The Changing Role of the IT pros
Our friends at TechServe Alliance recently put out a good article on the changing trends in IT.
CIOs and high-level IT executives are seeing a dramatic change in their company roles. According to a new research study, conducted jointly by the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium and SeachCIO.com, it was found that the change in CIOs' and IT professionals jobs and responsibilities is "not just evolutionary change, it’s revolutionary."
One of the changes that IT executives are experiencing is the shifting away from being managers of day-to-day IT operations to becoming true business partners. IT now is being invited to "do more to promote alignment between business goals and IT programs and priorities."
The study reports 56 percent of IT executives and 48 percent of IT managers said they were now contributing more to business strategy than in 2010. In contrast, only 27 percent of IT executives and 45 percent of IT managers said they were spending more time "overseeing IT operations.
As a manifestation of the changing roles and tasks required of them, IT executives and managers are being called upon to develop new skills. In a list of skills needed for their new roles, 58 percent of IT executives and 54 percent of IT managers ranked compliance/security highest as the skills needed to “better fulfill” their roles.
Both IT executives and IT managers participating in the survey ranked five skills sets similar in importance following compliance/security: people skills, business management expertise, technical and financial. Legal skills were considered the least important.
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