Independence is finally mine... the imp can drive!

I've always considered myself to be a pretty independent person in most areas of my life.  However, there is one area in which I have been totally dependent upon others the past few decades of my life - getting from A to B by means of a car.  Yes - all my solo adventures have been made with the use of my own two feet and public transport.  Due to events the past few years I started thinking that perhaps I really should get my driving license.  After all, as the nature of the job I want is likely to involve travel - how likely am I to be successful in an application without a driving license?  A couple of years ago I cheekily asked if driving lessons counted as a 'training course' for my personal development plan - naturally the answer was 'no'.  My attitude is I was no worse off for asking and they could have surprised me (so I'm an optimist).

This year I finally decided to take the plunge and started saving.  It's an expensive business in the UK as there's a fair bit involved cost wise:

• Cost of a provisional driving licence (if you don't have one already): £50
  
• Insurance for a learner driver on the practice car
  
• Theory test: £30
• Practical test: £56.50
• Driving lessons: £20 to £26 per hour in my area
  
• Supplementary materials (e.g. DVD, Highway code): £25 for learner pack from DSA inc. L plates
• Free information: Lots of good stuff on the motoring pages of the Direct Gov website.
  

Although I'd considered going the intensive route I decided I'd be better off taking it steady and accumulating driving experience between lessons - an approach I highly recommend.  In the end it took me 16 x 2 hour lessons (32 hours of driving tuition) and when all the costs are added up it still comes in under £1000.  A few hundred pounds over my optimistic budget... it was worth every penny to hear those magic words:

'I'm pleased to say you've passed.' 

For anyone else out there in their mid-thirties and thinks it's too late to learn - think again.  If I can do it - so can you!

Major thanks go to:
My partner: All your support, patience with manoeuvres and learning to trust my ability to stop the car.
My driving instructor - Dave Lewsey: Your patience with a perfectionist learner, willingness to translate concepts into something that worked for me (mantra: RLR, Rbs, Lbs, Bwdw) and your sense of humour - I loved lessons with you and no longer having them is the only downside of passing my test.

Need to keep IT on track? Put a woman in charge ;)

Only kidding - put whoever the most competent person is for the job in charge.  Personally I can't stand this business of meeting quotas and positive discrimination so I don't want any of you getting the wrong idea about some of my recent posts.  My headline is actually in reference to that used by Computing this week in reference to Catherine Doran who won their 'IT Leader of the Year' award.  Congratulations Catherine!

KEEPING IT ON TRACK
Catherine Doran, winner of Computing's IT Leader of the Year award, tells Angelica Mari of her determination to drive on with technology-led transformation at Network Rail despite uncertainty over funding.

These are challenging days for Catherine Doran. She is in charge of Network Rail's IT assets and is facing growing pressure to keep down costs, but she remains unperturbed. The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) confirmed earlier this year that Network Rail will be given an overall budget next year of £28.5bn, £2.6bn less than it asked for. The company still has to respond to the ruling, while the ORR contends that the shortfall will actually amount to £1.2bn once some projects are dropped or delayed. The announcement from the regulator followed months of wrangling with the rail infrastructure firm, which is understood to have said it could generate savings of about 13 per cent, considered "optimistic" by the ORR....

Read the full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/2230730.

The path to CIO - as a black woman - to be or not to be?

The recent achievements of Lewis Hamilton and Barack Obama got me thinking about role models again.  Those of you who have been with me for awhile will know that I'm very interested in the challenges that women face working in IT and there is a lot of emphasis on role models.

It's a current ambition of mine to become a CIO and there just aren't that many females, let alone black females (the 'double whammy' as someone recently said to me).  So imagine my excitement awhile back on hearing the success of Gail Roper - a black female CIO working in US government.  Do you know of any others?

Anyway, back to my path.  My original plan to get there was to go through the ITSM route (which I really enjoy) yet recent events mean that I've had to put that plan aside and remap my path as I walk the project management route (which I also enjoy).  After some deliberation about the move I've decided that, actually, it is completely the right thing to have done.  Why?  Whether you read ITIL, CIO, or pretty much any other technology (with career focus) website out there; there are constant references to 'the business'.  Alignment.  Integration.  That's where we are at.  So what better move for me than to step out of IT and into the business in order to get a better understanding of 'the other side' with which we are to integrate?

More on this subject another time.  For those that would say race and gender don't matter in such things - as much as I wish they didn't - the fact is they do.  I hope that as I move through both my professional and personal life that people will look past gender, past race - and see me.  A little ITIL imp :)

Amazing times...

In a departure from my normal topics - I can't let this one pass without joining in the commentary with my personal take.

It's been a great week for black people in terms of positive role models whilst at the same time being quite horrible given what is happening elsewhere in the world.

We've seen the first black formula one world champion in the form of Lewis Hamilton (image source: inthenews).  A kid who had a dream and managed to make it reality. As much as I admire him and know that he inspires others - I also want to pay tribute to his family and father in particular. Those that achieve great things rarely do so alone, it's the people who believe in them that help to make it so. None more so than the next man who has made history - Barack Obama.

