This course examines and creates dialogue about the specific leadership style that is most productive to lead, manage, and inspire IT professionals. The leadership style taught is one that values and awards collaboration and teamwork as equally as it recognizes the high level of education and competency of this specialized staff member. Team building activities are weaved into the curriculum as are video and case studies to support content that teaches and affirms social skills and appropriate workplace social behavior that helps to decrease destructive workplace competition and workplace isolation which undermine productivity and morale. All staff is taught leadership skills and a discussion of burnout and health is made practical. Participants receive an opportunity to practice their skills, and emphasis is paid to the importance of work product documentation and knowledge sharing.

This course supports the ISD IT Professional in writing a variety of high quality workplace documents. The objective is to teach and support the IT department to begin to achieve consistency in quality, design, and “look and feel” of documents. This two-day course teaches the writer to assess the specific needs of the reader. From writing a document for internal consumption to a document for senior management outside of IT, the learner is given the much needed opportunity to move from document to document with ease and with samples to emulate. Learners receive structured feedback on their writing as well as a checklist to assess their competency. The drastic need to document IT work product is underscored as is the professional ethics behind doing this well.

Time efficiency is the focus of this course. This high-impact course details how IT professionals can carve out productive time in a work environment that is high paced and often crisis driven. This course teaches how to find more time by implementing time management strategies that are specific to their work environment.  The following is a partial list of skill topics that are taught in this course: how to properly draft, read, respond, and archive email; how to handle interruptions that are not productive; how to stay on task when the work environment is in crisis mode; how to manage time and find larger blocks of work time to complete larger work product and projects; how to compartmentalize tasks and not spend time on non-productive work; how to properly delegate; how to communicate effectively with the field, when appropriate (written and verbal); how to not simply waste time; and how to shift priorities and return to earlier unfinished work.  Great course for IT folks.