What’s after certification
You now have all the great certifications for your IT industry, you got the Microsoft MCSA the Cisco CCNA and many others now what do you do? Well with my experience in certifications I started to find that there was not much challenge available to me after the Cisco CCIE lab (which I still have to do). So I started to look around and had the fortunate opportunity afforded me to work with some of the industry’s best IT managers and project managers and learn about many new options that can not only advance a career but also advance a person’s ability for planning and processing IT projects.
A couple of the options that I will discuss this article are SIX SIGMA and ITIL. Both of these are methodologies for achieving better results with IT projects. “Six Sigma is a business management strategy, originally developed by Motorola that today enjoys the wide-spread application in many sectors of industry.
Six Sigma seeks to identify and remove the causes of defects and errors in manufacturing and business processes. It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization (“Black Belts” etc.) who are experts in these methods. Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has quantified financial targets (cost reduction or profit increase).” (Wiki, 2008)
There are many levels that can be attained to include the coveted Black Belt. “Black Belts operate under Master Black Belts to apply Six Sigma methodology to specific projects. They devote 100% of their time to Six Sigma. They primarily focus on Six Sigma project execution, whereas Champions and Master Black Belts focus on identifying projects/functions for Six Sigma.” These individuals are pulled from within a corporation and assist with many functions within a project. For more information please check out the following link:
http://www.motorola.com/content.jsp?globalObjectId=3088
Then there ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) and this is some of my most recent experience gained to include the ITIL Foundation Certification, which covers some of the basic methodologies of ITIL. What is ITIL? “ITIL is a set of concepts and techniques for managing information technology (IT) infrastructure, development, and operations.” ITIL version 3 (which is what I certified in) basically covers the following volumes” (Wiki, 2008)
- Service Strategy
- Service Design
- Service Transition
- Service Operation
- Continual Service Improvement
Each of these volumes is for developing a foundation methodology to properly initiating, implementing and continuing a high level of infrastructure development. For more information please check out the following link:
http://www.itil-officialsite.com/home/home.asp
So as you can see there is much, much room for professional development, don’t just strive for that Cisco CCNP and quit, Keep your mind charged and ready to learn more.