Sunday, September 10, 2006

MOF Train The Trainer

I'm back at home after a fantastic week in Zurich, where I had the privilege of conducting a Microsoft Operations framework TTT event for Swiss MCTs. It was a really good time and I hope the Swiss MCTs that attended went away as passionate about MOF as I am.

Like all TTT events, every one learned something - including me. I'd certainly run the class just a bit differently as a result. Asking other trainers how to make a course better was a fascinating experiment - and it got great answers!

The MOF MOC material (MOF Essentials and MOF Changing Quadrant) classes are several years old, but are pretty much as relevant today as when they were released. There are places where projections for the future, when made in 2001 are now reflections in the past, but these were few and far between (2-3 slides in total).

Sadly, Microsoft has decided to kill off the MOF material, which as I said in an earlier blog post seems to be a dumb decision. Naturally, MS never makes dumb decisions (so they tell me), but they do make ones that appear to be dumb. The justification for killing MOF MOC is that it never sells. Sadly, MSL and MS never really tried to sell or market MOF or MOF MOC, so it's not surprising.

While MOF can still be taught today, and will be freely downloadable from Jan 2007, there are simulations for each course that are no longer available. This is a shame - the simulations were fun, could be useful to reinforce the message, and were a useful diversion. With the best will in the world, training in process is dull. If you are an MCT and plan to teach MOF, you need to consider creating some sort of a case study for the delegates to play with. This can be simple paper and pencil exercises, but something to get the delegates to do.

I am very sad to see the end of MOF training. For a company that wants to dominate the Enterprise space with Enterprise products (and support), MOF would seem a vital asset. Sadly, MSL seems solely sales focused, and bad selling courses just get fixed.

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