Resource Library

Change managers and project managers come at the same goal of maximizing ROI for their organizations, but from different perspectives and approaches and with different skill sets. While project managers are responsible for achieving specific objectives on time and on budget, the change manager's role is broader. Change managers apply a structured approach to helping individuals, teams and organizations negotiate relentless change. A project manager turns ideas into reality. Increasingly, project managers are required to take on the role of change manager as well. Business today can't afford to carry out tasks without considering the larger picture. Today, integration is unavoidable - and expected. In this hour-long interactive session, we'll discuss the similarities and differences between project management and change management. We'll also identify the occasions when both a project manager and a change manager might be needed.

Nowadays, you can read weekly articles about security attacks and stolen data. Even leading companies and organizations are victims of cybercrime. Attacks can include breaches at three levels: the physical level, which includes social engineering, system and network and applications (e.g., web and mobile). In this complimentary webinar, you will discover the benefits of using automated solutions to detect application vulnerabilities, provide steps to remediate them and avoid costly compliance violation.

In this blog series, we'll get you up to speed on using the key tools listed in the PMBOK® Guide, including Decision Tree Diagrams.

In this blog series, we'll get you up to speed on using the key tools listed in the PMBOK® Guide. First up, Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).

Complexity has always been a part of projects. But today, globalization, new technologies and changing markets have combined to add to the complexity. Today's projects have more stakeholders, more ambiguity and more politics than ever, and project managers need new tools and approaches to succeed. Join Alexander Stanisic and Michelle Moore of Global Knowledge for an information-packed hour on how to manage the complexity of the 21st-century project.

In many organizations, the Program/Project Management Office (PMO) is viewed as purely a cost center, so it becomes marginalized by additional layers of bureaucracy, oversight and cost. But the essence of the PMO and portfolio management in general is to add value to the organization. So how do organizations reconcile the cost of the PMO versus the value it adds? The short answer is to flip the conversation on its head and talk about the PMO as a revenue driver rather than a cost center. In this hour-long webinar, Global Knowledge PMP-certified senior product manager Daniel Stober will explain how, by focusing on efficiencies gained and reduced waste, you can shift the conversation from the PMO being a necessary evil to the PMO being critical for organizational success.

Young adults unable to find work, employers unable to fill jobs, a recent GAO study that reported substantial declines in telecommunication expertise — there has been a lot of news about the pervasiveness of skills gaps, their causes, the actual impacts and what to do about them. It’s rather confusing, because the term “skills gaps” has been hijacked to politicize an extremely wide range of issues.

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) planning is the process of developing the plans, processes and procedures to respond to the range of incidents. We start with understanding the essential functions of an organization, called Business Impact Analysis (BIA). In life, we set the same priorities: protection of family and friends, shelter, food and water and other life-giving essentials.

One of the main weapons of organized crime on the Internet is the use of junk email, also called spam. Hackers use spam for a number of purposes such as selling counterfeit products (medicines, particularly) to steal your personal or financial information, or to infect your computer with spyware and malware. This malicious software can then hijack your computer and your Internet connection to help propagate itself.

Pen testers beware. Whether you believe you know and understand all the potential legal issues, read on. First of all, a penetration test or “pen test” is a method that’s used to evaluate the security and/or vulnerabilities in a network. This test is normally conducted externally wherein the tester is attempting to hack a network or computer. Breaking into computers and networks is illegal under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), and depending on your activities and other factors, other federal laws and state laws may be broken.

The bad guys just keep getting better! No matter how much patching and tweaking we do, the bad guys' constantly changing tactics and techniques continue harming our networks, stealing and damaging data, and just generally screw things up. What motivates someone to do such terrible things in the first place? How have these hackers changed and improved? What kinds of attacks are popular now and why? In this hour-long webinar, security expert, former hacker and Global Knowledge instructor Phillip D. Shade will provide insight into understanding the latest hacking techniques, what the current threat landscape looks like, and suggested countermeasures to mitigate threats. He will include specific examples of the current threat landscape, including data mining, social engineering cyber threat terminology, man-in-the- middle attacks and Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.

In this series, we are looking at six things that can trip up project managers. We’ve covered the hazards of overcommitting, how to provide feedback, the importance of taking responsibility, staying focused, and what leading from the front can actually look like. Finally, we’ll take a look at handling team input.

In this hour-long webinar, Global Knowledge instructor and PMP-certified project management expert Daniel Stober will look beyond the triple constraint model and focus on the true essence of project success: stakeholder satisfaction. Many project managers (PMs) fall into the familiar habit of managing based on the constraints of time, cost and scope. While all of these are important, managing them effectively doesn't guarantee project success if the PM fails to conduct proper stakeholder management. To manage stakeholders effectively, the PM has to set expectations. Once expectations are set, the PM must influence the perception of project performance with the stakeholder. Tune in as Dan explores methods you can use to accomplish that goal.

