Susan Underhill's Blog on Human Capital Management

It’s time to make connections at HP Technology Forum

susan_underhill — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:47:00 GMT

The annual HP Technology Forum & Expo will be getting underway in just about 10 days. Once again, I'll be heading out to Las Vegas to help host close to 6,000 HP partners, customers and employees. I love attending this event because it gives me the opportunity to connect with so many people in my professional network. In fact, that's one of the top reasons that many people cite for coming to HPTF - the chance to rub elbows with HP executives, engineers, product managers, and program managers, as well as HP customers and partners.

Several channel partners I met at a recent Enterprise Technical Summit in Dubai will be traveling to Las Vegas to attend HPTF this year, and one in particular will be coming to Las Vegas for the second time this year to attend an HP event. This executive with First Tech in South Africa says he enjoys both the executive interaction and the multitude of learning options at these big events. (I don't want to sound like a commercial for HP Technology Forum, but I do like to boast that we'll have more than 500 technical sessions and hands-on labs that people can choose from!)

Of course, the people who come to the Tech Forum can barely scratch the surface when it comes to technical learning over the four days of the event. We don't expect people to make this their only learning experience for the year. We've found that mixing smaller, local training with the larger, national or global events has proven to be a winning strategy for many of our channel partners who want to keep abreast of the latest HP technologies and solutions.

Another reason people like to attend this big event is to get a sense of where HP is headed. Yes, we'll have the usual keynote addresses from our top executives. But more than that, the attendees can get the real inside scoop by seeing the products in development by HP Labs and attending non-disclosure sessions covering unannounced products. Customers have told me that seeing what's on HP's roadmaps helps them plan ahead for their own enterprise systems.

If you want to join me at HPTF, it's not too late to register. Go to http://www.hptechnologyforum.com/. You'll find me and my colleagues in the HP Certified Professional Hospitality Suite with more than a thousand of our closest friends. Hope to see you there!

You say you’re an expert? Prove it!

susan_underhill — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:00:00 GMT

When it comes time for a manager to write a performance review on a specific employee, the manager analyzes how well the employee performs all the various tasks that allow him to do his job. It’s the outcome of those tasks – the results – that are important. What the employee knows is not as important as whether he can put that knowledge to use effectively.

If we apply that logic to certification testing, you can understand the principle behind performance based exams (PBEs). Before a candidate can earn a certification, he has to demonstrate that he can effectively apply his knowledge by performing a set of tasks and achieving a desired result.

HP has just begun using PBEs for some of our software certification exams. Given that there are so many ways that a software implementer or administrator can interact with the software, we want to verify that a certification candidate really knows how to perform critical tasks by doing the tasks in a test setting that closely approximates a real work environment.

HP’s performance-based exams use the Prometric Internet-based test (IBT) format and a virtual lab in a proctored testing location. A PBE requires access to a virtual lab environment where a candidate performs specific tasks using the actual HP software product. For example, he might be asked to diagnose and fix a software configuration problem. The student switches between the virtual lab where he performs his activities and the IBT where he responds to the test questions that pertain to his activities.

The PBE style of testing has been around for about 5 years. Cisco has been on the forefront of applying the technology and is known for its grueling 8 hour hands-on exam. As a result, Cisco’s certifications are consistently rated among the top 10 IT certifications by the industry, Microsoft launched its first 5 performance-based simulation exams in 2005, and according to Certification Magazine, is now adding more such exams to its roster.

PBEs are more expensive and time consuming to create than typical “information recall” exams, but fortunately, new innovations in virtualization and animation are making it easier to develop and administer the exams. Despite the extra time and expense, the benefits outweigh the costs.

First of all, we feel these types of tests are a better measure of a person’s ability to apply his knowledge. It’s one thing to attend classes and get a bunch of “book knowledge,” but it’s another to prove that you can apply what you know. Employers should be very interested in the results of an employee’s or a job candidate’s performance based exams. Such exams are a good validation of critical skills.

PBEs also improve the security of the certification exam process. It’s no secret that certification fraud exists. There are people who take certification exams for the sole purpose of memorizing the questions and later posting them for sale on “brain dump” sites. This process works for pure question-and-answer tests, but it’s foiled by a process that requires a test taker to perform a series of tasks as part of the exam. Companies like HP, Cisco and Microsoft are better able to protect our intellectual property (the exams) by making them harder to steal.

