ICS news and events: March 2019

Talking Tech Week 2019, IT professionals day and a needed conversation about business agility
Pro

14 March 2019

Join us at the IT Asset Management Conference 2019

The IT Asset Management Conference 2019 will take place over two days, from 8 to 9 April 2019. This year’s conference theme is “IT Asset Management in the digital age”, which will showcase expert implementations, locally in Ireland and internationally, in management of hardware, software, cloud and information assets. Read on below for a taster of the speakers who will be attending.

Attila Kiraly – Principal Asset Manager ­– Vodafone Procurement Company
Kiralyhas gained over 15 years of experience in the shared services delivery industry, having worked for GE, Diageo and Nokia in the past. 
In his 11 years at Vodafone, he was involved in one of the biggest SAP ERP rollout projects in the world at the time – with direct exposure to the IT and SCM implementation and operations in particular. 

He has been supporting the Vodafone Asset Management Services from day one, and for the last 2 years has been managing the entity.

Kris Maes – Software Asset Manager – Coca-cola European Partners
Kris Maes is the Software Asset Manager at Coca-Cola European Partners. Maes is responsible for the daily and long-term strategic management of software within the organisation: planning, monitoring and recording CCEP’s software licenses and software usage, assisting in forming procurement strategies to optimise technology spend across the organisation, developing and implementing procedures for tracking company software assets. 

At Deloitte, he provided software asset management services to various customers and managed software vendor audits. Prior to this, he worked at Telia Company, where he was responsible for software governance and software licensing.

Book your place at the ITAM conference via the web site today at www.itamconference.com

Members receive a discount of €155 on the early bird rate.

We need to talk about business agility

We often receive requests from members to discuss digital transformation more. So we reached out to the experts, to ask them to share some insight into the concept of business agility.

Haydn Shaughnessy, Flow

We wanted to know what they mean by business agility and why it’s so important in today’s world to apply it.

We spoke to Fin Goulding and Haydn Shaughnessy, founders of the Flow movement, who shared their thoughts on the subject.

Haydn said: “Business agility is often thought of as the transfer or extension of software agile techniques to the whole business. That means using conventions like sprints, standups and retrospectives in all areas of work.

“The problems with this definition are manifold:

“Very often the scrum framework that software developers use is not very productive. It is called agile but is often more static.

“It often leaves the question of value unanswered, so frequently people work on scrum without asking if the work they are doing is actually valuable.

“But the final issue is to do with silos. Business agility should really involve the whole business working together rather than just copying techniques from software.”

“In order to do that businesses need to recognise and confront key divisions such as the IT-Business divide. Here are critical functions that actually know very little about each other’s capabilities. Agile begins to happen when these people work together but not only that. They need to work together on how to create value more effectively for customers.”

“How you go about empowering people to work better is one of the most difficult challenges in the modern workplace.” said Goulding, “It can be traced back to how we design work. All “frameworks” are really structures, or hierarchies, of work.

“Project management is the most entrenched hierarchy of all. Scrum is not far behind. They provide benefits but have drawbacks. It is contradictory to business agility to empower people then give them rules to follow.”

Tech Week 2019

Tech Week is Ireland’s nationwide festival of technology aimed at students, parents and the public. It is taking place this year between 11 and 18 May. Tech Week is made up of a range of classroom and community activities taking place across Ireland – in libraries, schools, community centres, and many other locations. These activities give students a chance to develop their interest in technology subjects, examine potential career prospects, learn new skills, be creative and, most importantly, have a lot of fun.

Get involved in Tech Week and inspire the next generation by organising technology-related activities in your local schools or communities. Find out more at: www.techweek.ie

IT Professionals Day 2019

IT Professionals’ Day, which takes place during Tech Week, is a special day to act as a platform to raise awareness of the IT profession, the potential within the profession, the need for continued professionalism and contribution to society.

On this day we are asking everyone to celebrate the contribution of IT professionals in using their talents and innovation to advance society for everyone’s benefit.

1-2-3 ways to get involved:

  • Commit… to the
    IT Professional Code of Conduct, published by the Irish Computer Society
  • Connect
    strengthen your skills and continue your professional development
  • Contribute… your
    time to help worthy causes across Ireland

Lots more will be taking place on the day so keep an eye on the web page here for further updates: www.techweek.ie/it-professionals-day

Upcoming courses:

Certified Data Protection Practitioner – 20 March – Cork – €198 off for members

IT Asset Management Foundation Certification – 20 March – Dublin – €165 off for members

Iasa Architect Core Course & CITA-F Certification – 26 March – Dublin – €275 off for members

ICS Management Development Programme – 2 April – Dublin – €200 off for members

European Certified Data Protection Officer – 9 April – Cork – €330 off for members

GDPR & Data Protection Essentials – 23 April – Cork – €60 off for members

Events

ITAM Webinar: Microsoft licensing and processes – 14 March – Free for members

IT Asset Management Conference 2019 – 8-9 April – Dublin – €155 off for members

Annual ICS Fellows’ Luncheon – 17 May – Dublin

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