I'm not sure I ever truly believed that I would witness such a day in my lifetime and I'm certain that Ann Nixon Cooper (106 year old American activist for African-American people's rights) never believed it either.

I was among those that stayed up all night to witness the historic occasion (ok, so I confess my body failed me and I crawled into bed about 15 minutes after it was confirmed that he took Ohio and it was clear he had won). How far America has come...and the oh the irony of a black family in the 'White house' - I love it.

Will he really change the world? Yes, he will - he already has by inspiring millions of people. It's THOSE people that will effect real change. I just hope that he surrounds himself with people who want a better world, that won't undermine him, and that the tough decisions he makes go towards achieving that.

If Martin Luther King could see this now...

20081104_Chicago_IL_ElectionNight1520, originally uploaded by Barack Obama.

The future of ITIL V2 rests in your hands...

Thanks to The IT Skeptic for drawing my attention to this.  I've had my say - make sure you have yours!

Here is an opportunity to have your say on the future of ITIL V2. EXIN is running an anonymous poll of public opinion regarding the future of ITIL V2. Despite the Dutch error messages and the limited opportunities for additional comment, this is a worthwhile initiative. The ITIL Money Engine wants to kill ITIL V2 as soon as possible - add your voice if this is not what you want.

The training vendors know it is more efficient to only service one version, just as software vendors try to get you off old product versions. But bodies of knowledge are not software products. The IT Skeptic believes V2 should be supported until V3 offers credible alternatives to all of V2's benefits. In particular,

1. a phased approach to v3 is essential to provide that first step. ITIL V2 remains as valid and useful as it ever was, and a lot more accessible to new adopters than ITIL V3.
2. Experienced knowledgeable expertise in V3 is still rare.

The market - that's us - should resist pressure to force us onto V3 before we are ready.

Happy one month anniversary to me!

Well, today marks the first month of my new job and how the weeks have flown by without my making many blog posts.  I am so busy both at work and home that I just don't know where the time goes (well I do, but I'm not going to bore you with it).

After the first two weeks were primarily spent identifiying and meeting stakeholders, the next two weeks were focused around collecting the information for the development of the Project Initiation Document that had to be in on Wednesday 8th October.  I was able to use much of the input from the one-to-one stakeholder meetings I had but we also held a project kick-off workshop and used this to get ideas from everyone together to address things like objectives, constraints, risks, benefits, deliverables, and assumptions.  This proved very worthwhile as it helped create that shared understanding about the project and was a great input into the PID.

I actually had to write two of them, one for the local council project and one for the wider programme across all councils.  The more I worked on the latter one the more I realised it was really a programme definition document according to OGC's 'Managing Successful Programmes'.  I recently bought the book although I've not finished reading it yet so I was making a lot of reference to it as I wrote this document.  Nothing like learning through doing is there? ;)

Now that the first milestone is out of the way and I've developed the project plan that we will be working to, it's time to start making things happen.  I guess this is when the REAL challenge begins...

ITIL V3 Intermediate Level Syllabi Published and mini rant

 At least a year in the making, the syllabi for those intermediate exams are finally published.  Not that I'd necessarily recommend that anyone actually take them.  It's not that the Skeptic has gotten to me - it's the actions of those running the ITIL show that have.  I recently blogged about the ITIL Live Portal (ITIL Live Portal - Cheeky blighters!, ITIL Live Portal - Cheeky blighters, part 2, ITIL Live Portal - what DID they promise anyway?) and it has recently come out that the price for an individual person per year is £2500 (corporate concurrent user £5750)!  Who are they trying to kid?  As my partner so eloquently said, "How much? I could get a football season ticket for that!"

Remember, you don't need qualifications to do service management!  Anyway, for those of you who would like to go through the v3 churning machine - here you go:

The ITIL Qualification Scheme uses a system that enables an individual to gain credits for each exam they take. For a full definitive explanation of the Version 3 qualification scheme and credit system, please download the ITIL V3 Qualification Scheme.

Once candidates have accumulated a sufficient number of credits they can be awarded the ITIL Expert in IT Service Management.

There are four levels within the scheme:

• Foundation Level
• Intermediate Level (Lifecycle Stream and Capability Stream)
• ITIL Expert
• ITIL Master.

Syllabi for the Intermediate Level have been published and can be seen below:

Capability Stream

• Operational Support and Analysis Certificate Syllabus
• Planning, Protection and Optimization Certificate Syllabus
• Release, Control and Validation Certificate Syllabus
• Service Offerings and Agreements Certificate Syllabus.

Lifecycle Stream

• Service Strategy Certificate Syllabus
• Service Design Certificate Syllabus
• Service Transition Certificate Syllabus
• Service Operation Certificate Syllabus
• Continual Service Improvement Certificate Syllabus
• Managing Across the Lifecycle.

 Source: Best Management Practice