Industry needs
Today, business is more complex and requires significant information to help management making decisions. In order to respond to the changes, information technology (IT) is utilized to expedite data collection, information analysis to help decision making process and increase competitive capability of companies. However, according to recent U.S Government study, the skills of most Information Technology (IT) managers are failing to keep up with the changing nature of the industry. Most IT managers are trained in the traditional set-up, where all works are done in house by IT technical staff but today due to globalization, works are done by a mix of permanent staff, temporary staff, consultants, and offshore workers. This kind of global development requires different skills and training. The study concluded that: “IT management competency is a major weakness in most global companies. Many managers wasted significant resources but still do not get things right and as a consequence they cannot solve problems for the company”.
The simple reason: In the past, most IT group consists of technical people and most managers also come from the technical side but today the needs are not just technical but also business. For works that require customers contact, more companies are hiring people with project management, business process analysis, service management, and vendor management expertise. These skills are currently NOT taught in Computer science or Software Engineering programs. According to the study, today most companies need more customer contact than ever before as they are moving quickly into doing business globally so there is a great need for these special IT skills.
Because the shortage of skilled people, most global companies are desperate for workers who possess both technical and business skills. People who understand how to monitor business execution and quickly make decisions to solve customer's problems. Problem solving is the most important skill as it often involves decision-making and people who hesitate when they must make decision or indecisive in choosing between solutions are often get companies into trouble. There is an old saying: “People who stand in the middle of the road will get run down by cars”. If you want to be good information system manager, you must learn how to make decision. Good decision-making requires a mixture of skills: identification of problem and options, clarity of judgment, firmness of decision, and effective execution. A good IT manager must know how to identify and clarify the problem by asking what is the problem? Does it warrants action? If so, when? If the matter is urgent, He must gather all the facts and understand their causes and think about possible options and solutions. He must consider and compare the positive and negative consequences of each option and select the best option to implement. Before the implementation starts, he must be able to explain his decision to those involved and affected, and monitor the execution to ensure proper and effective implementation.
As a result, today IT recruiting has shifted from hiring technical people to people with a combination of business and technical, especially people who understand how to design and manage services as software has move quickly from develop product into providing services to customers. Unfortunately, there's still a limited number of people who can do both. More and more, new IT hires are brought over from the business side and retrain in technical. Some companies find it easier to teach technology skills to business people than teaching business to technical people. However, the problem is that, depending upon the training, many business people may not be interested in the technical aspects or may not have deep knowledge to make the right decisions.
The solution is to collaborate with universities to come up with a curriculum that have both perspectives. However, the most difficult in traditional education system is the lack of interdisciplinary between departments. Programs such as Computer science, Software engineering are separated from programs such as Business administration, Finance or Management. Professors are usually NOT trained in the integration of these two fields so it is NOT easy to come up with a program that satisfy current industry needs. While the industry are still looking for skilled people with special skills, traditional academic people may not be so eager to support that needs and the shortage of skilled people is still remain for years to come.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
