What can you Expect?

I was playing around with a UNIX command line tool called Expect.  It is used for handling interactive sessions, which can occasionally come in handy for using some telnet like applications.

For myself, I'm lazy, and hate to memorize all these different configurations and such, so I created this:

#!/usr/bin/expect

set USER "hsolo"
set SRVR "falcon.server.net"
set PSWD "secret"

spawn ssh $USER@$SRVR
expect "Password: "
send "$PSWD
"
interact

Project Mgmnt Knowledge (IT Bus Skills)

For detailed specifics into the field, PMI documents their standard in a book called PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge).  You can purchase the book or become a member, which will give you a free e-book (encrypted PDF).  The version I acquired from membership is 4th edition.

In here, it states that a project is defined as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.  Project management is defined as the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements. 

They have 5 knowledge areas:

• Project Integration Management,  
• Project Scope Management,  
• Project Time Management, 
• Project Cost Management, 
• Project Quality Management,  
• Project Human Resource Management,  
• Project Communications Management,  
• Project Risk Management, and 
• Project Procurement Management.

Project Mgmnt Certification (IT Bus Skills)

A great area to enhance existing skills in IT is in the area of project management. The most widely accepted industry standard regarding project management is PMI (Project Management Institute).  They offer certification in this area: CAPM (Certified Associate in Project Management) for passing the exam or when combined with 5 years project management experience, PMP (Project Management Professional).  Each of these requires some training from accredited courses.

The requirements for each certification is different if you can make out the graphic on the side here.  I would recommend that anyone interesting in exploring getting credentials look into how to represent or show project management experience their prior, current, and future jobs.

Project Mgmnt Training (IT Bus Skills)

One can get training at an accredited private training schools or through many university extension courses, such as CEL (College of Learning) at SFSU: http://www.cel.sfsu.edu/project/.

For a more general course, San Francisco State, under their Information Systems program, offers ISYS 663 IT Project Management: http://www.sfsu.edu/~bulletin/courses/30449.htm. The good thing about this course is that there's some additional information, such as implementation details, training in Microsoft Project, and some analytical exposure for cost analysis, such as NPV or ROI.  The downside to this course is that they require a large quantity of pre-requisites.  It is not unusual to see a group of students attending this course through Open University as guest students.