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Broad policy development steels Society’s future

Edward Mandla, Information Age

21/08/2004 15:59:28

The policy development work being undertaken by the ACS this year is central to our strategy to raise the profile and status of the ICT profession and win the ear of government.

Already, we’re extending our work in the areas of mobile phone cameras and ICT literacy, moving ahead with a proper evaluation of migration, looking at the ICT trade deficit, considering policies aimed at overall industry development, and investigating the R&D grants system and CMMI.

By the time you read this article, there will no doubt be more policy areas for the ACS identified out of our discussions with government, other industry groups and feedback from interested members.

I’m incredibly proud of the work being done in this area by people right across the ACS and the level of rigour that is being incorporated into our processes to ensure the resulting policies are relevant, up to date and make a real contribution to the debate.

We’ve commissioned several research documents and established working groups on topics ranging from open source software and ICT literacy to offshoring, inviting participation not only from ACS members but from recognised industry stakeholders with experience in the relevant areas.

Our offshoring policy is a great example. Over a period of several months I developed a solid grounding in this issue, having discussed offshoring with industry bodies and lobby groups and been interviewed by every interested journalist in the country.

I put together a working party of CIOs and industry leaders with broad representation ranging from vendors to SMEs to major corporations who brought their various experiences and knowledge to the table.

Under my chairmanship and with mentoring from Professor Kerryn Phelps, that group considered the findings of the Whitehorse Report, an economic implications study by Access Economics and their various experiences to develop the ACS policy.

This policy broke new ground in the offshoring debate, particularly with the ACS Offshoring Cost-Benefits Checklist, which calls for organisations to factor in exchange rates, asymmetric decision costs and quality issues into their decision making.

Quality is the elusive factor in all ICT decision-making and, for the first time, the study by Access Economics provided clears insights into how to factor quality issues into an offshoring project decision. It called for trial programs between an organisation’s current position and future position to ensure it can properly benchmark costs, performance, outputs and the asymmetric costs that would be associated with unravelling a poor decision.

We’ve seen numerous examples where ICT departments chose to pioneer a new technology or methodology, only to have to throw it out or change suppliers because they didn’t achieve the outcomes the expected.

This issue of Information Age includes, for the first time, the complete ACS Offshoring Policy and the accompanying ACS Offshoring Cost-Benefit Checklist. This is designed to be used by ICT organisations considering a potential offshoring project, but can be equally helpful in making any major ICT-related decision.

When the ACS released the policy, it was welcomed not only by the then Federal Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Daryl Williams, and his Opposition counterpart, Senator Kate Lundy, but also by the union movement.

This is a great period for the ACS.

Our policy work is opening doors and creating opportunities. More than ever before, when the ACS steps up to speak, people are listening.

We are being proactively invited onto radio chat programs and government think tanks and to present at industry forums.

The ACS has become the first port of call for comment on any issue in our industry and holds a 70 pent cent share of voice amongst industry bodies in all ICT-related media.

Other promotions by the Society are also beginning to bear fruit. Orientation week activities at some of Australia’s leading universities resulted in a record signing of 700 first year students this year and plans are already in place to increase that result in 2005.

The ACS is setting itself up for a rosy future by focusing not just on the immediate needs of the profession but on those of our future generations.

We are committed to being a policy leader, not only within the Australian ICT sector, but on ICT-related issues, such as mobile camera phones and ICT literacy, that impact the wider community.

We have already embarked on a process of extending and updating some of the policies approved by Council in May, commissioning additional research in the area of mobile camera phones and ICT literacy to help drive awareness of these issues.

As always, we welcome input from our members into the policy development process. If there are issues or areas in which you believe the ACS should be working, please contact ACS CEO Dennis Furini with your views.

By taking a stronger stand on ICT-related issues and leading the debate, the ACS is raising the profile and status of the profession within government, business and the wider community.

And that benefits all our members.