| Millenium Corporation is a 16-year-old high-tech firm specializing in Web page design and other technology-driven business solutions. It espouses Peter Senge's model of the Learning Organization. Employees receive pay-for-knowledge and 360-degreee feedback. But there are problems: its own information technology systems are not fully leveraged against a corporation mission, communications systems are inefficienct, customers want more for less and competition is fierce. And one other things. It's not real. Millennium Corp. is a business simulation program designed and funded by a unique consortium of business, government and public and private sector training institutions. It forms the framework of a year-long Information Technology Professional (ITP) program which be last month as four sites across Canada. The motto of Millennium Corp. is: "Creating IT Manages for the next millennium," something fro which the software industry in Canada is in dire need. A 1995 survey of 300 firms by the Software Human Resource Council (SHRC), one of the drivers of the ITP program, noted the 39 per cent contracted out all the firms software work, and of the firms with full-time software personnel, 51 per cent contracted out for additional work. The overriding reason was lack of skills within their organizations. Furthermore, lack of appropriate skill sets was cited as the reason for one third of the thousands of unfilled IT positions in Canada. All the same, ITP program is not for techies. Kathy Herties, project co-ordinator at the Lambton College site in Sarnia, Ont., and a member of the ITP program steering committee, said the first 27 students at the college gold diplomas and degrees in teaching, history, computer science and other areas. One quit an MBA program to take the course. Students will not spend a year learning to be programmers. Rather, said Herties, this is management training "for the high-end IT user… We wanted to produce an IT graduate who could hit the road running." The 225 people who applied had to write a submission on their career goals and ask references to rate their leadership and analytical skills. Lambton College is one of four highly-diverse sites to offer the program. The others are: Champlain Regional College in St. Lamber, Que., which will offer the course in both English and French; the University of Victoria, BC; and Productivity Point International, a private IT training firm in Ottawa. Each class has 25 to 30 spaces and a new class begins every three months. Zig Hancyk, ITP's project director, applauds the co-operation between colleges, universities and the provate sector. He admits that since the project began (20 months ago the group started planning, and just seven months ago Canada gave the green light to $5 million in federal funding) there hasn't been time to appreciate what is being achieved. "When you're in it you don't step back and say, 'Gee, we made it work.' I think we should pat ourselves on the back." Paul Swinwood, SHRC's president, said the curriculum will be 90 per cent common from one site to the next; each will tailor itself somewhat to local industry to provide real-life examples. "We try to find… a concept that both industry and eduction will buy into," he said, adding that ITP is one of three programs designed to create workers for the IT industry. SHRC has also piloted career awareness for children in grades 7 to 9, and curriculum for grade 10 to 12. As well, there are plans to offer the ITP program at Red River College in Winnipeg in January. A Halifax site is also in the works. ITP will take its cues from the software industry, which has ponied up with donations and materials to help launch the program. Hancyk said that at SHL Systemhouse, where he worked for 10 years, hiring was on the basis of attitude, aptitude, business capabilities and technical skills - in that order. Howard Sures, ITP's curriculum manager and the President of Productivity Point International in Canada, said a proper mix of skills is essential. "There's a tremendous need for people who can understand the technology as well as understand business, and apply the technology to the business," he said. "Through simulations, through experiential learning, we can take what would normally be delivered in two to three years and package it in one year." Speed is of the essence for another reason, says Herites. "One of the drawbacks of two and three year programs is the skills tens to be outdated by the time they graduate." To keep the program up-to-date, all student and instructor materials are on a CD-ROM which has been sent to each site. Copies can be printed as needed from the disc, which can revised at any time. Students will graduate from ITP with a national certificate from SHRC, as well as the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer designation. A year in the life of Millennium Corporation
If you get hired by Millennium Corp., you pay the company $12,000 for the privilege of working there, and after one year you're out the door. That's because it's not a real company at all, although for students of the Information Technology Professional (ITP) program, it will feel like one. "This will live for students in a very visceral way," said Don Jones, president of Business Simulation International Inc. and part of a four-person team which design Millennium Corp. Jones said there are major differences in how students and leading-edge employees are expected to behave: - Employees generate ideas; students don't.
- Employees have more than one leadership level; students don't.
- Employees in learning organization are responsible for everyone's development; students aren't.
Students, however, will one day be employees. So when Jones started working with ITP he said, "Let's make the whole thing into a simulation so the students get a chance to live in the world they will live in." Students in Sarnia, Ont. Victoria, Ottawa and St. Lambert, Que., walk into something that is more boardroom than classroom. They are given titles, business cards and letter from their 'predecessor" at the company. A 60-page company manual included a 16-year history of Millennium Corp. In addition, 120 pages of internal memos provide clues to what's right and wrong with the firm. Technical training will take the form of in-house training at an actual software firm. There will be projects to complete, clients to please and simulated competitors to complete with. Students will switch roles every quarter throughout the 12-month course, and instructors will play the roles of members of the board of directors. Regular Friday debriefings are part of the course. Kathy Herties, a member of ITP's steering committee and project co-ordinator at Lambton College in Sarnia, said these are "the sort of ideal staff meeting that everyone working in the corporate world would love to heave on a regular basis." There are even paycheques, consisting not of remuneration but evaluation. "Instead of a dollar sign there will be feedback." | 
