v3 and went on to say that IT needs to measure things at a different level in a way that the business see as important, i.e. the provision of service. He states that the ROI of ITIL is not necessarily tangible in bankable cost-savings.
Malcolm lightened the mood by informing us that he often thinks of the ROI of ITIL as the 'return on insurance', i.e. the potential cost of not doing it.
Sharon was quick to point out that there are other benefits aside from the financial.

Q2. Can you drive COBIT and ITIL agenda from middle management or does it have to be C-level?
A2. Harvey was strongly of the view that it doesn't need to wait for higher level management. He has been fortunate in his role to take what he needs and get on with it. He did note that for funding senior management do need to be involved.
Georges echoed Harvey's viewpoint stating that you can always start within your own area of responsibility. The organisation can then look at your area as a centre of excellence and adopt in the wider scene (why does Zapp! come to mind?). He did advocate the need to sell to senior management to expand beyond your own area.

Q3. ITIL certification is always on individual basis. Will it ever be organisational?
A3. Sharon sees no need for ITIL certification to go beyond the individual as for organisational certification there is ISO 20000 (ITIL v3 is aligned with ISO 20000). One of the drivers for individual certification is to promote ITSM as a profession within the IT industry. Harvey reiterated that "ISO 20000 is the quality standard for ITSM".
Rob informed the delegates that he often is asked for products that are actually ITIL accredited. (ITILImp: Currently there is only the PinkVerify scheme which has recently been updated to take account of v3).

Q4. Why do you need to know what level something is at?
A4. Georges picked this one up but I didn't make many notes other than the comment that COBIT certification is for the individual only, not the organisation.

Q5. v3 exams are now multiple choice rather than written. Is this a dumbing down of the qualification?
A5. I've heard this comment a lot since the itSMF conference last year and the answer hasn't changed.
Sharon stated that it is not a dumbing down and that there is a misconception regarding multiple-choice. The exam formats have been based upon research into undergraduate and postgraduate university examinations. The ITIL exams will use a blend of simple multiple-choice at foundation level whilst the higher level exames will use gradient, complex multiple-choice (e.g. one answer is the most correct, another is less correct, etc.). Apparently this challenges the application of what someone knows rather than their ability to write a paper. Exam pilots suggested that this format is actually harder than the v2 essay format for the manager's certificate. She also made the valid points that it removes the objectivity in terms of the exam grading and will benefit those writing in non-native languages.

As an academic himself it is not surprising that Georges stressed the benefits of multiple choice commenting upon their adaptability to the complexity of questions you want as well as being easy to mark.

Malcolm isn't a fan of these and believes that they lack the interpretation... the why. I liked his suggestion that for the new v3 Advanced ITSM Diploma candidates could write a white paper or say 30 pages as a way of demonstrating that they are a proven practitioner. The end result could then form part of the ITIL v3 complementary guidance. Sharon interjected to say that something akin to this IS part of the advanced service professional certification.

Q6. Will the business guys be worried that IT want to take over the business?
A6. Rob didn't think so, "Communication is the key".
Georges pointed out that ITSM benefits from the business as it positions IT to deliver capabilities. A service is not worthwhile if it is not delivering what the business needs. He also said that it helps accountability with clarification betweeen business failures vs it failures.
Sharon wrapped up by paraphrasing from a Harvard study, "CIOs have to be business leaders, not IT-centric".

All in all, a good set of questions and answers. Although I'm sure there were lots more questions that didn't make the cut. I put a few in (one being a request for Harvey's full workshop as it was really good stuff) and had one answered but the one that I thought would be a quickie that wasn't answered was: "When will the ITIL Live Portal be going live?" It's mentioned in all the books and it now almost a year since they came out. Since then, on a little adventure this ITIL Imp notices that the http://www.itil-live-portal.com address is now redirected to The Stationary Office (TSO) which assures us that it is 'coming soon' (Perhaps that is June, or the next eclipse of the moon, who knows?). Register for updates to find out.

There we have it... the final in this series. I wonder where my next adventure lies...