By Andy McCue, 27 June 2007 08:00
NEWS
Poor communication, leadership and project management skills among IT staff are hindering change management and business transformation programmes.
Almost three-quarters (73 per cent) of CIOs and IT managers admit the progress of change management programmes in their organisations is impeded by a lack of skills in their own IT departments.
The survey of 135 members of CIO Connect cited selling the benefits of a proposed change programme and communicating the nature of project changes to stakeholders as two of the key challenges for IT departments.
Birmingham City Council is one organisation in the middle of a massive change programme. Its £250m Service Birmingham joint venture between the council and outsourcing company Capita aims to save the city £1bn over the next 10 years.
Glyn Evans, Birmingham City Council CIO, said the authority went down the joint venture route to gain access to skills and resources it didn't have in-house.
He told silicon.com: "If you are going to do this scale of change you need greater capacity and new skills. Some of those are coming from my IT staff and some from outside."
Evans said there is still a role in the IT department for people who just want to work with technology but said more business skills and awareness is needed.
He said: "It is around the softer people skills - persuasion, pushing a vision, leadership - to get the business to make better use of the technology. One of the key things is the ability to challenge business managers without causing offence."
Is there a skills shortage?
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Birmingham City Council is currently putting some of its systems support staff through a formal skills audit to identify what skills they have and what sort of training is needed.
Just over half (51 per cent) of the CIO Connect survey respondents said they are planning to increase training investment over the next year to ensure IT staff can contribute more to change management programmes.
Nick Kirkland, MD of CIO Connect, said: "This is a very honest and enlightened admission by our members that IT has a fundamental role to play in the evolution of businesses and there is more to be done. Specialised training is the way forward."
Comments
There are 9 comments. Join the discussion
1. Simon Beaumont
Perhaps they should take a long hard look at their managers rather than beating on the support staff... The problem is poor management and the empire building culture of the fat middle not the skills and commitment of the folks on the coal face. It's time for a revolution! Enough of this crap!
2. Karen Challinor
on the other hand leaders and communicators lack technical skills and don't seem desperately interested in acquiring any
if the managers understood the problem they wouldn't ask the technical staff to do the impossible
but there seems to be a prevalent attitude of "shouting motivates staff and gets the job done" technical skills are generally despised by senior management
best manager I ever worked with never raised his voice, and started as a programmer, sadly there aren't many like that
3. Roger Huffadine
Why oh why are these 'bosses' too dim to see that you don't want techies doing the change management. Too often a techie is obliged to become a manager in order to earn more. Enough of this foolishness - when I ran a software company the manager of the software development department usually earned less than some of the techies, because I refused to promote excellent techies and compromise the business. Once managers understand that different roles attract different salaries and that excellent techies get excellent salaries then there is no problem. If an excellent 'change manager' wants the job at several £1000 less than some techies then they will apply for the post and do a great job. Stop thinking like Victorians and get up to date.
4. Radical Meldrew
Recognising IT as an essential business process is good. Unfortunately, when it comes to IT management, it all goes down hill from there in bucket-loads of hype.
Bad experiences of innovative management decisions which will, apparently, lead to a better cohesive IT strategy, enhanced customer experience etc, etc…are commonplace. The first indication is a presentation announcement by the consultants on behalf of management. These are usually entitled “A new tomorrow” or something equally, er, imaginative….Of course there is the inevitable sweetener of drinks & munchies provided afterwards, the managers always stay behind just long enough to look smug and pledge their wholehearted support before leaving quickly with a “tuck in, there’s plenty there”. – I suspect that “Leg it whist their mouths are full and they can’t ask awkward questions” is nearer the real reason for that hasty retreat.
5. Radical Meldrew
I genuinely believe that whilst most of IT managers are generally capable, they tend to be non-technical, so they see the use of external consultants to restructure the company to their perceived requirements as an absolute necessity. The consultants are not shy to capitalise on this management weakness and fully to take control of all the change in progress meetings and agendas on the basis that “None of this is new to us, we’ve done it successfully before”.
Strangely, when it happens, the company metamorphosis is nearly always achieved with minimal input from those who will be directly affected. This is not so strange when you realise that the consultants, who usually drive this stage through, already have a company ‘model’ in the bag (may even be the same one they prepared earlier for another client). This alone is why they focus mainly on selling the idea to management and gloss over anything or anybody that may necessitate changes to their pre-conceived plan. I’m sure this may sound very, very familiar to many of you from various companies (past and present) but I am generalising, honest!
6. Radical Meldrew
My main experience of management ‘thinking’ ends with a cobbled stream of disparate systems designed by external consultants (they actually said "streamlined process") which allow senior management an excellent overview of the various business functions but leaves their underlings to deal with an unwieldy, labour-intensive system which is primarily designed to do nothing more than gather ‘vital’ information for senior management.
It amuses me to see this ‘vital’ information in action: Oh how they love to wave those flow charts and meaningless stats at endless meetings, I think they actually value this aspect more than dealing with humdrum issues, like staff! I can easily imagine two managers talking about their staff between meetings: “They do nothing but complain these days; maybe we ought to get some consultants in to raise company morale” Doh!
7. Robert McCormac
It's no wonder that project management skills are lacking in IT organizations, because the companies don't want to pay for those skills!
I am a highly experienced contract PM both in terms of credentials and experience, and the contract market for people with PM skills has been terrible for the last year. The rates are an absolute joke ranging in most cases from $25 - $45/hour. The standard tag line in the job ads is "5 years experience" but when you read everything required by the position and the qualifications desire they are usually looking for someone with 15 - 20 years experience. However, they only want to pay for someone at a junior level.
If companies wants good PM skills they had better start considering paying a fair rate for the experience.
8. anonymous
So curious - if you have certs, MS in Information Assurance, are they stating that training in business areas is more practical to streghten the cross over between techincal and business? Is there any ideas of any online MBA programs that one may recommend to help bridge this gap or training for that matter?
Thanks,
Chris
9. Jim Welch
These communication and motivation skills are the same ones that graduates as a whole tend to lack currently and I believe the principal cause is the way they are being taught various subjects, which in turn is driven by the way that exam results are measured at school and at uni. The emphasis on marks for course work rather than weighting marks towards reasoned thinking in formal examinations is very short-sighted.
And - sadly - there's no change in sight.