HP just began using PBEs in March of 2008, so we’re still in the early stages of analyzing their performance and making necessary adjustments such as lengthening the exam times. Nevertheless, we’re excited about taking this leap forward to helping employers get better insight on how well their employees can apply critical knowledge.

HP Blog Migration

Susan Underhill — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:41:00 GMT

Exciting news! HP blogs are migrating to a new platform to serve you better. As of May 23, I won't be posting to my blog and won't be able to receive any comments submitted. Please hold your comments until June 1 when our new site will be live. Then we can resume our dialogue about making the most of your most important asset – your people.

What’s your opinion of distance learning?

Susan Underhill — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:52:00 GMT

My husband just started a new business, and his preparation for this venture has gotten me thinking a lot about learning and certification testing for professions. His business has nothing to do with the computer industry; in fact, he sells hearing solutions to people with hearing limitations.

Nevertheless, his experience with training on how to evaluate and fit a customer with an appropriate hearing solution is similar to HP’s channel partners learning how to design an IT solution for our customers. Knowing how to do these things is not an inherent trait; the skills must be learned through a combination of formal training plus hands-on work experience. Only then can someone be considered a “professional” in his respective industry.

My husband and I both decided to use a distance learning method to familiarize ourselves with the hearing aid business and the products he now works with on a daily basis.

Distance learning – taking classes outside of a formal classroom setting, most likely over the Internet – is great because you don’t have to go to a class, the class comes to you. You can take the course at a time that’s convenience for you, and at a pace that feels right for you, even repeating lessons if need be to be sure you understand the content. What’s more, distance learning saves money (no travel or lodging costs) and can include people previously unable to attend classes (such as low income people, people with disabilities, students located far from a training facility, etc.). If the course is designed properly, it can be a very effective means to learn.

From a training provider’s perspective, distance learning is a cost effective way to reach more students. I’m certain you can expect to see growth in the application of distance learning for many types of industries. Certainly HP is embracing this new paradigm to teach our employees, partners and customers about new technologies and solutions. We’re sensitive to the amount of time we ask our partners in particular to spend in training, and distance learning relieves the burden of taking someone out of the office for several days or longer.

A 2007 study by Wainright Research surveyed 553 trainers, and 51% of them said web conferencing is just as or more effective than in-person training. I’d like to hear your opinion on this. Have you taken any training via the distance learning method lately? If so, did you find it to be as effective as attending a class in person? What did you like about this form of training, and what did you not like? Given that distance learning is on the upswing, it behooves us all to refine the process to get it right.

Training channel partners in far corners of the world

Susan Underhill — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:03:00 GMT

HP sells a very significant portion of our products and solutions through a global network of channel partners – tens of thousands of partners with hundreds of thousands of employees – in virtually every country in the world.

Reaching the individuals employed by our channel partners with timely and quality content, in local language, has been one of my greatest challenges. The problem is, it’s just not feasible for HP to personally reach every partner we want to train. We can’t ask people to travel thousands of miles and cross country borders for training, and we can’t take all the training centers on the road. Nevertheless, we must deliver a consistent, high quality learning experience for all partners, regardless of their locations, when, where and how they want it.

As we explored solving this problem, we realized that the “vehicle” for the training is less important than the actual content and skill development of the training experience. In other words, high quality HP training doesn’t have to be delivered by HP. This is the premise of the new Global HP Learning Channel.

For the past two years, we have been laying the foundation for a consistent, high quality partner education experience – no matter where in the world a partner resides. We have fostered partnerships with companies that already deliver IT training, and HP provides these companies (which we call Authorized Training Centers, or ATCs) official HP curriculum. Each ATC must meet and maintain high educational quality standards before HP allows them to provide training services on our behalf.

By offering classroom training in more locations, HP is able to reach more partners with the technical information they need to properly recommend, sell and service HP solutions. The students attending the training don’t need to travel as much or as far, saving time and money. Because many of the ATCs also deliver training for companies like Cisco and Microsoft, students taking HP training can find more of what they need in one place and have a consistent experience in their overall IT training. For HP, we are able to improve our time to market with the courses we want our partners to take. And we know that all our partners are learning from the same curriculum and materials, so we are developing a consistent set of skills worldwide.

