Women getting back into IT

As a woman working in a predominantly male industry it can be quite frustrating at times. Particularly when I read articles regarding the continuing imbalance between the genders as regards pay-scales for the same job (although I suspect that local government may do a better job of this than the private sector - I wonder if anyone has sent in Freedom of Information requests to find out...).

At the moment, I'm constantly getting jibes regarding my age and how I shouldn't wait much longer before having children. There is a valid argument behind this. However, like many women I'm pretty career-focused and can't help wondering if I were to take time off to bring up a child whether I may find myself in the same boat as other women trying to return to work after a career break, e.g. less likely to get a promotion or even not getting a job utilising your skills at all! The research (2005) reflects a sad truth. If anyone is aware of any more recent studies that buck the trend I would be very interested in them!

This question published in the Guardian last November is but one example of the reality for women in IT.

For those women who are already on the other side of their break, there is some advice available from the likes of Equalitec (see the ITEC Career Opportunities for Women Returners, July 2005) and BCS Women.

Chartered IT Professional? What do they know anyway?

This is the question that the British Computer Society are seeking to answer. Are an IT professional and have thoughts on the charter mark for the IT profession? Or perhaps you are simply curious about the 'Body of Knowledge' that all Chartered IT Professionals will be expected to demonstrate.

Currently is is split into 'Knowledge and Understanding' and 'Skills'. They will structure into topics towards the end of the consultation to make it easier to navigate. I've started to add my penny worth... from what I can see so far it seems to be too detailed at all levels. However, I've only just skimmed the surface.

Head over to the website and have your say.

ITIL Refresh v3 - Qualifications

At the BCS SMSG Carol Hulm mentioned a possible 3 tier structure for ITIL v3 examinations. Today this has been confirmed in a statement from Richard Pharro of the APM Group.

The levels proposed are:

* Basic Level equating to V2 Foundation
* Management and Capability Level replacing the V2 Practitioner and Manager
* Advanced Level

Apparently this has been inspired by Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning where:
* Basic Level - assess knowledge and comprehension
* Management Level - assess comprehension and application
* Advanced Level - assess application and analysis

They have also confirmed that there will be 'upgrade' examinations for those already certified in ITIL v2.

The hope is that the foundation exam will be out shortly after the books as work on the examination questions is in progress. However, it is likely to be some time before the qualifications at management level are agreed and syllabus determined. I suspect that the advanced level may cover the entire lifecycle; I look forward to hearing what the examination panel decide.

BCS Service Management Specialist Group Event

Apologies for the lack of posts last week. Just when I thought I had the habit as well!

Last Monday I went into London to an event run by the BCS Service Management Specialist Group as the title of the event piqued my interest: 'IT Service Management, ITIL, ISEB and the BCS '. The group does what it says on the tin. It gets together to discuss and share best practice in Service Management which is MORE than ITIL. Events are normally every month or so at the London BCS offices. If you are interested in joining visit the BCS SMSG website and let them know where you came from ;)

There were nine of us in attendance including the presenter Carol Hulm, Special Project Manager at the BCS.

The main topics of her presentation were:
- ISEB qualification framework evolution
- ITIL v3
- Book launch on 11th May of 'World Class IT Service Delivery' by Peter Wheatcroft
- IT Professionalism

Over the next few blog entries I will address coverage of each of these areas in turn. There were some great questions and answers particularly around ITIL examinations going forward and other ITSM offerings that ISEB may include going forward.

Before leaving I felt compelled to point out that the ProfIT website leaves a lot to be desired and that in my view the BCS professionalism pages were better. Hopefully this will be fed back and we may see some improvement (just call me an optimist!).

IT Profession Update

It's been awhile since I posted about the work of the ProfIT Alliance (partly because things have been a little quiet on the public front). For those who have not heard of the alliance before it is formed of the BCS, e-skills UK, Intellect, and the NCC. They started working together with the primary of creating an IT Profession that is recognised as such in the way that accountants and surveyors are.

