| The next question to ask is, "How did the IT industry get into this situation?" More importantly if this question can be answered, what strategies need to be put in place to prevent it happening again? The answer to the first question is complex and seated in many factors, none of which are individually responsible for the problem. -
Growth of the economy— With the rapid growth of Western-based economies in the last five years, there has been an explosion in the need for new corporate computer systems. The Internet has been an engine of growth requiring new IT skills that have not been readily available. The demand for Internet systems was very strong for several years, 1999–2001 particularly. Corporations were scrambling to install Web-based systems to keep up with competitors. -
IT dependency— Senior corporate management now acknowledge, albeit reluctantly, that there is a strong dependence on IT departments for success. No corporation—large, medium, or small—can effectively compete in the global marketplace without substantial modern computer systems. -
The education gap— Universities and educational establishments have been slow to recognize that there is a gap in the need for qualified IT staff. IT curriculums based on modern technology were not readily available when needed. Most universities were slow to adopt the Internet as a medium for education and delivery of distance learning. A notable exception to this observation is the University of Phoenix, which was an early innovative leader in online learning. Because trained IT staff was not readily available, corporations looked to other nations, such as India, to fill the gap. However, there is another side to this issue. Many corporations do not promote IT awareness, do not contribute time, resources, staff, or equipment to schools and college communities. They do not help academic institutions strengthen their curriculums and do not create learning environments appropriate to new graduates. Subsequently, they have paid the price of IT shortages. Education must be a partnership to be successful. -
IT retention practices— CIOs and other senior IT managers have paid too little attention to good retention practices, which has resulted in a flight of IT staff. Clearly, the need to address IT salaries and benefits, and the IT environment is now recognized outside the IS organization. -
Rapid changes in IT technology— The technology of the IT industry is very cyclical. Languages, systems, and methodologies become fashionable very quickly, only to be replaced with the next silver bullet after a few years or less. We briefly touched on this subject in Chapter 1. Over the last twenty years there have been a number of technology cycles. From Fourth Generation Languages (4GLs) in the early 1980s to the Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) products of the later part of that decade, technology has continued to change. In the early 1990s client/server technology was very much in vogue, with large database technology such as IBM's DB2, and Oracle. After that came the Internet from the middle of 1995 onward, with object-oriented and Java-related languages, C++, and Web-based systems. Each cycle requires staff to be fully trained, and frequently corporations are scrambling to find staff to fit the technology. It is a continuous game of trying to catch the hare. -
Complexity— As the number of installed custom-designed applications, software systems, and packages has grown in many corporations, the need for all-embracing architectures and communications networks to support them has also grown. This means that large numbers of highly skilled systems programmers, architects, and database specialists are needed to make sure the systems are running smoothly. As we noted in Chapter 2, most installations are required to maintain systems that have tens of millions of lines of code. This is a significant undertaking, and it provides the stability that must be present for critical applications to run without problems. It is important to note that no one of the above issues is the culprit for the IT staff shortages. But collectively, they represent the scenario that has led us to this point. |
