Completed my CISSP. Now, on to Agile and TOGAF

Well, I passed my CISSP. I need to thank Rei Takeda for getting me motivated to complete my CISSP. She posted on LinkedIn that she had passed CISSP and I was determined to finally knock this thing out. So, I started studying all over again. I have made a couple of attempts to study for CISSP and when I was on the home stretch, life happened. Something interrupted my execution of study and passing the test. While in Djibouti in 2012, I actually made it through the CISSP and CAP Prep Guide by Ronald Kurtz and Russell Dean Vines. It was very thorough and good background that served me well in my career. Robert Similla in Djibouti provided me with Shon Harris training video. I think I made it though the whole video series, but there was no testing facility in Djibouti. That was 2 years ago. I never took the test.

My program this time started by reading the Shon Harris sixth edition CISSP Study Guide. I watched the Cybrary IT videos. I then started working through lots of practice questions. ISC2 had sample questions (150) that a colleague gave me. The practice tests are no longer on the site. I read the outline from ISC2 and did the flash cards 3x on ISC2 site. The two texts had questions, (Shon Harris CISSP Study Guide and Ronald Kurtz CISSP and CAP Prep Guide). The Shon Harris book had a DVD with 350 questions. They had a link to a website for more questions and it does not have questions anymore. I watched YouTube videos and Exam collection.com had practice questions. The effort started in late July, so 3 months effort in total. I passed, but no score was given. The test was long. I arrived 30 minutes late (I went to the wrong building) and started at 8:30AM. I completed the exam at 2PM.

So, the next priority is to complete my 60 PDUs for my PMP cycle. I recently attended an Agile training for two days, so I have a little over 20 hours left. I will spend the weekend studying to complete the PDUs. I am figuring I have a start on Agile and it appears to be hot area, I might pursue the PMP Agile Practitioner certification. The study effort will also count for my PMP PDUs. I am also looking at the The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF). I am desperately trying to find the certifications that will increase my market value. Also, I wonder if I should leverage my studying for CISSP and take COMPTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP) and update my Security Plus. The certifications are a never ending treadmill. To be honest, I do not see much return on my investment. I do it with the hope that it may help my career. So far, I appear to end up a nickel short.

SharePoint Saturday in Atlanta

This past weekend, I volunteered to check-in attendees at the Atlanta SharePoint Conference.  I volunteered earlier this month to help with the SQL Server Saturday also at the same location, Georgia State University at the Alpharetta campus.  Last year, I volunteered as well and I am a regular attendee at the SharePoint User Group (the third Monday of the month) every month the past two years.  It was much better this year than last year, which was held downtown at the main GSU campus.  It was easy to park, and there were no roads blocked for road races.  IT was so much easier.  There were over 300 attendees this year.

I missed the headline presentation in the morning, checking in attendees.  This year’s featured speaker was Andrew Connell.  I was fortunate to hear his other presentation just before lunch.  I will probably never use what he presented, but it was worthwhile seeing a SharePoint guru present.

I watched Cathy Dew do a presentation on branding.  I am glad to say that I knew everything she presented.  I have been doing SharePoint a while and sometimes we need confirmation our approaches are still relevant and valid.  It was a mid-level presentation.  She mentioned that when designing SharePoint designs, you need to cover everything in your office with bubble-wrap.  If you are going to make sites Section 508 compliant, you will need even more bubble wrap.  She mentioned that SharePoint Designer is going away.  There is no plan for SharePoint Designer in SharePoint 2016.  It reminds me of the fiasco of InfoPath.  She also mentioned that Microsoft is steering away from using SharePoint for your Internet sites.  Designing for the cloud means that you will be restricted on what customizations are permitted.  Microsoft may implement changes that require designers to update their designs to accommodate.

I had a difficult time choosing between watching the second part of Laura Rogers workflow or Paul Wood’s presentation on Meta-Data navigation.  I have read Laura’s books and watched her You Tube presentations for Rackspace.  Paul has been a regular attendee at the SharePoint User Group, so I supported the local hero.  Sorry, Laura!  Paul did a very strong presentation on meta-data navigation and it reinforced what I have knew already.  Maybe I should start doing presentations at SharePoint Saturday.

The last presentation was local SharePoint legend Doug Ware.  He created a tool to migrate applications.  He recreated the Fab 40 applications in earlier SharePoint versions for transformation into App Model and other SharePoint 2013 development patterns.  I hated the Fab 40!  It was always half baked ideas that never quite worked.  They used the “get out of jail free card” that it was only a starting point for developing your SharePoint application.  They were always short of even the most basic requirements and buggy too!  Well, Doug showed the internals.  My opinion from the presentation was that Microsoft was just lazy not to support the migration of Fab 40 templates.  My belief that they were crap were confirmed.  Looking at the web parts – there were multiple closed web parts in the Fab 40.  It looked like each one was created by a completely different team, no consistency or re-use.  A great example of the worst kind of development.  While I may be no super programmer, I could of myself developed over 6 months a group of 40 site templates that are far better.  In fact, I have.  And, I only use out-of-the-box functionality!

It was a worthwhile day.  A met several Site Collections Administrators (SCAs) that attended from the CDC.  I went to SharePint at 5 Seasons Brewery, but ducked out shortly after arriving so I could get my 8 mile walk in before it got too late.  There were 8 MVPs in attendance.  Great work Dan Attis and Ron for the commitment to Atlanta SharePoint User Group.

Musings on KMO and Collaboration

I have read several books on SharePoint Governance.  All books seem to emphasize that the direction of SharePoint in an organization should be driven by business needs and solving business problems and not directed by the technology teams that think this is a cool technology and the technology teams know and can determine what functionality should be provided.  The technology folks know best.  I try to tell people that I am a Knowledge Management (KM) or collaboration expert.  The organizations I work for have chosen SharePoint as their technology tool.  Knowledge Management was hot a few years back and there were articles proclaiming the Chief Knowledge Management Officer (CKO or CKMO) as a C-level executive.  I have not seen that term for a few years.  Maybe that is good.

I worked in DoD organizations and they really grabbed onto the idea of KMO.  I read articles about the KMO moved out of 6 shop (C6, J6, S6, G6 (Communications and Information Technology)) into the Chief of Staff CoS.  This would move it out of a network and communications emphasis and into strategic support of the organization.  Dissemination of information quickly as part of information centric warfare, something the United States was far better at than other military organizations.  I worked for an organization that moved it into the 3 shop – Operations.  The fighters are in the Operations and if they win, the organization and the country wins.  Everyone supports Operations.  Logistics – an army has to get there and then be supplied with food, but they provide support to Operations.  Operations are king.  Intelligence lets decision-makers know what to do, but it is all in support in Operations.  So, if KM supports Operations, you support the whole organization.  It actually worked pretty well.  But maybe we are wrong.  Maybe it should be part of the 6 shop and the 6 shop should focus on providing high level services to the organization you work for.  Maybe we have hired business analysts that are the bridge between the technology and business, only to realize the business analyst know neither.  Maybe we are fixing the symptom instead of the real problems.  Again, maybe it should not be a C-level executive, but sit comfortably in the portfolio of the CIO.