• VMware System Engineers,...
• Project Manager (S15CM0052)...
• IT and Projects Manager -...
• Information Risk Analyst / ...
• C#ASP.NET Developers

Fixing the flaws in ICT

Janet England, InfoWorld

18/08/2006 12:09:15

The ICT industry in Australia has grown from embryonic in the 20th century to bouncing baby in the 21st.

In the absence of good parents from either government or industry to help it grow into a well-mannered and well-rounded adult, the Australian Computer Society (ACS) and its cross-industry working group have stepped up to deliver a framework for the continued evolution of ICT in Australia.

Over the last few months the ACS, with support from the ICT Industry Workgroup and Queensland Government, has sponsored a series of focus groups, titled "Technologists in the Public Interest" (TIPI). The workshops thrashed out the issues troubling the IT industry and perceived as stunting its growth both in Australia and overseas.

A strong brand, a standardised framework for education and qualification, a code of conduct and a governance structure have all been identified as essential to the future maturity of an industry desperately in need of a positive professional image and status.

ACS Queensland Chair Mark Lloyd is spearheading the TIPI project and says the ICT Industry is pervasive in the lives of all Australians and far too important to the economic well-being of the nation for it to continue to grow in an ad hoc manner.

"ICT impacts every aspect of our daily lives, from food production, to transport, to finance and medicine. The fact that the general public still views ICT as something to do with their home or work PC is a major part of our problem," he said.

"As an industry, we have no professional identity - think lawyer or doctor, no rules for ethical conduct, no registration system to discipline bad operators and no competence framework to identify the skills and qualifications needed to accredit practitioners.

"If the public were in any way aware of the huge amount of money lost each year through ICT mistake, malpractice and project failure, they would demand the government and industry take action on all counts," he said.

The TIPI workshops have certainly shown there is consensus across the industry, government, business and the community about the need to address these issues.

Surveys conducted at each of the workshop sessions showed the community and business sectors, in particular, supported the move towards registration and regulation of ICT practitioners and an identifiable brand for the industry.

Support for TIPI was high across the board and the opportunity for robust debate clearly engaged representatives from all sectors.

One area that gained particular attention was the perceived impending skills shortage and the need to encourage more young people to take up careers in ICT.

Chairman of Software Queensland Kon Kakanis took an optimistic view of the health of the future ICT workforce saying a drop in ICT enrolments at universities shouldn't lead to an immediate assumption of a shortage of skilled workers in the industry as a whole.

"The word crisis is thrown around a lot. Last year the ICT industry was supposedly having an unemployment crisis, with people finding it very difficult to get a job in ICT. So I would question whether we are heading for an immediate skills crisis as such," Kakanis said.

"Some people within universities think they own the path to the priesthood as far as setting the standard for ICT qualifications. But the percentage of ICT professionals currently working who have a degree is not high. Historically, there are lots of different ways of entering ICT and we should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater by over-defining the skills progression. There has to be recognition of previous experience and skill sets built up in industry, as much as any academic qualification.

"Universities will always have enrolment challenges, but a great many employers in the ICT industry are looking for skills, and whether those skills were gained on the job, through vendor training or at university might not make much difference," he said.

Kakanis says that if TIPI was to have input into improved curriculum or training programs for future ICT professionals, a more holistic approach to the industry is required.

"What the industry needs is people with the skills to not just create software and systems, but also to implement and support them. Professionals within the industry must be able to look at the whole lifecycle of a product, from the moment of its conception by a programmer and through its user life to the point at which the customer switches it off for the last time.

"Feedback at TIPI focus groups has shown the industry sees there is a pressing need for young ICT professionals to have more of the basic life-skills to support their ICT knowledge. Skills like communication, problem solving, project management and teamwork. These don't appear to be consistently available as part of curriculum structures across the board," he said.

"In addition, the industry needs to realise it is in a market for a resource becoming scarcer, i.e. new entrants, and as an industry we need to have our act together in terms of career definitions, benefits of an ICT career and so on. In effect it is a marketing challenge to sell our industry to potential entrants, whatever their age or entry point."

While Prof Simon Kaplan of QUT acknowledges the enrolment crisis in universities; he is firm that a skills shortage is already affecting the ICT industry.

"You only have to look at the job pages to see there is a skills shortage. While universities may not be the only pool from which to source future ICT professionals, it is very expensive to recruit and educate people from other industries. If we cannot secure the skills here in Australia, we will have to import them from overseas," Kaplan said.

