DCA
development programmes, however
most call on external training
companies to assist them. These
specialist training firms, especially
those who have chosen to specifically
focus on supporting the data centre
sector provide an extensive portfolio
of training courses and materials.
The DCA’s website is used by these
training firms to promote the courses
on offer by its members and data
centre operators are encouraged
to access this facility to see which
courses would best fit the personal
development plans of their staff.
Providing development training for
new and existing staff should never be
considered an option but a necessity as
it helps to not only ensure employees
feel valued but also helps businesses to
reduce the risk of mistakes and failures.
If you study the statistics you can have
the most resilient facility on the planet
but that does not mean you are fault
proof, just fault tolerant, problems will
always occur and when (not if) they
do human error can nearly always be
attributed as a major contributing
factor.
I recently was introduced to a new
evaluation tool at DCW16 which was
originally developed by Cognisco and
is already widely used in the Aviation,
Transport and Medical professions
with great results. My understanding
is the tool provides organisations
working within these high risk
industries the ability to identify, build
and monitor individuals and teams of
employees whose tasks are deemed to
be mission critical to the business.
From a data centre prospective this
would appear to be exactly what
is needed as it first evaluates the
individual’s competency by asking
key questions which should be known
given ones position in the team
and then challenges the individual
to confirm how confident they are
with the given task. When it comes
to reducing risk thinking you know
the answer to a situation is only any
good if you have enough confidence
to act upon it when it counts most
and it’s this part that really captured
my imagination.
www.intelligentcio.com
ABOUT
Steve Hone is the co-founder of
Data Centre Alliance and sits on the
management team as Operations
Director. Having been in the IT Industry
since the heady days of the ‘.com boom’
and has been lucky enough to work
for and with some great people and
organisations on critical IT projects
over the years.
In 2007 he co-founded Colofinder.
co.uk, an independent data centre
search and selection consultancy
providing specialist advice and
guidance on the colocation market
globally. Prior to getting into IT and
Data Centres Steve was an Electrical
and Mechanical Chartered Engineer
in the MOD before eventually moving
into the commercial world of Sales and
Management.
Andrew Stevens, CEO of CNet
Training, who launched the new
CCMA Tool at DCW16, was quoted
as saying, “Ultimately risk is a
human issue and businesses need
people who are adept at tackling
the threats they encounter,
particularly within mission critical
facilities such as a data centre
environment where there is little
room for error. Understanding likely
behaviours of individuals and teams
in high risk environments is one of
the biggest challenges a data centre
facility faces today”.
I for one am very excited to see
this new evaluation tool in action,
although it may not help me to be
a perfect gardener, it could prove to
be extremely valuable to the data
centre sector.
INTELLIGENTCIO
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