Staying on top in the global IT job market

But John Hagel III, co-author of The Only Sustainable Edge: Why Business Strategy Depends on Productive Friction and Dynamic Specialization, warns against the notion of innovation as “a national birthright.”

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“The situation now is a lot more urgent,” Hagel says. “You can’t just say, ‘Oh, we’ll keep innovating and somehow stay out front.’ What’s important now is to be building your capabilities faster than anyone else or you won’t be successful."

Calling All Business Majors
Success may soon come wrapped in a dual computer science/business degree. As IT departments are increasingly relied upon to deliver a substantial part of the business value of their organization, hiring managers will be looking for business skills in addition to core science, math, and engineering skills.

It’s no coincidence that many of the newfangled acronyms that dot the IT landscape -- BPO, BPM, and BAM (business activity monitoring) -- start with “B,” for business. Technology activities that are tightly connected to corporate strategy and processes are becoming highly prized, as are those central to large-scale system integration projects.

For example, IBM has added a new title to its roster: the business transformation architect. “In this new services-oriented era, we need business people who are fluent in IT and vice versa,” says Michael Liebow, vice president of SOA and Web services at IBM Global Services. “In broad terms, [the IT sector] has had a fairly hardwired, inefficient architecture. And it served pretty well. But with the emergence of composite apps, you can’t have any of that cement. That’s a huge shift.”

Liebow sees a rise in stature for the IT architect who has skills keyed to emerging architectures. “We’re talking about someone who can conceive of an SOA-adoption road map,” he explains. “Web-services design and architecture demands new skills,” including partner-management skills because of the multiple partners inherent therein.

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Forrester Research analyst Stephanie Moore urges anyone who might view IT as a dead-end career to seriously consider acquiring or augmenting business expertise. When asked about safe havens in tomorrow’s labor force, she says, programmers who can turn into business analysts are going to be very successful because both their skill sets will play pivotal roles moving forward. She adds, “IT workers today, particularly those working in the programming space, need to develop project-management skills, program-management skills, and vendor-management skills."

Many IT professionals have already heard the call. According to the InfoWorld 2005 Compensation Survey, 19 percent of senior managers reported having an MBA, an increase of 6 percent over 2004 levels. “You’re not seeing anyone going back to school to learn how to code,” Symphony’s Brooks says.

Managing Third Parties
Knowing how to manage delivery from outsourcing firms and contractors will also be valuable in the years ahead, a role that “will gain ground, demanding strengths in … managing geographically distributed parties,” according to a recent Gartner report.

Technical leads — professionals who know so much about the technology that they’re able to manage an outsourcer or dictate to them what an architecture should look like — are crucial, says Forrester’s Moore. They should know how to manage the vendor better so they get better delivery.