IT Career Routes

1

IT Career Routes Discussion Materials

Prepared by:

Prepared by:

Dr. Steven Miller, Dean, SMU SIS

Dr. Steven Miller, Dean, SMU SIS

Practice Professor of Information Systems

Practice Professor of Information Systems

24 February 2004

Prepared for the

2 2

3

4 4

Major types of IT job roles: More detailed view

IT job roles heavily

dependant on the classical

computer science type of

education

IT job roles heavily

dependant on IT, IS and hybrid IT-business types of education

5

Breakout of work in the service provider sector and business user sector

0

1

2

3

4

6 6

Ways in which business user organizations across all industry sectors

are changing their roles and efforts across the lifecycle phases

Increasing Increasing responsibilities for responsibilities for execution. execution. Moving to more Moving to more outsourcing; outsourcing; Î

Î Verification, results Verification, results management.

management.

Post

Post--deployment service deployment service delivery & support

delivery & support

4 4 Consulting Consulting support. support. Maintaining strong Maintaining strong ownership. ownership. End

End--user deploymentuser deployment 3 3 Increasing Increasing responsibilities for responsibilities for execution. execution. Moving to more Moving to more outsourcing; outsourcing; Î

Î Verification, results Verification, results management.

management.

Technical design,

Technical design,

construction & deployment

construction & deployment

2 2 Consulting Consulting support. support. Maintaining strong Maintaining strong ownership. ownership.

Project level concept

Project level concept

design & demonstration

design & demonstration

1 1 Consulting Consulting support. support. Maintaining strong Maintaining strong ownership. ownership.

Enterprise level business &

Enterprise level business &

architecture definition architecture definition 0 0

Trends across

Trends across

specialized IT

specialized IT

service providers

service providers

Trends across

Trends across

business user

business user

organizations

organizations

Phase Name

Phase Name

Phase

Phase

#

#

7

1.

Out-tasking, outsourcing

AND

2.

Required business accountability and ownership

• Importance of knowing domain-based business processes and practicesÎ linkage of business process/performance needs with design choices and deployment results

• Cost, value and risk based business case analysis for business owners Î linkage of architecture and design with business process and LOB improvement targets

3. Reluctance to build from scratch whenever

possible

• Increasing solution assembly and integration using COTS packages, middleware frameworks & tools, available components (commercial, open source), component frameworks, and evolutionary design/build methods

4. Overarching meta requirements

• Increasing integration needs (inter-firm, intra-firm) • Higher degrees of security AND trust needs

• Non-functionals versus cost, value, risk and time considerations

5. Reluctance to lock-in options for future changes

Hedging against Vendor lock-in, including outsourcing vendor; Hedge against requirements lock-in Î Open architectures, standards-based designs, modular implementations,

evolutionary builds Outsourcing is not

the only big issue in the world of

business users and service providers

8 8

Strategy for research and education concentrations at

9

SIS core curriculum for BSc (IS Management)

Yr 1 Term 1 Yr 1 Term 2 Yr 2 Term 1 Yr 2 Term 2 Yr 3 Term 1 Yr 3 Term 2 Yr 4 Term 1 & 2 Seminar for ISM Majors Object Oriented

Systems Data Management

Software Engineering Networking

Enterprise Systems and Integration Information Security and Trust Architectural Analysis Application Project 1: Industry or non-profit Applicatin Project 2: Industry or non-profit Depth Elective 2: IT in sector/business context Depth Elective 1: IT in sector/business context At least one 10 week internship: PLUS 2 week volunteer service E-learning supplement Foundation Courses Integrated Learning Experiences Advanced Topic Courses IS Design Foundations

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Job roles and career ladders for BSc (IS Management) graduates

9. User organization business executives; Project sponsors

8. (**) User organization business staff

8. (**) User organization business staff

(process experts, function experts, managers)

(process experts, function experts, managers)

7. Project director; Programme director

6. (**) P

6. (**) P

roject

roject

leader; Project

leader; Project

manager

manager

5. (**)

5. (**)

Business

Business

solution a

solution a

rchitect

rchitect

; Information

; Information

architect; enterprise architect; e

architect; enterprise architect; e

-

-

Business solution

Business solution

consultant

consultant

4. (**)

4. (**)

Business analyst

Business analyst

;

;

S

S

ystems

ystems

/Solutions

/Solutions

analyst

analyst

3. InfoComm managers and executives (CIO and direct management reports)

2. (*)

2. (*)

Technical

Technical

s

s

olution

olution

a

a

rchitect

rchitect

/IT architect;

/IT architect;

Lead designer

Lead designer

;

;

1. Programmer; Developer; IT specialist/engineer

(**)

(**)

(*)

(*)

JC or Poly

target roles

Poly

target

roles

11 Job roles adapted from the Business Week, “Software: Will Outsourcing Hurt America’s Supremacy” article (March 2004, pgs 84 – 95).

The Business Week article (pg 86) highlighted six job categories in “the software pyramid,” and ordered the

pyramid by salary. We have added two

categories (#2 and #6) organized the placement of job categories by “level” of analysis. Code & Component Level Application & Solution Level Business Process & User

Level Business & Organizational Value Level Industry, Economy & Society Level 7. Programmer/Developer 6. SW Engineer/Designer 5a. Solution Designer/

Architect

4a. Business/System Analyst 2. End User/Organization Change

Consultant

3a. Industry Domain Consultant 1. Project Manager 5b. Solution Designer/ Architect 8a. Researcher-Software Level 8b. Researcher-Solutions Level 8c. Researcher-Mgt. Level 8c. Researcher-Mgt. Level 8d. Researcher-Economy & Policy Level 3b. Industry Domain Consultant 4b. Business/System Analyst

12 12

A standard industry view of IT profession roles IT job roles.

Categories taken from the Year 2002 Annual Singapore IT Salary

Survey compiled by IT Managers Association and Nanyang

Technological University Business School, Singapore.

Systems Development

Job Roles

• Quality Assurance analyst

Infrastructure Job Roles

• Director of Infrastructure

• IT architect/Infrastructure planner or designer

• Data centre manager • Database administrator • Network/Telecom manager • Network/Telecom specialist • IT security specialist

• IT service desk manager • IT support officer

• Systems administrators/engineers • Systems programmers

• Webmaster/Internet administrator • Computer operator