In the past week the e-skills sector council published the all new 'IT Profession Competency Model'. The fundamental idea is to recognise areas of specialism in which people can progress without necessarily having to move into management as is normally the case (certainly where I work). There are some staff who really deserve to be renumerated for their level of specialism and currently the only way to achieve this is to apply for a management role for which, in most of these cases, they are not suited. Providing options has got to be a good thing in my book.

For some background read the 'Validating the IT Professionalism Model' report and browse the 'Creating the IT Profession' section on the BCS website.

Management Experience more valuable than qualifications?

According to a survey by the BCS, management experience is more important than qualifications in the IT sector. So why is it that so many job descriptions still state certain levels of qualifications as mandatory instead of desirable? It strikes me that there is a slight disconnect between what is being said and the reality in practice. However, maybe this is peculiar to local government.

There's a nice summary over on PublicTechnology.net and the actual survey results are published on the BCS website.
Addendum: BCS Article

---

In other news, I've mentioned the number of new online Mind Mapping tools that seem to be springing up of late. Chuck Frey over on Innovation Tools has done the hard work and put together a feature comparison of some of them. Personally, I'm still a Mindjet Mindmanager fan - the web versions just don't have the breadth of functionality I use... yet ;)

BCS-ISEB and EXIN and IT Service Management

Well, I'm back from the itSMF conference 2006 'Theory into Practice' and over the coming weeks I will share the key learning points (and other things of interest) I have taken away from it.

Back in July I drew attention to an announcement from ISEB and EXIN regarding their commitment to ITIL.

On 1st November 2006 they signed an agreement to work together to further the continual improvement of IT Service Management and all that entails, rather than being restricted to ITIL (which is after all but one framework focusing on the operational amongst many spanning the strategic and governance as well). Personally I think this can only be a good thing for the future of IT service management and I look forward to seeing how things develop.

For a fuller editorial regarding the alliance, check out this post on ITSM Portal.

ISEB upgrade their qualification framework

I´m on holiday at the moment, so apologies for the lack of posts. They´ll commence again from Tuesday 3rd October.

I heard something at a conference a few months ago about the need to upgrade the BCS ISEB IT qualifications framework to support the acceptance of IT as a profession in the truest sense of the word.

On page 21 of this month´s IT Now magazine there is a short explanation of the changes. It aligns other qualifications along the Foundation / Practitionar / Manager´s theme for certifications that we are already familiar with for ITIL. You can download the new ISEB Framework from their website.

ISEB and EXIN reinforce ITIL commitment

Well, it looks like we can still continue booking, studying for, aspiring to the ITSM qualifications already on offer from ISEB and EXIN. I spotted this statement published yesterday...

Statement BCS-ISEB and EXIN

Following recent announcements by OGC on ITIL®. BCS-ISEB and EXIN, 26 July 2006
Introduction
BCS-ISEB and EXIN, the two independent worldwide IT examination providers, would like to update you on our position with regard to the continuation of our work in the IT Service management area, following recent announcements by OGC on ITIL®.
Continuity

The recent announcement of OGC may cause concern among students, course providers, experts and companies and raise questions about the continuity of the ITIL® based IT Service Management Certification program.

This program is currently managed by the ITIL® Certification Management Board (ICMB). Through the ICMB the influence of the IT Service Management community on the Certification program is guaranteed.

In this statement we explain why the examination institutes BCS-ISEB and EXIN are able to safeguard and continue their IT Service Management Certification services in the future.

BCS-ISEB and EXIN own the current ITIL® certification program consisting of ITIL® examinations on various levels in over ten languages. Together with itSMF, both parties are involved in preparing the alignment of the ITIL® certification program with the upcoming refresh of the core ITIL® books.

As the initiators of the ITIL® certification program, we have made many contributions to the ongoing development of ITIL®, through papers, presentations, memberships of a number of committees, and editorial boards.

As global players in the area of certification for IT Service Management, we will continue to closely cooperate with the parties involved in the current ITIL® based certification services to safeguard and support the quality of the worldwide qualification & certification program in the IT Service Management field.
Future

We will continue to guarantee the quality of training institutes providing ITIL® courses for the ITIL® Foundation, Practitioner and Service Manager Certification.