The HP Learning Channel is allowing us to deliver the right training, in the right place, at the right time, for the right price.

Entering a virtual world to “encounter knowledge”

Susan Underhill — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:45:00 GMT

After a busy and snowy start (122 inches season to date and more forecasted for tomorrow!) to 2008, I’m finally catching up on some reading and came across an article that got me thinking futures (in both Learning and summertime!). The Vanishing Point of Learning: How Can You Use It? in a recent Chief Learning Officer magazine explored the future in Learning using web-based second lives, simulation games and the wiki sphere to promote experiential learning – even if that experience is only virtual.

Bob Becker of learning design firm Becker Multimedia says the vanishing points of learning are “where people learn without being taught, practice without being licensed, collaborate without being led and discover without having to search.”

Becker suggests that the teacher-student relationship may soon be supplanted by people sitting at their computers, learning through virtually doing (as in Second Life or other simulation games) or sharing (through wikis and social networks). Rather than being told what to learn, people are now discovering knowledge on their own. He thinks corporations need to embrace these new modes of experience to help people learn. I agree, and am currently appointing a “learning futures leader” in my organization to look at how HP can leverage these new learning methods.

I’ll add my two cents here by saying this is especially important for Generation Y workers who have grown up with the Web as a core means for interacting with others and getting information about anything and everything. For example, when my friend’s teenage daughter got a new smart phone, she wouldn’t touch the printed instruction manual. Instead, she got online to go through the interactive demo to learn about the phone’s features. When this girl eventually enters the workforce, she’ll find it difficult to sit in a classroom and view a deck of PowerPoint slides to learn about topics important for her job. No, she’ll want to turn to the Web for an interactive learning experience where there are no boundaries to what can be learned.

But changing the way we design learning programs is no easy feat. Our first stab at putting learning on the Web was basically taking those old PowerPoint slides from the classroom and making them available as a webinar. We may be liberated from the classroom, but we’re still at the mercy of the content-constrained slide deck.

It’s going to take a sea change in instructional design to immerse students in virtual worlds where avatars and actions replace PowerPoint. Becker describes it as “encountering knowledge” and having experiences that allow you to discover for yourself. To bring about this change, we need to merge the sciences of instructional design and video game design to give students the sense of learning by discovery.

It’s been done before. Pilots and astronauts regularly learn how to fly and control their aircraft in simulators. Surgeons practice their skills on interactive models. Could we apply these same techniques to sophisticated information technology topics?

Have you had the opportunity to use virtual worlds, social networks or other Web-based “next generation” resources to learn? I’m interested in hearing about how you like to learn.

Do “McQaulifications” prepare workers for a bright future?

Susan Underhill — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:32:00 GMT

I’ve heard about “on the job training,” but “on the job diplomas”?

In January, the British government announced a plan to allow residents to obtain the equivalent of a high school diploma by completing rigorous on the job training programs offered by commercial companies like fast food company McDonald’s, railroad operator Network Rail, and low-cost airline Flybe.

The three companies are England’s first employers given the right by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority to grant employees recognized vocational equivalents of A-levels and GCSEs. (A-level, or Advanced Level, is a General Certificate of Education qualification often used in the UK as a college entrance requirement. GCSE, or General Certificate of Secondary Education, is a set of qualifications taken by UK students aged 14-16.)

The Associated Press reports that the plan is part of a campaign to improve skills among young workers and people who dropped out of school long ago. (Also see the Financial Times article on the program.)

Before you laugh at the idea – critics call the plan “McQualifications” – consider this: the people who complete such a training program are gaining practical skills that can truly help them prepare for long-term employment or entry into a higher education program. The head of Britain’s Federation of Small Businesses praised the news as an advance for “employer-led qualifications,” contrasting them with existing qualifications designed by academics, which “don’t exactly look at what employers want.”

To be honest, I have to agree with him. Too often I hear employers complain that they can’t find “qualified workers.” What they mean is that they can’t find workers that have the “ready to hit the ground running” qualifications for a particular job. For example, someone with a college degree may not be suited for a job because he or she has no practical hands-on experience in that particular area.

