New Research Shows Most Desired IT Skills Worldwide

New research from CompTIA shows the top 10 skills that are desired among IT professionals. The study surveyed more than 3,500 IT professionals from around the world. For established countries like the United States, security was by far the most important skill requested, and the skill most likely to be lacking.

Another important category for U.S.-based companies is soft skills, such as customer service, project management, communication and administration. While 52 percent considered these important skills, only 41 percent said their employees were proficient at these skills.

No. 1: Security/Firewall/Data Privacy
74% of respondents deem security/firewall/data privacy skills to be most important.

57% of respondents report that staff is proficient in these skills.

No. 2: General Networking/Network Infrastructure
66% of respondents deem general networking/network infrastructure skills most important.

59% of respondents report that staff is proficient in these skills.

No. 3: Operating System
66% of respondents deem operating system skills (Linux, Windows XP, Vista and so on) most important.

65% of respondents report that staff is proficient in these skills.

No. 4: Hardware
57% of respondents deem hardware skills/knowledge (printers, PCs and so on) most important.

60% of respondents report that staff is proficient in these skills.

No. 5: Nonspecific Server Technology
57% of respondents deem skills in nonspecific server technology (including database, storage, maintenance and administration) most important.

49% of respondents report that staff is proficient in these skills.

No. 6: Soft Skills
56% of respondents deem soft skills (such as customer service, sales, project management and communication) most important.

45% of respondents report that staff is proficient in these skills.

No. 7: Application Level
54% of respondents deem application-level skills (such as architecture, design, development, programming and integration) most important.

47% of respondents report that staff is proficient in these skills.

No. 8: Specific Programming Languages
40% of respondents deem skills in specific programming languages most important.

40% of respondents report that staff is proficient in these skills.

No. 9: Web-Based Technologies
40% of respondents deem Web-based technologies (such as Web 2.0, service-oriented architecture, software as a service, rich Internet applications and AJAX) most important.

34% of respondents report that staff is proficient in these skill

No. 10: RF Mobile/Wireless
27% of respondents deem RF (radio frequency) mobile/wireless skills most important.

26% of respondents report that staff is proficient in these skills

Soft Skills for CIOs and Aspiring CIOs: Four Ways to Boost Your Emotional Intelligence

June 25, 2007 — CIO — Emotional intelligence and "soft" skills are musts for today's CIOs and other IT workers. From entry-level coders to those in the C-suite, few people have the luxury of a lone wolf mentality. Research shows it's your soft skills and emotional intelligence (EI) that determines everything from whether you get promoted to how happy you are at work. Luckily, with knowledge, awareness and practice, you can boost your EI.

CIOs Are Looking for Soft Skills

In a new survey by technology recruiters Robert Half, they poled 1,400 CIOs. CIOs were asked, “In which of the following areas do you think your IT staff could most use improvement?”

• Technical abilities............................................................ 25%
• Project management skills.................................................. 23%
• Verbal and written communication abilities............................... 15%
• Organizational skills.......................................................... 14%
• Interpersonal skills............................................................ 12%
• None/no improvements needed.............................................. 3%
• Other/don't know.............................................................. 8%
  

While “technical abilities” were ranked first as a single classification, the combination of verbal and written abilities, organizational skills, and interpersonal skills, in other words those abilities that are typically thought of as “soft skills,” accounted for 41% of the areas that need improvement.

“Technology changes rapidly, making it crucial for IT staff to constantly learn new skills to keep pace with industry advancements,” said Katherine Spencer Lee, executive director of Robert Half Technology. “While it’s ultimately up to the individual to keep his or her technical abilities current, the best employers invest in ongoing professional development for employees at all levels.” Lee continued, “Professional development programs also can aid a company’s recruitment and retention efforts. In today’s competitive IT hiring market, employees want to work for firms that encourage them to build new skills and assume more challenging responsibilities.”

We all know that technical professionals need solid technical skills, and most organizations budget for training programs that help technical pros keep pace with industry advancement. However, in order to take advantage of the technical skills, CIOs are beginning to recognize that they need to upgrade the soft skills of their teams as well.

Randy Bancino

Profitable Growth Partners, LLC.

How Important are Soft Skills?

