IT Career Routes

Transcription

1 IT Career Routes Discussion Materials Prepared for the CRA IT Dean s Group Meeting 24 February 2004 Prepared by: Dr. Steven Miller, Dean, SMU SIS Practice Professor of Information Systems 1

2 Major Types of IT Job Roles 2

3 Major Types of IT Job Roles 3

4 Major types of IT job roles: More detailed view IT job roles heavily dependant on the classical computer science type of education IT job roles heavily dependant on IT, IS and hybrid ITbusiness types of education 4

5 Breakout of work in the service provider sector and business user sector Source: See 5

6 Ways in which business user organizations across all industry sectors are changing their roles and efforts across the lifecycle phases Phase # Phase Name Trends across business user organizations Trends across specialized IT service providers 0 Enterprise level business & architecture definition Maintaining strong ownership. Consulting support. 1 Project level concept design & demonstration Maintaining strong ownership. Consulting support. 2 Technical design, construction & deployment Moving to more outsourcing; Verification, results management. Increasing responsibilities for execution. 3 End-user deployment Maintaining strong ownership. Consulting support. 4 Post-deployment service delivery & support Moving to more outsourcing; Verification, results management. Source: See Increasing responsibilities for execution. 6

7 Outsourcing is not the only big issue in the world of business users and service providers 1. Out-tasking, outsourcing AND 2. Required business accountability and ownership Importance of knowing domain-based business processes and practices linkage of business process/performance needs with design choices and deployment results Cost, value and risk based business case analysis for business owners linkage of architecture and design with business process and LOB improvement targets 3. Reluctance to build from scratch whenever possible Increasing solution assembly and integration using COTS packages, middleware frameworks & tools, available components (commercial, open source), component frameworks, and evolutionary design/build methods 4. Overarching meta requirements Increasing integration needs (inter-firm, intra-firm) Higher degrees of security AND trust needs Non-functionals versus cost, value, risk and time considerations 5. Reluctance to lock-in options for future changes Hedging against Vendor lock-in, including outsourcing vendor; Hedge against requirements lock-in Open architectures, standards-based designs, modular implementations, evolutionary builds 7

8 Strategy for research and education concentrations at SMU s School of Information Systems 8

9 SIS core curriculum for BSc (IS Management) Yr 1 Term 1 Seminar for ISM Majors IS Design Foundations E-learning supplement Yr 1 Term 2 Object Oriented Systems Data Management Foundation Courses Yr 2 Term 1 Software Engineering Networking Yr 2 Term 2 Yr 3 Term 1 Yr 3 Term 2 Yr 4 Term 1 & 2 At least one 10 week internship: PLUS 2 week volunteer service Enterprise Systems and Integration Depth Elective 1: IT in sector/business context Depth Elective 2: IT in sector/business context Architectural Analysis Information Security and Trust Application Project 1: Industry or non-profit Applicatin Project 2: Industry or non-profit Advanced Topic Courses Integrated Learning Experiences 9

10 Job roles and career ladders for BSc (IS Management) graduates Business focus (with IS background) 9. User organization business executives; Project sponsors 8. (**) User organization business staff (process experts, function experts, managers) Combined Business-IS focus 7. Project director; Programme director 6. (**) Project P leader; Project manager 5. (**) Business solution architecta rchitect; ; Information architect; enterprise architect; e-business e solution consultant 4. (**) Business analyst; Systems/Solutions analyst 3. InfoComm managers and executives (CIO and direct management reports) 2. (*) Technical solution architect/it architect; Lead designer; 1. Programmer; Developer; IT specialist/engineer IT/IS focus (with business background) (**) (*) JC or Poly target roles Poly target roles 10

11 5a. Solution Designer/ Architect 1. Project Manager 2. End User/Organization Change Consultant 3a. Industry Domain Consultant 4a. Business/System Analyst 5b. Solution Designer/ Architect 4b. Business/System Analyst 3b. Industry Domain Consultant Job roles adapted from the Business Week, Software: Will Outsourcing Hurt America s Supremacy article (March 2004, pgs 84 95). 6. SW Engineer/Designer 7. Programmer/Developer Code & Component Level 8a. Researcher- Software Level Application & Solution Level 8b. Researcher- Solutions Level Business & Business Organizational Process & User Value Level Level 8c. Researcher- Mgt. Level 8c. Researcher- Mgt. Level Industry, Economy & Society Level 8d. Researcher- Economy & Policy Level The Business Week article (pg 86) highlighted six job categories in the software pyramid, and ordered the pyramid by salary. We have added two categories (#2 and #6) organized the placement of job categories by level of analysis. 11

12 A standard industry view of IT profession roles IT job roles. Categories taken from the Year 2002 Annual Singapore IT Salary Survey compiled by IT Managers Association and Nanyang Technological University Business School, Singapore. Systems Development Job Roles Applications development manager Applications maintenance manager Project director Project manager Project leader/business analyst/consultant/architect Systems analyst/software engineer Programmer analyst Web designer/artist Quality Assurance analyst Infrastructure Job Roles Director of Infrastructure IT architect/infrastructure planner or designer Data centre manager Database administrator Network/Telecom manager Network/Telecom specialist IT security specialist IT service desk manager IT support officer Systems administrators/engineers Systems programmers Webmaster/Internet administrator Computer operator 12