If you think about what the McDonald’s store manager training provides, it does help to create workers with skills that are important for time management, people management, customer service, health and hygiene, brand management, supply chain management, and so on. It’s not just about “flipping burgers.” While these skills may not be right for many employers, they could be well suited to small service-oriented businesses that can’t afford to train their new employees.

Not everyone in the UK is wild about the program. Some see it as a “dumbing down” of the British educational system. Others prefer not to allow commercial businesses to wield the power of the provision of training that is nationally recognized.

What do you think? Can commercial companies provide good enough (i.e., broad enough) training to new employees to allow the workers to earn the equivalent of a high school diploma? Would those workers have the basic education needed to pursue higher education? If you were a hiring manager, would you consider a candidate with this kind of educational background?

You are as old as your skills

Susan Underhill — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:05:00 GMT

A recent Wall Street Journal article dared to ask “How old are you?” and the answer was “As old as your skills.” The article cites cases where age-bias may have played a role in a job applicant not getting a job offer from a prospective employer. Deborah Russell, director of work-force issues at AARP, the large Washington-based advocacy group for older adults, is quoted as saying "There continue to be the same stereotypes about older workers, such as they're not willing to try new things and don't have the experience with technology."

Of course, in the IT industry, just the opposite is true when it comes to experience with technology. IT professionals tend to have years and often decades of experience. When I’m sitting around gab sessions with IT people, they often brag about “how far they go back,” as in “the first computer I ever worked on filled an entire room and had less processing power than today’s dollar store calculator.” Years of experience in this industry are worn as a badge of honor.

However, experience, especially in the IT industry, is a two-sided coin. On the one hand, the decades that a person has put in as a systems engineer, a communications expert, an applications developer, or other IT-related position are a real plus because it shows the person knows the evolution of technology. He or she has tried many things, failed at a few and succeeded at a lot. Along with the knowledge of technology comes the business experience of how the technology enhances or changes how business is done. A “seasoned” IT professional brings significant value to any team.

The flip side of the coin is the fleeting nature of technology skills and how quickly a person’s knowledge becomes stale. IT product life cycles are getting ever shorter, and that means what a person knows about technology today will become obsolete when a new product or updated version is released next week. This phenomenon affects every IT professional, whether he has 30 years of work experience or just three years.

Think about it. It’s a rare occasion when you want to deploy a technology that hasn’t changed one bit in three years’ time. Would you want a current technology to be deployed by someone who hasn’t had a skill refresher in three years?

The only solution to the problem is continuous learning – a constant updating of knowledge and skills. An update might be something as simple as sitting through a web-based tutorial that provides an overview of what’s new with a product or technology. Such an “awareness” update is usually sufficient when the technology changes are relatively minor or when the person already has an extensive background on the technology.

The other end of the spectrum is when a technology is radically new, or at least new to the person who must work with it. This is when extensive training – maybe even instructor-led with a hands-on lab – is most helpful.

Many IT companies with certification programs – HP included – have formalized continuous learning or continuing education programs. HP’s program encourages HP Certified Professionals to keep their skills current through a mix of online and face-to-face learning opportunities. These ongoing updates can keep you highly regarded by both your employer and your customers.

A commitment to learning drives business success in India

Susan Underhill — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:31:00 GMT

Not long ago, I made my first trip to India. I wasn’t sure what to expect, given that India is in the throes of a rapid transformation from third world country to first world economic powerhouse. Now, having met scores of people in the Indian IT sector, I can see what is driving this country: the people have a strong commitment to learning that translates into business success.

My reason for traveling to India was to support a series of HP partner and customer events. HP hosted various sessions for sales and technical professionals who work in emerging business markets like Mumbai and Delhi.

I was stunned at the turnout, as well as the seriousness of the attendees.

Now, I’ve attended training events like these all over the world, and I’ve never seen a group of people who seem to covet the learning opportunities as these people did. It was like a feeding frenzy! There was just so much enthusiasm and such a high level of interest in learning about HP technology solutions and in becoming certified professionals.

Why? Well, the attendees told me that training and certification puts their careers in high gear. The partners said this is one of the best ways to prepare to meet customers’ growing IT requirements, and to differentiate their businesses from other providers of IT solutions. They said it raises their value to their customers.

