Qualified priviledge

• Article 76 of 77
• Information Age, December 2009
• View the original article online

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Informatica’s Young says that training staff as much as possible often encourages them to stay, since it shows the company values them and gives them job satisfaction. Eventually, however, some employees will leave. “If they do, I want them wherever they go to think to themselves, ‘That was the best IT shop I ever worked at, and because I worked there, I’m the best person at this shop.’”

Clearly, qualifications and certifications can be useful, provided they are chosen carefully. Certain kinds of training may be unnecessary or even counter-productive when dealing with highly technical individuals, but investing in employees will lead most probably – particularly in the current economic climate – to greater job satisfaction and improved performance.

Box: CIO qualifications
The fact that a chief information officer (CIO) or IT director has reached the top of their particular tree does not mean there is no room for improvement.

For many, the MBA is still the qualification to have for current and aspiring CIOs. But Tim Cook, head of global executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates’ CIO practice, says that the MBA is a nice-to-have, rather than a vital qualification. He looks for other things, such as evidence of intelligence, being a self-starter and the ability to understand the business as well as technical issues.

While being able to understand the nature of a business is a good thing, Chris Miller, UK senior vice president and general manager of CA, also argues in favour of some kind of sales training.

“I often say that the CIO is the biggest salesman in the organisation,” he comments. Selling the role of IT to a sceptical board, for example, may require skills not typically found in IT professionals.

Miller has been helping to develop the IT management for business degree courses now running at 12 UK universities. The course is only available on a full-time basis, but Miller claims that those who get the qualification are putting themselves on the fast track to the CIO role.

This year, London’s City University launched the Centre for Information Leadership, which it says will help “develop the CIOs of the future” through short courses, continuing professional development (CPD) modules and doctorates.

The centre was launched in reaction to the growing significance of strategic information management in government and business, the University says, combined with the paucity of relevant training required.

When he unveiled the project in June, City University’s head of computing Dr Andrew Tuson said, “There is currently no centre in the UK that aims to bring an interdisciplinary approach to the development of CIOs, supported by truly independent, evidence-based strategy and policy work.”

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