According to a recent study by Robert Half:

The Most Valuable Qualifications for Technical Professionals
· 43% Industry specific knowledge
· 32% Soft Skills
· 15% Certification in Relevant Technology
· 8% IT Related undergrad degree
· 1% MBA
· 1% Don’t Know

The Most Important soft skills for Technical Professionals
· 37% Interpersonal Skills
· 20% Written or verbal communication
· 17% Ability to work under pressure
· 11% Overall business acumen
· 7% Professional demeanor
· 8% Other/Don’t Know

Who invests in Soft Skills Training for Technical People?
· 53 % of all companies surveyed
· 62% of companies with more than 1000 employees
· 70% of business services firms

Increasingly, companies are improving the productivity of individual technical staff, increasing the project success rates for the technical team, and improving the bottom line of their companies by paying attention to the soft skills of their technical teams. While many believe that they MUST invest in continuing to develop the technical skills of their teams, the REAL ROI comes from leveraging those technical skills with upgrades to soft skills such as communication, emotional intelligence, teamwork, and leadership.

Do you believe it? How have you improved the service levels of your technical team? We invite you to comment, and share your experience and thoughts with other technical leaders...

Randy Bancino

Profitable Growth Partners, LLC.

Profitable Growth Partners Published in Techniques Magazine

By Randy Bancino and Claire Zevalkink
In many technical professions the complete focus of education and training is on technical topics either directly or indirectly related to the technical discipline. Students are generally required to master various mathematics skills, science skills, and detailed technical skills directly related to the specific discipline they are planning to enter. However, increasingly technical professionals in various disciplines such as information technology, engineering, research and development, etc. are required to broaden their skill sets to master what have traditionally been called “soft skills.” Soft skills, as defined by Wikipedia, are “the cluster of personality traits, social graces, facility with language, personal habits, friendliness, and optimism that mark people to varying degrees. Soft skills complement hard skills, which are the technical requirements of a job.”
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Words That Work

“Communication” is one of the central themes in both our Profitable Growth Partners Boot Camp for Managers™ program and our Soft Skills for Hard Core Technical Professionals™ series. Recently I was reading an excellent book (there are many) on the subject. Words That Work, by Dr. Frank Luntz provides an insightful look into the way we use words. The book contains excellent stories about how changing the words we use can re-frame an entire conversation, and he also provides practical tips on how to use the right words to make your point clearly and effectively.

Dr. Luntz also provides the “10 rules of successful communication:”

1. Simplicity: Use small words. Avoid words that might force someone to reach for the dictionary, because most Americans won’t.

2. Brevity: Use short sentences. Be brief as possible. Never us a sentence when a phrase will do.

3. Credibility Is as Important as Philosophy. People have to believe it to buy it. If your words lack sincerity or if they contradict accepted facts, circumstances or perceptions, they will lack impact.

4. Consistency Matters. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.

5. Novelty: Offer something new. Words that work often involve a new definition of an old idea.

6. Sound and Texture Matter. A string of words that have the same first letter, the same sound or the same syllabic cadence is more memorable than a random collection of sounds.

7. Speak Aspirationally. The key to successful aspirational language is to personalize and humanize the message to trigger an emotional remembrance.

8. Visualize. Paint a vivid picture.

9. Ask a Question. A statement put in the form of a rhetorical question can have much greater impact than a plain assertion.

10. Provide Context and Explain Relevance. You have to give people the “why” of a message before you tell them the “therefore” and the “so what.”

Often the book comes from the advertising or political perspective, but there are great insights for all of us who have to communication, and persuade, and inspire.

Did you miss your Blackberry?

Well, it appears we all survived last week’s Blackberry outage. I only found it a minor inconvenience as I was trying to set up a last minute breakfast meeting late in the evening of the outage. But I resorted to the good “old fashioned” cell phone to get it done. The outage certainly got a lot of press last week. As a matter of fact, USA Today called me the morning after the outage and interviewed me for an article they were doing (BlackBerry outage exposes RIM's 'soft underbelly'.)

The article called me a “self described Blackberry Addict” though I certainly don’t recall describing myself that way. Anyway, the whole flap got me to thinking about the divide between people who feel the need to stay in constant contact, and those who don’t. There appears to be some animosity between the two groups. I have already admitted (as reported last week in USA Today) that I am a member of the staying connected group. However, even though I stay pretty much connected, I have never taken a call or answered an E-Mail during dinner, or during church, or in the middle of a conversation. I check my messages every now and then just to keep on top of what’s going on with my business associates, clients, and friends.