As for the end customers, they sought the training to become more valuable to their own employers. We expected to reach a few dozen end users with our training events; instead we had more than 280 people attend!

For those people who still wonder how India has become such an economic powerhouse in the last decade or so, I point to the Indian people’s hunger for learning and the opportunity to get ahead, and especially to forge deeper into the intellectual property space. Not only do they recognize the value of learning, but they covet every opportunity for it.

What if we don’t train them, and they stay?

Susan Underhill — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:28:00 GMT

There’s a concern in the HP partner community about spending the time and money to provide training and possibly even certification opportunities to employees. I hear it all the time: “What if we spend thousands of dollars to train an employee, and he just leaves the company when he completes the training?”

It’s a legitimate concern today. The job market for skilled IT professionals is so tight that highly qualified people are getting significant pay increases to change jobs. VARs worry that the people they train today are the ones heading out the door tomorrow. Then, not only is the company out the skilled worker, it has no way to recoup the investment made in that person’s training/certification, which could be considerable.

Of course, the issue is not “what if we train them and they leave?” but “what if we don’t train them and they stay?”

There is a cost of lost opportunity. If your people don’t have the right knowledge and skills to deliver the solutions and services that are in demand today, your company won’t get the lucrative business contracts you hope to earn. Or even worse – your company might earn the business and fail to deliver what the customer expects. Either way, this isn’t a business model that can sustain your company (let alone help it grow).

What do you think? Has your company found value in training, or are you fearful of making the investment and risking employee departures?

Rent A Cert: Smart business model or unethical breach of trust?

Susan Underhill — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 14:46:00 GMT

There’s been a lively discussion taking place in the certification community about a new business called Rent A Cert. The premise of the business is simple. Rent A Cert finds individuals who hold legitimate high-value Cisco and Microsoft credentials and matches these people with VARs who need to have “x” number of certified professionals on staff in order to attain a specific level of partnership with Cisco or Microsoft.

But Rent A Cert isn’t your traditional employee recruiter. In most cases, the certified professionals don’t actually go to work for the VARs; they simply “rent out” their credential status so the VARs can claim to meet the authorization requirements for the partner program. (For most vendor partner programs, the higher the level of partnership, the better the discount for the VAR to buy products from the vendor. Higher discounts mean higher profits.)

As you can imagine, there are a lot of people who are plenty upset about this “business model” and the damage it does to the value of real certification and honest partnership. And worse, what about the customer who thinks they’re dealing with certified technically competent IT professionals?

Plenty of people think this business model just can’t work, mostly because of contractual statements in the Cisco and/or Microsoft partnership agreements that prohibit a certified person from “swearing allegiance” to two or more employers at the same time. Of course, many see the practice as unethical, whether or not the partnership agreements would permit the scenario of “renting” a certification.

On the other hand, a few people think that Rent A Cert just happened to productize something that allegedly has been taking place underground for years.

Needless to say, I’m very troubled by the concept of Rent A Cert. The net result is that a VAR claims to have expertise on staff when, in fact, it doesn’t. Who gets cheated? Certainly Cisco and Microsoft do, but more than anyone, the end customer suffers the repercussions. A customer selects a “Gold status” or “Silver status” value-added reseller to work with because he believes that VAR has the requisite knowledge and skills to deliver a desired outcome. Presenting rented credentials to attain the Gold or Silver status is the same as intentionally misrepresenting your qualifications to do a job.

Cushing Anderson, Program Vice President for IDC's Project-Based Services research, says that customers don't always have all the information they need to make good decisions. He writes:

“A partner's status or level is a shorthand indication of the vendor's assessment of the partner's quality. For customers to have a better view of the quality of a particular partner, they need to understand the satisfaction history for the vendor. If the customers are satisfied - the channel's certification status is less important. So regardless of the market impact of Rent A Cert, technology vendors should increasingly leverage customer satisfaction data when evaluating and selecting partners. It’s the only attestation that really matters to the customer.”

What’s your opinion? Do you think certified professionals should be allowed to “lend their name” to VARs to help them qualify for partner status? What do you think about a VAR that would use such a short-cut to attain or improve its partner status with a vendor? Does this matter at all to end customers, or is past performance/satisfaction the best measure of quality of a VAR, as Anderson suggests?

