About

Vision and Mission

Our vision is to be an innovative, quality provider of IT and service management center training and consulting services.

Our mission is to deliver quality, cost-effective IT service management training and consulting services that boost your organization’s performance, enable optimized connections with employees and customers, and result in a high return on investment. 

Your Service Provider

Paul M. Dooley, MBA

ITIL Service Manager, ITIL Expert
DASA DevOps Certified Partner
Certified ITIL Instructor, Consultant and Author

With over 30 years of experience in the high technology and software development industry, Paul has held numerous positions in customer service, technical support and marketing.  Experience includes front line technical support (levels 1, 2 paulsmland 3), support team lead, international support manager, manager of service business development, marketing manager and director of solutions marketing.

Experience and expertise includes development of support center strategy, policies and procedures; consolidating multiple support centers from company acquisitions; one of the first case study implementations of Knowledge Centered Support (KCS); selection & implementation of sophisticated Service Management Systems; service  marketing strategy and implementation; guiding the development and launch of new service offerings; and implementing support centers globally for both FileNet and QAD.

Paul has held positions with leading high technology companies, notably Motorola, FileNet, and most recently with QAD, Inc.  Recent clients have included the California Franchise Tax Board (FTB), Oregon Software Association, MCTSSA (Marine Corps. Support Center), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – National Help Desk, and many others (see our Testimonial page for recent quotes). Paul’s qualifications and expertise include:

AXELOS Affiliate and ITIL Expert – Paul is a Member and Affiliate of AXELOS, the organization which owns and promotes IT Service Management, and the ITIL (R) framework.   Paul has been trained and certified in ITIL Foundation, most ITIL Intermediate levels, and is a certified ITIL Expert. Paul has delivered literally hundreds of ITIL courses across the U.S., and internationally, with high student ratings and reviews.

PeopleCert Affiliate – Also an Affiliate of PeopleCert, Paul is a certified proctor for ITIL exams which are processed by PeopleCert, the official exam agency of AXELOS.

Member – ITSMF USA, Los Angeles Chapter.  Paul was previously the Membership Chair, and the Communications Chair of the itSMF USA Los Angeles Local Interest Group (LIG).  He is active in the LA ITSMF chapter, contributing to ITSMF events and publications.

Faculty Instructor – Help Desk Institute (HDI).  Paul was a team leader in updating the HDI Support Center Certification (SCC) standards in 2004, and continues to help maintain this industry standard for support centers. In 2005, Paul also led the team to update the HDI Customer Support Specialist (CSS) and Help Desk Analyst (HDA) Standards. Paul also teaches most of the HDI courses, including Support Center Analyst (SCA), Support Center Manage (SCM), and Support Center Team Lead (SCTL).  Paul is also a consultant, service provider and Auditor for HDI.

Past President and Advisor to the Help Desk Institute (HDI), Orange County Chapter
Paul acts as Advisor to the local chapter of HDI, as well as Newsletter Editor.  For more information please visit the Orange County HDI web site at http://www.hdioc.org.

Advanced Education:  Paul hold’s a Bachelors in International Relations (BA) from California State University in Fullerton, and a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree from National University, San Diego.

ITIL 4 Certifications: Paul was a contributor to the content for ITIL 4 Foundation, to some of the Intermediate level content, and has helped several publishers finalize content for their ITIL 4 training materials.  He was one of the first to be ITIL 4 Foundation certified by PeopleCert, and is continuing to add to his ITIL 4 professional certifications through 2020:

  • ITIL_4_Foundation_Certificate
  • ITIL_4_Managing_Professional_Transition_Certificate
  • ITIL_4_Managing_Professional_Certificate
  • ITIL_4_Create_Deliver & Support Certificate
  • ITIL_4_Direct_Plan_and_Improve_Certificate

DASA DevOps Fundamentals Certification:  Awarded 30 August 2016 a DevOps Fundamentals Certification from the DevOps Agile Skills Association (DASA), after reviewing course material and passing the certification exam.  Optimal Connections, LLC has been named a DASA Training Partner, and is now offering a certification training course in DevOps Fundamentals.  Check our DevOps Training Services page for details.

ITIL V3 Certifications:

  • ITIL V3 Foundation Instructor Certification
  • ITIL Intermediate certifications in:
    • Service Life-cycle Stream:  Service Strategy (SS), Service Design (SD), Service Transition (ST), Service Operations (SO), and Continual Service Improvement (CSI)
    • Service Capability Stream:  Planning, Protection & Optimization (PPO); Release, Control and Validation (RC&V); and Operational Support and Analysis (OS&A)

ITIL V3 Expert:  Advanced certification as an

ITIL V2 Certifications:  Paul has achieved a number of ITIL V2 certifications, including ITIL Foundations certification, ITIL Practitioner in Service Desk and Incident Management, and ITIL Service Manager.

