The time has come for the IT profession to grow up

Thilthorpe: We must create the IT profession of the future

Not very long ago, anybody with a knowledge of programming only had to walk through the door of an IT firm to get hired ­ and pretty much name their own salary.
A little more than a decade on, and how things have changed. The profession appears to have matured at an exponential rate, if the way it has been absorbed into everyday life is anything to go by.

Email is the preferred method of communication in people’s professional and personal lives, while the explosion of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace shows that millions of people are embracing and benefiting from the new world that is Web 2.0. Once the preserve of computer science students, computer programming is now done at home by “ordinary” people.

Despite these fantastic, and some would say, frantic, achievements, a BCS report suggests the IT profession is still an adolescent in terms of professional maturity. It is an organised community, but not much more.

As the BCS reaches the end of its 50th anniversary this year, it is clear that the IT industry cannot spend another half-century trying to achieve the common hallmarks of a mature profession: being accountable to society over the demands of colleagues or competition, producing professionals able to practise independently, and having a separate body to regulate standards.

Recent work by the BCS and the government’s sector skills council,
e-Skills UK, to tackle the growing issue of industry-specific qualifications and standards shows the IT community is becoming aware of the need to professionalise. Chartered status is the gold standard for other professions, but more consideration needs to be given to Chartered IT Professional (CITP) status when an IT practitioner is hired. You wouldn’t let any builder design your house extension, so why give an untested software architect carte blanche with your business system?

Yet how many employers use products based on the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA), the common reference model that identifies the skills needed to build effective information systems? We are constantly told it is no longer enough to be able to design systems, and that they have to be part of an overall business strategy. But how can you be sure your IT staff are as comfortable with economics as they are with algorithms? Honing technology and business skills is key to the ability to exploit IT effectively.

A lot of organisations work together loosely on major IT issues, doing their bit to create the IT profession of the future. The BCS, along with industry partners, needs to work even harder to bring it all together ­ and fast, if we are to benefit fully from the brave new IT global economy.

Adam Thilthorpe is manager of the BCS Professionalism in IT programme. For the BCS report, go to www.bcs.org.uk