Basic management knowhow an urgent need for IT industry

IT industry support group, the Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology (CEDF-IT) is set to kick off its management workshop series for this year.

CEDF-IT will conduct its 5th "Basic Project Management Workshop" on January 31 to February 1,2 and 3 (2007), as part of its identified training initiatives, to be held at CEDF-IT Training room, in AsiaTown IT Park.

The CEDF-IT consortium believes that most basic management know-how among IT stakeholders is the most urgently required by the industry.

Upcoming workshops to be held in the next few months include Advanced Network Administration and Management Course, and the Systems Administration & Design Seminar.

The main facilitator for the Project Management Workshop will be Randy Balaoro, Business Development Director of the Project Management Institute-Philippine Chapter, to be assisted by Cebu-Based IT Project Managers.

According to CEDF-IT, the main objective of this workshop is to equip the participants with the basic Project Management knowledge and skills that may be applied to their current projects in the ICT and IT-Enabled Services Industry.

This workshop is for Project Managers and for anyone who has worked in a project or is planning to be involved in a project. It provides an essential knowledge in a project management fundamentals, methodologies and best practices.

Balaoro will present the five stages of project management process that arecommon to any industry, whether it is architecture, construction, engineering, manufacturing, software development or product development.

The knowledge gained in this course will be added to the formal educational requirements of Project Managers who are interested to apply for the examination leading to Project Management Professional (PMI) certification.

Cedf-it is a group composed of government and private institution players whose primary aim is develop the IT human resource in Cebu.

It is well represented by universities and colleges, which are involved into offering IT related courses, like University of Cebu (UC), University of Southern Philippines (USP), among other private sector members

In 2005, CEDF-IT introduced the certification examinations for specified software programs.

Professional certification examinations for CADD and Visual Basic programmers were started introduced by CEDF-IT, including the Basic Project Management Certification

The setting up of competency standards and corresponding assessment instruments in basic project management is part of Cedf-it's Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Philippine Computer Society, Project Management Institute-Philippine Chapter and the Technical Education Skills and Development Authority (TESDA) signed last January 21, 2005.

The Professional Certification Project is a joint undertaking of Cedf-it with TESDA and the Software Productivity Center (SPC) of Canada in establishing professional certification standards and assessment instruments initially in Java, C++, Visual Basic, CADD, Networking and Basic (Software) Project Management.

Funded by the Canadian International Development Authority (CIDA) through Pearl 2, this project is a result of Cedf-it industry partners' clamor for a set of competency standards and assessment instruments that will assess the skills of IT graduates and professionals.