ISO Certifications:  Information Security Foundation, based on ISO/IEC 27002

HDI Certifications:  From the Help Desk Institute (HDI), certifications include Support Center Analyst (SCA), Support Center Team Lead (SCTL), Support Center Manager (SCM), Certified HDI Instructor, and Certified HDI Auditor of Help Desk and Customer Support Operations. The newest certification includes Technical Support Professional (TSP), a specialization for tier 2 and 3 support specialists.

Certified HDI Auditor.  Paul is one of the few individuals certified by HDI as a Support Center Auditor.  Recent organizations certified by HDI through Paul’s efforts include Aramco, Saudi Basic Industries (SABIC), T-Systems, The National Help Desk (U.S. Customs and Border Protection), MCTSSA (Marine Corps. Support Center), and QAD – HDI’s first Global Support Center Certification. See HDI’s web site for a list of some of the centers audited by Paul.

RESILIA Foundation Certification:  Received the Foundation Certification for RESILIA in August 2015, in preparation for offering both in-person and online courses in RESILIA cyber resilience best-practices. For more information on RESILIA best-practices, please visit https://www.axelos.com/best-practice-solutions/resilia

SECRET security clearance, December 2016 – U.S. Department of Defense.

Author of industry publications.  Paul has authored a number of articles and white papers, including “How to Market the Value of Your Support”, “7 Steps to Exceptional Customer Service”, and others.  His latest book, published through HDI in Dec. 2007, is entitled “Building a Web Support Portal: Keys to Success”.  Recent articles in popular IT/support center publications include:

Regular speaker at Industry Events.  Paul has been a featured speaker at industry and local service & support events:

  • BrighTALK presentation: “Making the Most of Your Metrics via an Effective Reporting Framework“, May 9th, 2018.  Over 90 attendees, with a rating of 4.5 out of 5.
  • BrighTALK presentation: “The Case for Swarming: An Intelligent Alternative to Tiered Support”, May 17th, 2017. Well attended, with a mot of interest.  Get the White Paper on Swarming – a 2 part series.
  • itSMF USA Los Angeles presentation, 2016- “Building a Knowledge Management Culture“
  • CA ITSM Summit 2015, held as a global “Virtual Event” by CA.  Paul delivered a keynote presentation for itSMF USA entitled “ITIL 2015: Six Trends Driving Transformational Change in IT Best-Practices”.  The presentation received great reviews, and scored a 4.7/5.0 in survey feedback!
  • SoTEC 2014 – Southern California Technology Conference: Panel Moderator “Continual Service Improvement”
  • itSMF Los Angeles 2012 conference, Aug 3, 2012.
  • ITSMF 2010 ‘Fusion’ Conference in Louisville, Kentucky: “Transforming Resources: A Continual Learning Approach”
  • ITSMF 2009 ‘Fusion’ Conference: “Transitioning to a Knowledge-Powered Service Desk”, part of “Track 3 – Service Operations with a Side of Change”.
  • HDI 2008 Conference, Dallas Texas:  “Building a Web Self-Service Portal-Keys to Success”, and “Easy to Use Financial Tools for Effective Decision Making”
  • ITSMF 2008 ‘Fusion’ Conference, San Francisco – Sept 2008.  “Building a Web Self-Service Portal-Keys to Success”.
  • HDI’s 2005 Conference in Las Vegas, presenting on two topics: “HDI’s Support Center Certification (SCC) Program”, and “How to Market the Value of Your Support”.
  • HDI 2006 Conference:  panel speaker on Support Center Certification

Paul also speaks regularly at local itSMF meetings, HDI local chapter meetings, and at related industry events.

Paul specializes in the following areas of service delivery:

  • ITIL Foundations Certification Training classes – public and on-site classes
  • ITIL Intermediate Certification Training classes – both Lifecycle and Capability courses
  • HDI Certified Instructor Training classes – Support Center Analyst, Support Center Team Lead, Support Center Manager
  • RESILIA Certification Training – end user IT security training
  • DevOps and Agile Skills Training
  • ITIL Maturity Assessments, based on the ITIL Maturity Model
  • Help Desk and Support Center Assessments – identifying opportunities for improvement
  • HDI Support Center Certification Audits – Certified Auditor for HDI
  • General IT and Support Center Consulting Services

Paul Has Worked Closely with Leading Industry Organizations

IT Service and Support Industry associations we have been active in include:

  • AXELOS – Key source of ITIL and related best-practices
  • ITpreneurs – Leading training content provider
  • PeopleCert – ITIL exam agency 
  • IT Service Management Forum (itSMF), and the itSMF Los Angeles LIG
  • DevOps Agile Skills Association (DASA) – DevOps training and certification 

Paul M. Dooley & Associates

Want to learn more about our services, or looking to get a special quote to best meet your unique needs?  Email us at pmdooley1@gmail.com