Dire forecast for IT jobs

A government report due out later this year will offer an analysis of the characteristics of the kind of IT work that is less likely to go offshore.

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My source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says the report concludes that IT work that is likely to stay in-house includes large-scale system-integration projects, highly iterative development processes, work that crosses multiple disciplines, work that requires a high degree of interaction with end-users or clients, and applications with complex procedures, such as those that require frequent manual intervention and data fixes.

The findings go on to include projects that require a high degree of integration with onshore operations, work requiring deep cultural understanding, and work in which much of the knowledge exists only in the minds of onshore IT staff. This includes analytical tasks, leading-edge research and non-rule-based decision-making; in other words, if you can put it down in a set of rules that can be copied, it will go offshore.

Projects that require a high level of creativity, insight, innovation, and thinking outside of the box are also likely to stay onshore, as are jobs requiring process design and business analysis; technology and systems integration; and fusion of industry knowledge with a high level of IT skills.

For the most part, what these functions have in common is that they involve making nonroutine decisions, creating innovation, and fusion of business processes with IT. The aspects with lower value involve routine work and technology activities that are not critical to business strategy.

As such, the government report is in close agreement with John Mahoney, chief of research for IT services and management at Gartner (who did not request anonymity). First of all, both Mahoney and my government source predict the end of programming as a viable profession.

“If your career plans are set on doing heads-down programming, you better plan on six months of unemployment checks, then looking for another occupation,” the source in Washington says.

Mahoney predicts that by 2010, large organizations will employ half the number of people they retained in the year 2000. Half of those displaced will find jobs with service-provider companies. But only 50 percent of the roles that large organizations will outsource to external providers will be filled by providers in the same geographic region.

Mahoney believes there is a defining point of change coming up in IT. Organizations are deciding whether the principal value of their IT organization comes from the delivery of technology-oriented services and outcomes, or from defining and managing a coherent set of business processes and services.

If you decide in favor of the latter, you must also decide how you will change the capability and credibility of your organization accordingly. In addition, the very definition of what an IT professional is must change in order to meet your new definition.

Mahoney tells me that this is not an absolute either/or -- not to say that delivery of technology-oriented outcomes is not important, or not complicated, and not to say that it is not a defining competitive competence. “But the point is, if you only stop there, as an IT organization you are probably failing to deliver a substantial part of the business value that the business will need in the future,” he says.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.