Current applications for accreditation are valid, and we encourage new training provider prospects to become accredited. BCS-ISEB and EXIN and other stakeholders, will aim at a continued cooperation with accredited training providers in order to maintain the high quality of the ITIL® certification standard.

BCS-ISEB and EXIN have indicated that it is our intention to continue to work with all of the existing members of the IT Service Management community, and are committed and ready to continue the development of ITIL® and by doing so work with the current IT Service Management community and also maintain, improve and safeguard the standards of IT Service Management around the world.

We look forward to the continuation of our cooperation and the further development of ITIL® and IT Service Management.

BCS-ISEB
Pete Bayley
Director of Qualification Products
British Computer Society

EXIN International
Joep van Nieuwstadt
CEO

For more information please contact:
EXIN International on telephone number +31 (0) 30 234 4820 or
BCS-ISEB on number +44(0) 1793 417494

Where's the profIT?

I really should have written about the ProfIT conference immediately so this may be old news to some of you.

On Monday 8th May 2006 I attended the Prof IT conference in London. The tagline: 'Building a World Leading IT Capability'. Not world-class, but world-leading.

My interest in the event stemmed from a desire to see IT become a recognised profession in the same way that say, accountancy is. I've heard people talk about IT staff as a 'protected species' but without perhaps the understanding of why we may be protected and what it is we actually deliver to the business. I don't want to be a member of a protected species; I want to be recognised and valued as a professional (but that's another blog entry).

The seminars throughout the day explored the issues around what constitutes a profession as well as a professional, and having defined this, how to go about making it happen.

There was an impressive array of people on the guest list ranging from MDs and CEX across both private and public sectors which inspires some confidence that there is a commitment to seeing this vision become a reality. Curiously, some comments from people in the private sector suggested that they believe real change can only happen if government embraces it. They seemed particularly pleased to hear Katie Davies, Director of IT Professionalism for e-government introduce the Government's take on the SFIA framework, etc.

The highlight of the day for me personally was the motivating presentation from David Taylor, author of The Naked Leader. He hates us calling recipients of IT services 'users' which he pointed out was akin to calling them druggies and suggested we come up with something else (but such is the dependence on IT these terms that the term is rather apt in my opinion) !

The culmination of the day was the signing of the ProfIT Programme Alliance by representatives of E-Skills UK, Intellect, the National Computing Centre and British Computer Society.

Anyhow, presentations from the conference are available for download. So if you want to know how IT professionalism is progressing be sure to take a look.

Who wants an IT Diploma?

If you're not quite sure what I am talking about let me fill you in quickly.

The UK government has recognised that the current education system is somewhat lacking in a number of industry sectors of which IT is but one (no doubt thanks to certain major employers and organisations such as the BCS saying that IT educuation is not fit for purpose and that there are too many university courses for IT churning out students who still need training to become effective in a real world job).

The hope is that developing an IT diploma (aimed at 14-19 year olds) with significant input from businesses (how much consultation is being done with current teachers of IT & computing I have no idea!) will lead to more interesting courses, and students are actually ready to take on an apprenticeship or progress to universities.

So, back to what I was saying... I've read the development specifications and so far I like what I see. Focusing on the level 3 diploma there are skills that students would be required to achive a basic standard in that many people in today's workplace today either don't have or don't care about. I mean, how many of you learnt how to write a business case for IT investment at school? Or best practice and the basics of project management frameworks?

If this qualification leads to more interesting education which attracts more women (not that I'm biased or anything!) and students who know more than standard network topologies then it has to be a step in the right direction.

Of course, there are all the issues regarding re-educating IT teachers to teach the syllabus as well as businesses stepping up to offer work placements but I think the future is brighter than it has been.