‘Training is for babies and puppies’

Susan Underhill — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:33:00 GMT

I hope this rather bold statement doesn’t offend anyone, particularly those who make a living in the training field. The statement in the following quote caught my attention in a recent article in the January 2006 issue of Chief Learning Officer magazine by James Mitnick, Senior Vice President of Turner Construction.

“TKN (Turner Knowledge Network) is not about training. Training is for babies and puppies. TKN is about performance, where learning, knowledge and collaboration intersect.”

Viewed in that context, the quote really made sense and resonated with my own thoughts on learning. Mitnick defines “training” narrowly, as the act of teaching someone (or something) how to do a specific task without needing to think much about it. Whether you are training a baby to use the potty or a puppy to sit and heel or head to the back door, you are teaching someone the steps to an activity that will eventually become second nature. The training is best done by repeating the task until the results are satisfactory and consistent.

In that sense, “training” is more for the person who spends his or her day asking “Would you like fries with that, Ma’am?” than for the person trying to optimize a complex virtual server environment. Teaching the IT employee this way won’t accomplish the task at hand. Today’s knowledge worker needs more than simply “training.” While training serves a purpose to provide some fundamentals skills, a culture of continuous learning must be developed.

I really like the way James Mitnick articulates the distinction between “training” and “learning”:

“Learning continues to evolve as technology allows us to push useful information and knowledge to our colleagues. Although instructor-led courses continue to be an important part of practicing and testing for understanding, it is impossible to provide just-in-time learning to all staff members at the right time of their careers with consistent quality. Retention of knowledge is very difficult, unless it can be practiced in the real world almost immediately.

“As we have all learned, the cost of instructor-led training is very expensive — our world has evolved to become a virtual place in space and time, where information and knowledge can be accessed anytime, from any computer or hand-held device, to support collaboration and professional development. In the future, it might not be possible to distinguish between formal and informal learning, between the classroom and Web-based courses, between relevant and irrelevant. It becomes the responsibility of those of us who have been entrusted to lead our organizations to make sure it is relevant and appropriate.

“When learning happens, people enjoy their work, are more productive, increase value to customers and are happier overall. If ‘training’ is for babies and puppies, then ‘learning’ is for those of us who understand the importance of codifying and sharing knowledge within our organization. Understanding the difference between training and learning is the first step to becoming a world-class learning organization.”

At HP, we aim to provide as many of those resource as we can. It’s our way of – as Mitnick describes it – codifying and sharing knowledge within our technical community. After all, our goal is to develop and grow a highly competent technical, sales and services community, not house-break a puppy.

Put on your cross-training shoes; it’s time to learn about the business

Susan Underhill — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:21:00 GMT

Has your company ever tried to move you into a job that was outside your comfort zone? You know, one that you didn’t feel fully qualified for because you didn’t have quite the right expertise or skills, but that you thought you might be able to handle with some training and help.

Smart companies do this with their employees; it gives workers a broader view of the business as well as wide-ranging personal knowledge and experience. Think of it as “cross training on steroids.” The learning goes way beyond taking a couple of business classes.

I know a guy named Brian who started his career as a computer programmer. After a few years, he moved into the role of programmer/analyst, and then systems analyst. While his responsibilities increased with each step, he still felt pretty comfortable because his role in each position was basically about developing enterprise applications for his Fortune 50 company. Each move was a logical, calculated step in his IT career ladder.

Then something unexpected happened. Brian’s company asked him to become an IT auditor. At first he didn’t like the idea. Instead of developing enterprise applications, he would be scrutinizing them, looking for weaknesses that would expose the company to unwanted risks. He hesitated, thinking he didn’t know enough about the business to do this job well. But his manager reassured him and insisted he take the job. ‘You’ll get training,’ the manager told Brian, ‘and senior auditors will mentor you.’ So he took the job and held it for several years.

A funny thing happened in that job that Brian didn’t expect: he learned much more about the inner workings of his company, and of the industry his company was in. He also had the opportunity to work side by side with many senior executives. These high level contacts and the critical business knowledge were something he’d probably never pick up by holding onto his systems analyst position. When he eventually returned to IT as a director of operations, he had the business knowledge that allowed him to be a more strategic thinker and to make much more insightful decisions. Simple put, he was much more valuable to his company.