Have you ever Googled yourself to see how much of your personal information is online? In many cases it can be pretty scary and include things like your home address, phone number, likes, dislikes, etc. One young man searched for himself and found all of his banking information online. In that case it turned out to be a mistake by a bank employee, exposing the banking information of 86,000 customers.

This power session is an introduction to Managing Stakeholder relations. It offers new ways of managing and dealing with projects, which focus more on communications, understanding stakeholders' needs and managing their expectations, as well as learning about organizational politics and culture, and performing value-add activities. It provides a practical approach to managing issues that matter most for project success - communication, stakeholder expectations, risk, change and quality; so that the scope, schedule and cost end up on target, achieving the desired outcomes for the organization.

With Forrester Research declaring "Waterfall processes have become obstacles to speed, quality and predictability," and more than 85% of CIO's surveyed by CIO Magazine using or planning to pursue Agile practices in 2014, this one-hour webinar will explore the basics of Agile and why so many organizations are adopting Agile methods.

The project manager (PM) and business analyst (BA) have to be key allies in the management of any project. That can be difficult when project work is duplicated because of the overlapping tasks defined by the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA®) and the Project Management Institute (PMI®). Still, as long as roles are clearly defined and understood, the two can cooperate and collaborate, instead of competing. In this hour-long webinar, Global Knowledge instructor and PMP-certified project management expert Daniel Stober will explain how to delineate the roles.

Cloud computing enables development teams to get applications into production faster. IT Service Management (ITSM) leaders must adopt new strategies and change existing processes or risk becoming a barrier to success. Cloud computing requires DevOps-the blending of development and operations with the goal of accelerating time-to-market and reducing time-to-value. The good news is that ITIL® is uniquely positioned to accelerate DevOps, but it requires changes to existing ITSM processes.

As an IT professional you deal day in and day out with securing operating systems, patching software, installing and configuring firewall and routers But what about the physical infrastructure? Do you understand how simple techniques can allow theft of your company resources? In this session we will discuss how to reduce the possibility of loss of data and equipment. Physical security may not be part of your job but you should be aware and having discussions with the personnel who are responsible. Or does Physical Security become one of your job responsibilities? Come to this session and learn about one of the most important and yet least thought about areas of security by IT professionals.

Whether you're a Project Manager or a Business Analyst, you can certainly relate to a situation where you've felt like your cohort on a project was from a completely different planet! This panel discussion webinar between our PM expert, Ori Schibi, and our BA expert, Cheryl Lee, will explore some of the misconceptions that each role has and learn how to play nicely with each other in the project world.

Join Microsoft SQL Server expert Brian Egler for an hour-long webinar covering the key features and updates in the upcoming release of Microsoft SQL Server 2014! You will get a thorough review, along with demonstrations, of how SQL Server 2014 provides substantial improvements in performance, manageability, and availability that will make your job easier.

Does your company have a risk management program? In this hour-long webinar, cybersecurity expert and Global Knowledge instructor David Willson will explain why you should. In light of recent breaches at Target, Nieman Marcus, Michaels, Yahoo, and a growing list of others, we're learning that FBI Director Mueller was right when he said getting breached is not a matter of if, but when. While having a risk management program may not prevent a breach, it can certainly lower the risk of one, ensure compliance, and reduce or even eliminate your liability if a breach does occur, enabling you to recover quickly and to protect your reputation. Beyond explaining the importance of a risk management program, David will tell you how to implement one, including conducting a basic risk assessment, policies you'll need, and training your workforce.

Communication is vital within projects and contributes significantly to project success. PMs and BAs have important—and different—roles. Let's take a look.

According to Cisco marketing, Dynamic Multipoint VPN (DMVPN) “will lower capital and operation expenses, simplifies branch communications, reduces deployment complexity, and improves business resiliency.” Okay. But what is it, really, and why should we care?

Today, every project comes with limited resources and an impossible timeline. You have to prioritize, but how do you determine what's most important? The answer is to do more than just prioritize. You have to fully understand your company's strategic direction and make every action align with that strategy. In this hour-long webinar, project management expert Yvan Bastien will show you how to reach that full understanding and make the kinds of informed decisions that lead to success.

Your Microsoft SQL Server database often contains the most valuable information in your organization. Get tips for securing it properly and effectively in this free, information-packed webinar with Microsoft SQL Server expert Gidget Pryor. In just an hour, Gidget will demonstrate the layered security approach used by SQL Server. She will step you through the process and best practices of setting up logins, users, roles, schemas, and permissions, and she will review the security model changes that have taken place from SQL Server 2005 through SQL Server 2012. She will also review SQL Server 2012 training and certifications.

Agile is a set of principles requiring a significant cultural shift, new paradigms in thinking and team organization. Over the years, Agile has become "productized" or in many cases "institutionalized", creating different flavours and levels of commitment among teams and organizations. Along the way, managers and team members have lost sight of Agile's principles and tried to enforce the use of certain tools and structure where they may not belong. In this one hour webinar, Perry McLeod will explain how tools such as use cases can be successful in an agile environment, provided the principles of agile are always active in the minds of the managers and the team members that are using them. Join Perry to determine whether or not making the cultural shift towards the use case method in an agile environment is the right move for you and your organization.

