CBC/RADIO-CANADA IS
training its IT staff with a new
simulation game that gives
users the opportunity to relate
IT infrastructure management (I TIL) processes within
a recreation of the infamous
Apollo 13 space mission.
Users are confronted with
mission events and situations
that correlate with computer
operations as well as incident,
problem and capacity management. The simulation is aimed
at improving the efficiency of IT
management.
“One of the biggest benefits of
it was the team building aspect,”
Fiona Soward, service manager
for technology and quality of
services at CBC/Radio-Canada,
said. “Sometimes, we had people
in different roles that they
wouldn’t normally play within
the organization. We would
have senior management at a
potentially lower position, so
it’s interesting to see how they
perceive the work being done at
that level.”
The simulation, offered
by Montreal-based Nexio
Technologies, is a mix of screen
projections which takes users
through the different stages of
the game, as well as direction
from an instructor who drives
the problems that occur during is explained in relation to the
the flight. processes that are encountered
“The users will play the role during the simulation.
of mission control,” Stephen “I could inject incidents like
Goulet, vice-president of a communication loss, so the
research and development at shuttle can’t talk to mission con-Nexio Technologies, said. “They trol anymore,” Goulet said. “So,
will go through different inci- if they don’t react and change
dents that will cause problems. their priorities in this emergency
they would
lose points
and that
would affect
their scores.”
In addition,
Goulet said,
if a company
wants to test
a particular
staff mem-
Nexio’s game mixes screen projections with an instructor’s help ber’s ability
to lead, the
simulation can be changed to
meet that request. “We can also
positionthesimulationatdif-
ferent stages of an ITIL project,
along with different situations
and a different way of present-
ing them,” Goulet said.
For CBC/Radio Canada,
the simulator gave its staff the
chance to sharpen IT manage-
ment skills outside the trad-
itional classroom environment.
Soward estimated that about
90 CBC/Radio Canada employees have already trained with
the program. 070533
They need to manage costs and
make decisions in order to meet
my expectations as mission
director.”
At the start of the game,
teams receive a scorecard
which represents their service
level agreement with NASA.
Following the various game
stages, the teams will report on
their compliance. Game stages
include building and launching
the space shuttle, dealing with
the disaster, making the journey home and landing. Before
each phase a set of ITIL theory
Taleo looks past recruiting
By Jeff Jedras
SAN FRANCISCO — TALEO CORP.
used its Taleo World 2007 user
conference to announce its move into
the performance management space.
The human resources software
vendor said it’s a necessary step to
helping companies not only recruit,
but retain, top quality employees.
Based in San Francisco with a
substantial research and development
presence in Quebec, Taleo’s flagship
software is a hosted e-recruiting application to help companies manage the
recruitment and hiring process. Building on that success, Taleo announced
the development of a performance
management solution, Taleo Performance, with limited release in October
and general availability slated for Q1
of 2008.
Michael Gregoire, Taleo’s president
and CEO, said managing an employee’s performance and career once
they’re with the company has become
as important as the hiring process
itself, and the war for talent has made
employee retention critical.
“We’re going to have to depend on
our own intellect and our own innovation to bring people into our company.
The populations of India and China
will help but they’re not going to solve
the talent shortage problems we have
right here, right now,” he said.
The suite includes tools for
tracking and measuring employee
performance, goals management,
career management and succession
planning. Career management shows
employees the future positions available to them, while goals manage-
ment shows them what they need
to achieve to get there and how far
along they are. The suite has been
developed with usability in mind,
drawing inspiration from consumer
sites like E-Bay and i Tunes. Integration with Microsoft Outlook has
been developed for ease of use, and
connectors to social networking sites
like LinkedIn and FaceBook have also
been developed.
Jim Holincheck, a vice-president
with analyst firm Gartner, said
performance management is a large,
growing market and Taleo Performance serves well to “close the loop”
with Taleo’s core e-recruiting applications. He cautions, though, that Taleo
is moving into a crowded area.
“I think they’ve done some unique
things in terms of usability and
integration with recruiting” said
Holincheck.
Vice-president, Evron Computer
Systems Corp., Markham, Ont.
Since 2004 (previously in network
manager and customer engineer
roles since 1994)
“My focus is helping SMBs from
the IT side where they can have
reliableinformationfortheirbusiness , soit”s
an outsourced CIO-type model. Typically my engagement would be
at the c-level person in the organization. I would understand their
business and provide them the IT roadmap where we can help. Most of
these organizations cannot afford a CIO or IT manager for this job and
that’s where we come in. Fourteen years back, I was more a hands-on
technician… helping clients with their Novell networks. However, the
services they were getting from those networks were limited. Over
the years, we’re finding the growth in the application and information
technology is allowing smaller businesses to leverage more out of
IT. That evolved where we were finding more things where they could
have easy collaboration: portals, security, firewall, better productivity.
Those things were available but with the advent of Novell and Microsoft
PC networks, they are slowly becoming available to the SMB market. It
has been a learning experience for myself. From a technician, where I
was more hands-on technology expert, now I’m able to understand [the
business] lingo and understand what we can do from IT to bridge the
gap. The original role for me was a customer engineer, the equivalent
would be a standard network/systems engineer fixing Novell or
Microsoft networks, taking care of firewalls, WANs. From there, my
first jump was manager of the technical services group, as network
manager. It made sense because I was more service-oriented. We were
selling a lot of hardware and setting up PCs and servers. And slowly,
service became more important. I’ve been focused more on the service
side of the business and I think that was the right choice.”
Network technician, Ace Computer Systems,
Toronto, Ont. 1992–1994
“They are an IBM business partner dealing with the retail side of
business. I set up PCs at client sites. That was my first job in a new
country, it was the time I came to Canada. What I liked was the
exposure because the location was downtown, I was able to see and
meet various people and see what they were doing. When I left I was
managing the sales team and the technicians. The uniqueness to me
was how businesses run, which was different . . . than what happens
in India. Partly because of the cost of labour, the processes are more
efficient.”
Computer engineer, Computer Maintenance Corporation
(formerly IBM), India 1985–1992
“That was my first job right out of university. [I took the job because]
they still had the clout and management styles of IBM. The good thing
I learned from them was the IBM philosophy of customer service
and training. Knowledge was a big deal. During the first year, I was a
computer engineer training for one year. For that year, you go through
rigorous training for which they pay you. Now those things are almost
obsolete now, nobody does that. I did my engineering degree where
my specialization was digital electronics. But even after university,
the training that these guys gave was excellent and quite wholesome
because we went through presentation and oral skills.”
CAREER OBJECTIVE
“My hope is to start building our practice where we are offering
SMBs complete outsourced IT, not just break-and-fix but more on the
business side, the knowledge, where we can really sit down with the
owners and draw a map with the growth plans they have and facilitate
that. It’s the area I would like to grow further in my career.”
