Lets look at the necessary future of IT education. This is a fundamental problem, and it exists in every IT shop in every business in every country. Now what do we, as CIOs, CTOs, IT directors/managers, and business owners, what can we do to make sure we don’t slip further into obscurity.

First, we must put the expectation of “professional” back into the job descriptions of those people we call IT pros. “Professional” should mean the same thing for IT as it means for any other credentialed profession, whether medicine, law, education, architecture, or finance. Professionals are held to a certain standard of skill and behavior including holding them for liability. We dont trust doctors that don’t know their patients well, same with lawyers who cannot win cases, or engineers who design faulty bridges just to name a few.

Almost every profession requires its members to engage in continuing education. Not IT. Furthermore, it’s one of the few professions that isn’t licensed by the government. Now, I’m no fan of government regulation, but its licensing of other professionals allows us to implicitly take them at their word. Personally, I’d like to keep the IT profession unlicensed, but in order to do that, we’re going to have to police ourselves.

Second, we must give IT pros the opportunity to develop their own skills and careers. We should empower them to spend time and even reimburse them for developing necessary skills outside their jobs. Inspite of my busy schedule I attempt to go for atleast one training every year lasting about a week and also stay connected with our local chapter of project management learning newer trends and keeping abreast with what is happening around me. I volunteer on their board, participate actively in their annual symposium etc.

Third and most important, we must develop our people’s critical thinking skills — again, so that they can recognize a problem, identify and analyze the symptoms, and develop and implement the appropriate solution.

Fourth keeping them ahead of the learning curve, constantly look for avenues to make sure they are in touch with today’s market place needs. Outdated skills are not going to help. Untrained resources are a drain on your productivity.

With major innovations taking place the IT systems will get ever more complex, requiring IT pros to have advanced technical, business, and analytical skills. As technology leaders we have to play a greater role to provide them with the opportunity and resources to develop those skills. Our business survival depends upon it.