You have spent money on software and hardware, implemented best practices, and believe you are secure, right? You may have overlooked the weakest link: your employee. Many breaches occur as a result of an employee mistakenly clicking on a link or visiting a site that allows a virus to be unknowingly downloaded, giving hackers access to your network. Today, a well-trained workforce is a necessity and may even be your most important cybersecurity tool. In this webinar, security expert David Willson will discuss how many breaches have occurred and are occurring, the tools and techniques hackers use to trick employees into clicking on links or opening attachments, and how to prevent such behavior.

Now that we have looked at the similarities and differences between the first two steps of the military decision-making process (MDMP) and the project management processes from the planning process group that align with them, it’s time to take a look at the third ste...

Constant change in the technology landscape has been mirrored by the steady evolution of information security. The current information system environment is increasingly complex, comprising storage, servers, LANs/WANs, workstations, Unified Communications, Intranet, and Internet connections.

Dell SonicWALL's CSSA (Certified SonicWALL Security Administrator) exam is an open book, online certification exam that certifies a student’s understanding of the SonicOS Unified Threat Management (UTM) operating system. The exam tests a student’s network security knowledge, and their ability to use the GUI menu structure for configuration of standard network security scenarios.

For a project manager (PM) who has served as a military officer on a battalion or higher staff, the parallels between the military decision-making process (MDMP), the orders production process, and project management doctrine prescribed by the Project Management Institute (PMI) are difficult to ignore. Both the MDMP and the processes outlined in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge—Fifth Edition (PMBOK® Guide) are iterative in nature, allow for the introduction of changes to the original plan, assign tasks and responsibilities, and involve the concept of managing the scope of the operation or project.

While the last few years have brought about many great advances in IT and network technology security and risk management have a critical point. There is a host of new concerns the IT security manager must be concerned with, including social networking, mobile, cloud, and information sharing. This has unleashed a new wave of change and potential risk. Risk management is required to deal with these emerging technologies and should provide the rationale for all information security activities within the organization. You can think of risk management as the process of ensuring that the impact of threats and exploited vulnerabilities is within acceptable limits at an acceptable cost. Risk management requires the use of countermeasures. Countermeasures can include any process that serves to reduce threats or vulnerabilities.

As mentioned earlier, one of the most useful pieces of guidance that ITIL provides relates to the categorization of suppliers. ITIL describes four categories of suppliers:

Enterprises, whether they are commercial, non-profit, or government entities, are operational organizations that operate through the execution of hundreds of processes. The quality of these processes affects every aspect of the enterprise and these processes are rarely static. Business Process Analysis (BPA) is the discipline of examining processes so that they may be changed to align with enterprise objectives.

Risk is something we deal with on a daily basis. Living in New Jersey and having the occasional storm, I’ve recently performed my own risk assessment determining the value of certain assets and activities and made a decision on what I was willing to spend to reduce risk to what I perceived as an acceptable level. My management of risk was a rather simple case. Sure, in my revised business continuity plan for my home, I’ll make sure that I have more D cell batteries, have my garage door adjusted so it opens manually again, more food I can heat on a stove and that doesn’t rely on refrigeration, and finally I’ll consider a whole house gas generator that uses natural gas, which has always been available to power critical systems like the sump pump in my basement. What if, however, I was a really large business? One with lots of components and interdependencies that require a tight integration in order to succeed? How and where can a large volume of information necessary to management, business continuity, and disaster recovery be correlated and communicated to those individuals who, because of their roles and responsibilities, need to make the critical decisions regarding the management of risk?

In a recent post, I gave an overall description of a service portfolio and the key components of a portfolio. Here, I will describe how a cloud services provider might implement an ITIL service portfolio. A cloud services provider will regularly have a set of services under development, a set of service in live operation, and a set of services that are retired.

ITIL describes a service portfolio as a collection of the overall set of services managed by a service provider. A service portfolio describes a service provider’s boundaries and promises across all of the customers and market spaces it serves. I like to think of a service portfolio as describing the past, present, and future collection of services offered by a service provider. The figure below shows a high-level view of a service portfolio.

We already covered the first three of the twelve advantages of Agile software development. These three advantages focus on team development and refining the process. Advantage #4: Motivated Development Team The positive relationship with a reasonable and satisfied customer is only one of the reasons why many developers prefer to work on Agile projects. The other main contributor is that they tend to value working in self directed teams (which the Agile methods require for success).

There is a reason why the Agile methods are becoming mainstream. They can work! Although every Agile practice is not necessarily appropriate for every organization, each practice has delivered real value to many organizations, and some Agile practices can be used by anyone! This four part series explores twelve ways in which the Agile methods are valuable. I’ll bet that you will find more than a few that could be valuable for you!