e-Skills: What do you do?
Imagine three solution architects at a party. As they size each other up by demonstrating their technology prowess it quickly becomes clear that despite the fact that they have the same job title they have very different competency profiles. Not just in technology experience, but in their levels of emotional intelligence.
This could equally apply to group of project managers or a collection of systems analysts.
The point is that the IT industry lacks clear role definitions. My system administrator might be your operator.
This is a problem for the IT industry and ultimately a problem for business and society. Ill-defined roles lead to poor recruitment and ineffective training investment.
If the roles are ill-defined then career path structures will similarly be so. Consequently technologists in particular have no sense of career progression and thus revert to who is the ‘most techie’ in order to create some sort of social order within the IT function.
This focus on technical prowess comes at the cost of other important skills such as the ability to communicate and service-orientation.
The absence of these leads to both project failure and user irritation. Ultimately this leads/has led to a brand-negative IT industry. We need to address this at a global level.
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So how does SFIA fit in to this discussion? Although SFIA describes skills rather than roles, in its genesis I think there was some intention to help with this problem.
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Through my various advisory activities in respect of e-skills in the UK and Europe, SFIA is often mentioned.
I have no direct experience of it but understand that it has improved considerably from when I saw it presented circa 8 years ago. Even then the intention was noble.
The reality is that SFIA is not yet relevant in the IT skills market, even though it is probably the best option available.
I deal with literally hundreds of IT recruitment organisations and none of them use the SFIA model as a reference for skills in taking job specifications from their clients.
This tells me everything about SFIA uptake. Hopefully all stakeholders will address this issue sooner rather than later. However this is one example of where a European Commission drive would work better than national initiatives.
And even then we still have to address the global standardisation of IT roles. But one step at a time!