Marx and the Corporations: Chapter 5 - The Skills

As a logical follow-up to our last chapter about people, let's start a discussion about skills in the IT industry today. The world economy is changing at a very high speed as technology does. Industries like telco, automotive, banking, pharma, travel and transportation, just to name a few, are all very different from what we were used to twenty years ago. IT Industry has to follow the changes, and in many cases, it is, in fact, the driver of change. Think of Cloud adoption, Mobile apps, Industry-specific platforms, Blockchain technology, Microservices, Automation, AI, or the new trend of low-code & no-code platforms and applications.

Twenty years ago, the primary IT skills were pretty much differentiated between infrastructure specialists, including network, application developers, testers, security and access control experts, ERP, CRM or SRM consultants and developers, Business Intelligence specialists, Project managers and PMOs. Nowadays, we have a much more complex picture. The first and most significant impact comes from Cloud Computing and Cloud adoption, which practically intersects almost all the other skills on the list. Very similar Cybersecurity should cover every task performed by the IT people. Then we have a set of new skills based on some old ones, starting with Virtualization as an adder to the infrastructure specialist skill, Networking expanded with the wireless technology skill, Business Intelligence skill enhanced to Data Analytics and Data Science expertise, for both engineers and architects, Automation skills also improved testing while most of the applications must run on Mobile devices and are written in such a way.

A few skills have developed nicely regarding programming and are in high demand today. Just to mention a few, like Python, C#, and Java. Java adapted to the market needs and became more complex with the so-called full stack Java developer skill encompassing both Front-end and Back-end coding.

Last but not least, the IT Service Management developed, adding a more muscular ITIL arm. There are also a few skills currently in high demand but were only known a little over twenty years ago, such as the Internet of Things, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning. Last but not least, with the DevOps practices, Agile method, and broad introduction of Automation, the entire software development story has changed dramatically, adding new niche skills to the market.

Generally speaking, companies and practitioners working for them have a similar goal: to stay relevant for the clients and on the market. While corporations do that through hiring hot skills, training, and setting targets for certified people within a particular technology or product, people need to follow the company strategy. It doesn't necessarily mean they are happy with what the company asks them to learn and certify for. If a particular interest doesn't match the company's strategy, one needs to follow that interest using spare time. But this is a minor issue. The biggest problem is related to the daily activity of the practitioners once they get the knowledge and the certifications for a particular skill. Things are forgotten if not used in few months or so. In giant corporations, there is always a high level of frustration amongst practitioners regarding the daily tasks that do not match their newest and hottest skills. Which, by the way, were required by the corporation itself in many cases.

This disruption is caused by inaccurate planning and the failure to communicate with people in the field. A lot of money is spent with no benefit for the company, and a lot of time is wasted as people refuse to acknowledge reality at the highest levels of the organization. Most of the time, they demand very high numbers based on a too-optimistic view. In their defend, managers are often pushed to make such decisions to prove their commitment to the market, a specific business partner, or a set of clients. But a reality check based upon a bottom-up approach must be continuously performed to avoid first and more critical, annoying people with too many courses and certifications.

A second cause of people's frustration is the need for relief regarding productive activity. People are asked to perform many hours of training and take complex certifications. Still, their targets in terms of profitability and utilization stay at the same level as in normal circumstances. This significantly impacts the personal life of the people with long evenings, with Saturdays and Sundays work. Better planning and clear prioritization will help the corporation to reach its own goals in terms of skills and keep the people at a decent training and certifications workload.

One last comment: different corporate verticals have their own separate goals, but they all want the same thing from the people on the ground: their time. Corporate verticals should work together and define what is really important for the organization and the people. Surveys show that in many companies, there is chaos when it comes to training and certification targets, most of the time without any reason, as only a tiny percentage of the trained and certified people use what they just learned in an acceptable period. This fact alone discourages IT people from advancing their careers, preferring Netflix to a course. ?

Next week a new chapter:? 6. The Bureaucracy.