He is concerned that the lack of young people seeking university places and careers in ICT is linked to the industry's identity crisis.

"The industry is maturing into something for which we don't have a name and we have been searching for identity for years. We need to embrace an identity that engenders excitement and a sense of engagement with the future.

"Information Technology has become a burdened name. The PC and ICT has become the same thing in people's minds. That is why students are backing away. They think they will become simple technicians when the future in ICT is far more exciting - they can shape and change the world," he said.

Kaplan says TIPI is an excellent concept and the debate is timely both for industry and the Government.

"Australia and its economy have to be the most important factors under consideration through this process. We need the skills to grow the economy and how we extract value from technology is the key. It is a big challenge and we need to rise to it," he said

"Strategic use of information can help you shape and grow a company. A company's information is an important asset. The information is contained in the technology, but it is how you use that information that truly impacts the company.

"If TIPI can help promote the environment to get the skills we need, strategic as well as technical, then we need to take advantage of that. We have to re-conceive the way we do business and gain the skills to extract value from information - that is the most important," he said.

Business sector support The business sector was well represented at the TIPI focus groups and was supportive of its primary goals.

John Puttick, executive chairman of share trading software company GBST, has been an active supporter of TIPI since its inception. He says the ACS is to be applauded for working to get the industry on track, for analysing what accountability is required and the roles that government and the industry need to play in future.

"There has been a lot of wasted investment in ICT projects in government and business. If it had happened in medicine, law or engineering, there would be an outcry and an investigation. But so far, there are no penalties for being a dodgy operator in the industry and no rewards for the honest, reliable worker other than a good reputation.

"There is no register of shonky operators," Puttick said.

He believes that because computers have led to an impressive increase in productivity over the years, people are conditioned to tolerate outages and downtime.

"Today, it is accepted that computers don't work sometimes and there is no penalty to the supplier for the downtime. People seem to accept the problems as part of the package. This could be because computers have delivered a huge productivity gain, so when the problems occur, people think it's worth the trouble because they know they will catch up.

"And computers and software are still a mumbo-jumbo area for a large percentage of the population, most of whom are using the technology every day. I suspect most accept the status quo now because they don't know what is an acceptable level of error," he said.

He points out that in an unregulated ICT industry; suppliers are not discouraged from cutting corners because of the lack of any real penalty or consequence for them.

"They accept bigger orders, more urgent deadlines and balance on the edge of their abilities because they can get away with it. Meanwhile, the customer will go with the cheaper quote or the backyard operator because it saves them money and there appears to be little difference in professional standing," he said.

"There is fault on both sides. But the point is that in any other profession, medicine, law or engineering, you wouldn't get away with it. The public is entitled to assume they are getting a professional operator with appropriate qualifications bound by appropriate penalties.

"The industry needs a form of registration and to raise the perception of performance so as not to be seen as a dodgy, young industry, but rather one that is making a significant contribution to the economic well-being of Australia. The industry must be viewed as adding value to society and a good place to work. It must grow up and take responsibility for its mistakes," he said.

As it forges ahead with its ambitions for TIPI, the ACS acknowledges that it is unlikely to please everyone with the ultimate outcomes of the process.

But Mark Lloyd says difference of opinion on some minor technicalities is outweighed by overwhelming support for the need to do something.

"We must start somewhere. The ICT industry is too important to the economic well-being of the nation and crucial to the management of thousands of safety critical systems for the ICT community not to act on these challenges in the public interest," Mark said.

"An analogy I like to use is to imagine that every ICT project in Australia is an aeroplane currently on a flight path somewhere overhead. I recently asked a room full of industry representatives who would fly on ICT Airways in its current condition. Not one person put up their hand.

"Many of those taking part in the workshops have mentioned the need for the ICT industry to grow up or mature if it is to prosper and accelerate its contribution to the economy here and overseas.

"And I was totally buoyed by the overwhelming support of young people to the aims of TIPI. Participants from around Australia attending the National YIT Conference in Brisbane completed a TIPI survey and gave a resounding mandate to act on identity, ethics, competence and governance issues.

"But historically, a baptism of fire is often what thrusts maturity upon us. An ICT disaster of significant proportions and public cost is all it will take for stakeholders to look for scapegoats. The fallout would be devastating. Neither the government nor the industry can be seen to have done nothing when they had the opportunity," he said.