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Mastering AV Service Management (MASM) – the Aspiring Manager Certificate Virtual Classroom

The MASM Aspiring Manager Certificate (MASM-AMC) is for the technician moving up to manager, or the existing manager looking for formal description of the skills. This course recognizes that there is an enormous difference between the mental approaches of a technician and a manager. Specifically, a technician is dealing with known technologies, and using knowledge as a diagnostic tool. A manager doesn’t have the luxury of the pre-known, because the manager deals with situations, not systems; so, diagnosis does not apply. The situation may require decisions to be made, policies to be invented, or a political angle to be considered. MASM-AMC will prepare you for that philosophical shift - and will also give you a practical to-do list for your managerial working day.

Who should attend?

Technicians aspiring to leadership or management roles, or recent appointees; established heads of any AV technical workgroup, needing to revisit the basic principles of management and put their technical roots into perspective. The AMC content suits AV support delivered either in-house or as service provider--where tech support resolutions and conducting projects are part of the typical workload, especially where that work comprises interaction with end users and corporate authorities.

How is it delivered?

AMC is blended learning: a mix of independent study and online tutorials. Note that the tutorials are not teaching sessions. In a tutorial candidates will have their understanding of the material checked and quizzed on their knowledge. 

A workbook will be provided in advance in PDF format. This ‘Body of Knowledge’ contains all the slides, accompanying text, and quizzes to help you prepare for the examination. Candidates will study a portion of the book, before attending an online tutorial. The examination takes place in the final hour of Tutorial 2.

Attention! You will have to study the course contents on your own schedule, without the instructor's company. The tutorials are follow-up sessions of the previously studied content.

What you will learn: 
The technical mindset and how it essentially restricts managerial thinking

• The technical mindset and how it essentially restricts managerial thinking
• Philosophical and functional differences between operative, supervisor, team leader and manager in terms of what they do, how they do it, to whom they do it, and why they do it, and how they arrive at their different priorities and various Bases of Decision
• Use of skillset management to resolve Single Points of Failure in the workgroup, and to replace oneself as a technical operative, in order to leave more time for managerial concerns and activities
• How management goes beyond mere superiority--in particular, use the explanations and techniques of De Marco & Lister and others, pertaining to IT staff motivation and productivity, and workgroup coherence
• Understanding and using the new relationship between the technician once a member of a workgroup and now leader of such a group, and the requisite behaviors, mentality and perspective
• Making use of a full comprehension of differences between internal and external support to adjust workgroup practices and targets in meeting business needs
• Develop and use a new, essentially managerial working-day to-do list 

Noel Bruton is a UK-based independent consultant and trainer, specializing in the management of technology support workgroups. He is a bestselling author of books in this field. His experience is sought by commercial and public service organizations, conferences, press and broadcast media around the world. He has been in IT since 1979 and advising corporations on improving IT.

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