Are you a PPM Hero or a Network Rockstar?

By on August 20, 2010 in Ask the Service Assurance Expert

Online IT games challenge players to showcase their project and portfolio management skills and network management know-how. Can you compete?

IT professionals aren’t all about business. Many enjoy some friendly competition in the form of online gaming. Two such free online games challenge players to put their IT-specific skills to work in winning them PPM Hero or Network Rockstar status.

PPM Hero, created by CA Technologies in association with The Burton Group, asks players to answer questions on three floors (or game levels) to eventually achieve the status of PPM hero. Using project and portfolio management expertise, players would advance through the levels dubbed Information Technology, Business Operations and The Executive Offices.

The game offers some bonus features as well as some potential pitfalls. For instance, answering questions marked “Q” will give players the opportunity to boost their budget. Yet every wrong response takes budget dollars away and the more time you take the more likely the cash reserves will continue to shrink. Red “Project Police” could cause issues completing tasks, but blue shields can protect against the potential danger the police present.

Successful players that reach PPM Hero status can then challenge friends and submit their own questions for future gamers. IT professionals looking to increase their skills for the game could check out CA Technologies’ PPM blog and the company’s IT governance blog.

And if you’d rather get down and dirty with network know-how, don’t forget to test your network management skills with a game created by NetQoS (acquired by CA Technologies). In the Network Rockstar Challenge players are asked tons of technical trivia only those proficient in network technology could know.

Network Rockstar players choose an online persona and fielding questions through several rounds. The more rounds completed, the higher the status of the character. The game quizzes players on their high-tech knowledge with questions ranging from what does the acronym ATM stand for to what is the speed of an OC-3 network line. Players nailing seven out of 10 questions successfully earn the right to go on tour. Those that fall short get bounced to the alley.

Know any online games that test IT skills? Please share them with me by leaving a comment here or e-mail me the information directly at Denise.Dubie@ca.com.

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Denise Dubie

About Denise Dubie

Service Assurance Daily is managed by Denise Dubie, former senior editor of Network World. Denise's official title at CA is New Media Principal. Prior to coming to CA, Dubie spent 12 years of her career at Network World, an IDG company. Working as Copy Chief in the copy editing department for two years, Dubie made an internal move at Network World in 2000 to report and write about IT management technologies (from CA and competitors) as well as high-tech careers and vendors such as Cisco, HP, IBM and Microsoft. As Senior Editor at Network World, Dubie also authored the publication's twice-weekly Network and Systems Management Alert newsletter and contributed to the Web site's Microsoft Subnet blog. Before IDG, she served as Assistant Managing Editor at Application Development Trends, managing writers and the monthly publication's production process. And Dubie started her professional journalism career as a Staff Writer and Reporter at The Transcript, a small daily paper in Western Massachusetts. Dubie holds a B.A. degree in English Literature, with minors in journalism and political science, from Boston University.
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