I suspect part of the animosity aimed directly at the perpetually connected comes from a pattern of semi-rude behavior. I bet it comes from spouses, significant others, friends, and family who have been interrupted mid-sentence by a ringing cell phone, or a newly arrived instant message, and I certainly can’t say that I blame them,

So as a member of the perpetually connected contingent (sometimes known as the “Crackberry Addicts”) I would like to rally my compatriots to IM politely, to E-Mail appropriately, and talk tactfully on your cells. It is possible to stay connected to your network AND stay connected to the people in the room with you….

Randy Bancino
Profitable Growth Partners, LLC.

IT Priorities - 2007

I was recently catching up on some reading, and was able to spend some time reviewing the results of CIO Insight’s annual survey of CIOs and their priorities. One of the things I found most interesting was the section where they asked CIOs “What are your IT organization’s three most important management priorities for 2007?” It wasn’t even a horse race. The top three priorities came through loud and clear:

(1) Improving alignment with business objectives
(2) Improving the performance and capabilities of IT management and staff
(3) Reducing IT costs

If you would have asked me same question during most of my career in IT management, I would likely have answered exactly the same. Well, maybe during 1998/1999 I might have added “recruiting staff with web skills.” But what I came to learn over all those years is that as much as I sought out better alignment of IT with the business, it was actually by investing in the skills of our staff that we were able to move the needle on alignment. Alignment is a noble goal, but until IT staff are more able to relate to, and interact with their general business counterparts, real alignment will continue to be difficult to attain. Oddly enough, when organizations begin to invest in the non-technical skills of their teams, they not only achieve better business alignment, but costs can actually be driven down as projects are delivered more effectively. So priority #2 from the list can often be the lynch pin that drives and delivers priorities #1 and #3.

Randy Bancino

Profitable Growth Partners, LLC.

How are Your Soft Skills?

Want to have a little fun? My daughter sent me a link the other day to a little test posted on the Monster.com web site. It is a self assessment of your soft skills. If you want to give it a try, click here.

Since we launched our Soft Skills for Hard Core Technical Professionals series, the response has been overwhelming. The genesis of the idea came a number of years ago when I was leading IT for a large company, and we found ourselves working more closely with a number of people from disciplines such as Marketing, Communications, etc. The VP of Marketing, now a Partner with our firm, and I started talking about the difficulties our teams were having in communicating and working as a team.

As we actively worked with our teams to improve their soft skills, we found the teams working more effectively together, and the solutions being delivered were better than ever. For talented professionals, especially in the technical fields, soft skills can make all the difference. So, how are your soft skills?

Randy Bancino

Profitable Growth Partners, LLC.

A Formula to Measure Business Agility

A post from the CIO Magazine Blog with a comment from Profitable Growth Partners, Managing Partner, Randy Bancino:

By Michael Hugos

March 12, 2007

This weekend I spent an afternoon sitting in a coffee house in my downtown Chicago neighborhood pondering what it means to be agile and how to measure it. The place was busy but I got lucky and snagged the cushy armchair next to the plate glass window in front that looks out on the sidewalk and the apartment building across the street. Watching the other patrons, looking at the people who pass by, and enjoying that burst of mental energy induced by a fine café au lait is often a good way to get inspired and be creative.
I started with the definition of agility in business as: the ability to consistently earn profits that are 2 – 4% (and sometimes more) higher than the market average. Agility enables companies to earn an additional 2 – 4 % because they can make a hundred small adjustments every day to reduce operating costs and increase revenues. And sometimes agility enables you to earn even more by sensing and responding quickly to opportunities for new products or services, that for a while, have terrific profit margins.
I decided to use this results oriented definition of agility instead of attempting to describe what agility is because we have a lot yet to discover about being agile (agility “best practices” as they say) so any description I offer now will only change later. Also, I figured that unless agility actually delivers additional profits then why go to all the trouble of being agile in the first place?
There is one caveat to this definition of agility though - true agility is self-sustaining, not self-consuming. By this I mean companies can always get a short-term boost to profit margins by cutting headcount, reducing customer service, squeezing suppliers for lower prices, and deferring repairs and improvements to infrastructure. But that is self-consuming, like spending down your bank account. It’s not agile because it isn’t sustainable; it does not create or renew; it only uses up.
So if business agility is the ability to consistently earn an additional 2-4% (and sometimes more) then what is the combination of factors that delivers this delightful state of affaires? At this point I ordered another café au lait. And as I sipped that hot, foamy, milky coffee, I looked out the plate glass window and saw a woman walking by with two big dogs; the dogs were so happy to be outside they pulled at their leashes and wanted to charge off down the street. She worked hard to keep them out of trouble.
Then I eavesdropped on a conversation going on at the table next to me. A couple of college students were discussing an upcoming organic chemistry test; one student was showing the other how to read a formula and draw out the molecular structure implied by the formula. Good coffee houses serve up a stimulating mix of impressions like this to go along with their fine fare and the resulting blend is often the source of interesting ideas.
Here’s the idea that emerged from the blend of that second café-au-lait and the impressions I just described. First of all, I think agility happens when we see something we want and when we are highly motivated to go after it. But we can’t just go charging off down the street; we have to focus on what’s important and act effectively. Secondly, I think there’s a formula to measure agility and it goes like this:
Business Agility = (Visibility + Motivation) x Training
What this means is that companies will consistently earn an additional 2-4% profit if their people can clearly see what’s going on in their area of operation and if they have the motivation to respond appropriately. The effect of this visibility and motivation will be multiplied and magnified by the training people get. The better people are trained, the greater the results will be.
This formula identifies the main factors that promote agility and it shows how they interact with each other to produce different levels of agility. It points out what factors to measure when we’re trying to assess the level of business agility possessed by a company. Visibility can be measured by the technology and procedures a company uses to collect, store, disseminate and display information. Motivation can be measured by the incentives and authority people are given to make decisions and act to achieve company objectives. Training builds peoples’ skills for using visibility, for making good decisions, and acting effectively to achieve objectives. So training can be measured as well.
Wow. Now we can start to discuss agility best practices using a common and measurable framework to compare one practice to another (did I leave out something important?). This formula is either a very useful insight or it's the result of too much caffeine.

Training as a Multiplier in Business Agility

Business Agility = (Visibility + Motivation) x Training
This is truly an interesting formula and hypothesis. I am especially interested in training as the multiplier. Considering that training is often the first expense to be cut, and least often measured productivity enhancer, this would suggest that most companies are missing out on what may be the biggest factor in “business agility.” I would also point out that training needs to be aligned with the strategic drivers in the business. As technical professionals we often get so caught up in training for the next new technology, that we neglect the equally important soft skills that can be used to leverage our technical skills in ways that harness synergy to deliver optimal solutions.

Randy Bancino

Profitable Growth Partners, LLC.

PROFITABLE GROWTH PARTNERS ANNOUNCES THE NATIONAL LAUNCH OF THE SOFT SKILLS FOR HARD CORE TECHNICAL PROFESSIONALS SERIES

Grand Rapids, MI (PRWeb), MARCH 12, 2007: Profitable Growth Partners, LLC., a Grand Rapids-based business strategy and training firm, announced the national launch of its highly acclaimed Soft Skills for Hard Core Technical Professionals Series. The training series, which is intended for technical professions in such fields as information technology, engineering, research, etc., strengthens the skill-set of professionals in areas such as communication, interpersonal relationships, customer focus, leadership, and teamwork.

“Serving as the Chief Information Officer for a large global company, and then later as the V.P. of Sales and Marketing for a national firm, I was able to see first hand how these skills contributed to successful projects, and successful implementations of technology,” said Randy Bancino, Managing Partner with Profitable Growth Partners, LLC. “Rarely did projects fail because the technology didn’t work; because the staff didn’t understand the technology; or because we hired the wrong consultants. A lack of soft skills was almost always the culprit.”

Profitable Growth Partners worked with the Center for Organizational Design and other top organizations to put together a comprehensive program that measurably improves the skill sets of today’s technical professional. The end result is a team that implements more successful projects, improves customer focus, and elevates their contribution to the success of the organization.

About Profitable Growth Partners, LLC.
Profitable Growth Partners, LLC. works directly with the leadership of companies and organizations to help them harness their potential to accelerate growth and enhance profitability. Through their exclusive Business Acceleration Process and their Top Gun for Business People TM series, the experienced business growth experts with Profitable Growth Partners deliver improvements to a business’s strategy, processes, structure, systems, and culture, resulting in measurable improvements in both the top line and bottom line.