ITMA Scores Big with Launch of Facilitated Education
by: Mark Vanden Berge

December 8, Steelcase University Learning Center
ITMA has successfully launched into the world of professional development with the completion of its first Facilitated Education course.  The class was conducted with great skill by our ICEX partners, Rick Swanborg and Bruce Rogow, facilitating and presenting for the day.   It was enthusiastically received, and based on the survey results (4.5 out of 5), will be immensely helpful to those who participated.   A huge round of Thank Yous goes out to both the Steering Committee and our participating ITMA companies for getting over 25 individuals and 18 different companies in attendance for the day.

Indeed, with Rick and Bruce tag-teaming the day-long event, everyone was pulling for great things to happen.  But would Murphy and/or other natural laws cooperate or would they conspire against ITMA's humble endeavor?

Well, indeed, the luck of the Irish was on our side this day (with the exception of some freezing rain).   We should not forget to add another quick word of thanks to Steelcase for making the Steelcase Learning University Campus and staff available to ensure the event came off without a hitch.  Their state of the art classrooms made for an ideal setting to have Rick and Bruce work their magic, by serving up an informational but also interactive kind of classroom experience.  Moreover, judging simply from the welcoming continental breakfast to a fabulous lunch spread and then on to the leisurely happy hour, the food and accommodations tipped off our students that they were in for a world-class day!

Facilitated Education Next Session:
Mastering IT Organization, Governance, and Management
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Steelcase University Learning Center

ITMA's on-going series of professional development classes with our Boston partners, ICEX, will feature the topic of IT Governance.  The next class will build upon the first session of the IT Strategy pyramid and move learners into engaging models of organizational "maturity" and "adopting to change."  Specifically, after a review and deeper engagement with the pyramid, students could expect to have a more thorough handle on three key questions: 1) What can I do to change my internal structure to make me more effective now?; 2) What kind of dynamics do I need to consider for the longer term future and for the kind of staffing issues to be most effective down the road?; and 3) based on the size of my organization, what specific parts of the pyramid will pose the critical growth points for getting my organization to mature to higher levels?"  ITMA is excited to bring this kind of world class knowledge down to the local level to our membership (see article of course review earlier in newsletter).

What They're Saying About ITMA
ITMA has been on a new member drive for much of 2008 and many new faces, both members and guests, have been seen around meetings during the fall Security seminar and the separate Bruce Rogow event.  One of our resolutions for 2009 is to start collecting testimonials from members as to the value they have received from being a part of the ITMA community.

Not to put undue pressure on anyone, but here are some of the things that have been said (mostly spontaneously) by new members and even guests over the past few months that we believe are worth "priming the pump" for stimulating your thinking about the value of an ITMA membership:

• " I have been to three meetings so far, including this Facilitated Educ. class, and I have already received my money's worth in terms of return of value to my team and my own development."
•  "Even just with one visit here today, I have decided to reschedule deployment of 2 apps and advance another one to the head of the line.  What a pleasant surprise.  Thank you for helping me with this."
• " Your invite to the security seminar could not have been more timely.  We were struggling to get an enterprise-wide system in place and the ideas I heard today, will be of great help to my team.  I will recommend to my boss that we join."
• " It is terrific to know that other companies in distinct industries share the same struggles that I do.  There are some great ideas brought out at ITMA where I can apply what other industries are doing to my own organization."

Do you have some remarks you could share with us as we build our testimonial file?  We will be sending out a short survey to everyone in the next month or so with some questions.  However, your free form remarks could possibly be of the most value since they are what you have found to be the most unique value over and above anything we could script in a questionnaire.  Please consider giving us some of your more heartfelt thoughts about what value ITMA has been to you and your organization.  As always, if you wish for your remarks to remain anonymous, we will honor your wishes completely.

ITMA will contact you prior to publishing your comments in any materials.

We would be deeply grateful for your assistance in this project.

Welcome New Members
We are pleased to announce the addition of 4 new members since August of 2008.

• City of Grand Rapids (Oct-2008)
• Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services (Oct-2008)
• Grubb & Ellis Paramount Commerce (Oct-2008)
• Davenport University (Nov-2008)

We want to extend a warm welcome to all of these new members as we seek to further establish ITMA as the valuable regional asset that it is.