I read one article after another where companies bemoan the fact that their IT employees don’t know enough about the business. Maybe it’s time for these companies to implement a program that provides hands-on cross-training. Such a program develops employees who are much better “broad picture” thinkers. It also helps develop promotable people who are the next generation of executive management.

If you’ve had the opportunity to cross-train in IT and business roles, I’d like to hear from you about your experience and how it has helped your company and your personal career.

Prevent cheating with hands-on testing: an impractical solution to a minor problem

Susan Underhill — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:03:00 GMT

It seems that cheating on certification exams is on the minds of a lot of people these days. Almost everywhere I go to read, someone is discussing exam cheating. Recently, Brian Summerfield, senior editor of Certification magazine (which is devoted to the IT industry) wrote an editorial about exam cheating. Summerfield suggests ways to reduce instances of cheating and boost the value of IT credentials.

While he certainly has good intentions with his ideas, I don’t think Summerfield has thought through the complexity and cost of his top suggestion:

Build in Performance-Based and Written Components. If a person has to demonstrate hands-on skills with or write a complex essay on a particular product or technology, this makes cheating much more problematic. It would be much more difficult to disseminate a step-by-step, comprehensive explanation on how to set up a server manually than to just post answers to a few questions. Plus, these testing methodologies generally carry more weight with employers, cheating or no cheating.

In a perfect world, performance-based testing would be the best way to verify that a person actually has the knowledge and skills to earn a credential. Believe me, we would love to be able to validate our Certified Professionals’ skills through hands-on testing and/or written essays. But…

A written component brings a whole new set of challenges. This approach now opens up the possibility of subjectivity in grading the exam. The exam is now only as strong as the person who is responsible for reading the written component and evaluating the results. There are two things we always try to strive for in a certification exam-- validity and reliability. The reliability component would now be very difficult to achieve because each candidate would be graded differently.

On a smaller scale, several years ago we even eliminated items that required a candidate to type in an answer because scoring became very difficult. An extra space or character could mark the item wrong when it was actually correct. There were so many variations of how an answer could be written that it became impossible to include all of the possibilities.

And because of the huge number of certification exams HP offers each year (tens of thousands), it is totally impractical if not outright impossible to check answers manually. Even if the written component were administered through Prometric testing centers, we would need to set up an entirely new way of receiving that information, grading it (which could mean several full time people with a breadth of expertise) and delivering it to the candidate. If test takers think exams are expensive now, imagine what the cost would be if we added this manual process!

As for adding a hands-on component to the tests, this is, for all intents and purposes, impossible. Today, many of our certification exams are conducted around the world in proctored testing centers operated by Prometric. It would be prohibitively expensive to add the sophisticated equipment and knowledgeable people necessary for hands-on testing at these facilities.

The simple fact of the matter is that cheating on certification exams is not so big of a problem that we need to go to such lengths to try to prevent it. As I mentioned in a previous post, we build measures into our tests to help us detect the possibility of cheating. When one of those measures sends up a red flag, we can investigate the situation. For now, that is the most practical way to attack the problem and preserve the integrity of our credentials.

Certification cheating in the military

Susan Underhill — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:28:00 GMT

I’ve written a few times about people cheating on certification exams in order to receive a credential or other benefit. Yes, this happens in the IT industry, but we certainly aren’t the only ones with a cheating problem. Have a look at this article in the Boston Globe, Army probes alleged exam cheating.

It appears that U.S. military personnel may have cheated on various types of exams in order to attain promotions or certify to operate high-tech weapons like Patriot missiles. Army soldiers are alleged to have visited “brain dump” websites to access the answers to exams. One of the sites is claiming that the test answers are merely study aids, “intended as a reference only.” (Where have we heard this before?)

It’s one thing when an IT employee cheats on a certification exam in order to get a job installing servers. It’s wrong, but it’s (usually) not life-threatening. It’s quite another thing when a soldier cheats to become certified to handle some of the world’s most sophisticated weaponry. Not only is this morally wrong; the results of having an under-qualified person in the role can be disastrous as well.

It makes you wonder – during those times when a missile strays off course and misses its target, is it a case of technology failure (i.e., a bad guidance system) or a human failure (i.e., the person was not qualified for the job of handling the weapon)?