If you're interested in learning more about the IT Diploma take a look at:

The "SPECIALISED DIPLOMA: THE IT LINE LEARNING STRUCTURE, BALANCE OF
CONTENT AND PROGRESSION " and the "14-19 Diploma Development (IT), EMPLOYER NEEDS DEFINITION:
input from the UK EMPLOYER SURVEY "

Further information is available from the E-Skills UK Website.

Women and ICT - where are they all?

Hi again, sorry for the lack of entries - it has been a particularly busy time for me. I have attended a number of events that I want to talk about on this blog so I'll try and catch up over the coming month!

First of all I want to tell you about a new personal development challenge that I gave myself this past week. An opportunity arose through the BCS Women Group to present to a group of year 10 girls (aged 14) from local schools at a 'Women into ICT' day at a local college. I've done a fair bit of presenting but this was the first time to a young audience. With 45 minutes to fill, I didn't want to just talk about my role as a support officer as I figured that would put them to sleep. I needed another angle so started digging around a little.

I was surprised to find that in 2001 just 22% of the IT workforce was made up of women which apparently was a 10% reduction over the previous 7 years! The more I read the more I wanted to convince these young women that they are needed in the future UK IT industry. Women were leaving IT in droves...why was that? Could it be the way it is taught in schools? Or is it still all about perception?

My research turned up the belief (which I happen to agree with) that IT in schools needs to be split between the basic IT skills that everyone needs (much in the same way then require English and Maths) and the IT / computing required for a career in IT. There is a new IT diploma being developed for 2008 so that when kids leave school they actually have skills relevant to the workplace.

There's even a Computer Club for Girls (CC4G) scheme which schools can be involved with to show girls other aspects of technology and its applications.

So, people are already trying to do something about IT education. That left me wondering what I could do to combat the perception. Another little stat for you from a survey in 2005.

• 35% of respondents aged 13-17 associate a career in IT as some form of administrative or secretarial office work.
• 27% of respondents would consider a career in ICT or Computing.

For me this was a shocking revelation and it helped me form the theme for my presentation. I knew I wanted to break the presentation up into parts to make it more interactive and after talking my ideas through with a few people came up with what I hoped would be a winning formula.

1. Introduce myself and outline the agenda for them (90 seconds)
2. Split them into groups for a group exercise: "Who am I?" This was designed to get them thinking about difference aspects of an IT support worker through personality, environment, skills, and education (20 minutes). I also hoped it would reinforce the stereotype to go neatly into:
3. Showing a TV clips of Nick Burns The Computer Guy with Jennifer Aniston to sum up the stereotype and demonstrate how IT support shouldn't be done (5 minutes).
4. 'A day in the life...' A quick talk about the different aspects of my work as well as those I work with to show that we aren't the stereotype (well, not all of us anyway!).
5. A quick explanation of how I got from school to where I am now.
6. An explanation of why I was there on a 'women into ICT' day including some stats to reinforce a few points.
   
7. Finishing with a quick fire quiz with sweets for correct answers.
   

I'm pleased to say that the girls got stuck into the exercise and in some cases surprised me with their appreciation for IT requiring a more varied skillset than I expected them to recognise. In particular they stressed communication. Yet another great example for me of why we need more women in IT service delivery roles - they get it and they haven't been taught (no offence to any men reading this)!

The clip made them laugh, and they managed to stay awake for what I considered the boring part of the presentation, then sprung back into life for the quiz.

I stayed to listen to another presentation, curious as to the approach they took, which was quite different to mine but in some senses perhaps more useful as it gave them a lot to think about in terms of different job roles available in IT where as I focused primarily on support and destroying stereotypes.

I also assisted with the practical HTML workshop which was fun. They seemed to really enjoy seeing the results of their coding and playing around with colours etc.

All in all I found the experience very worth while and would certainly do it again if the opportunity arose. It was a challenge for me to find ways to maintain the interest of a room of 25 young girls as well as deliver it. I can only hope that if they only took one thing away from the presentation its that 'A career in IT is for women too'!

What is SFIA anyway?

I've mentioned SFIA in a previous entry and thought it would be helpful if I gave a quick overview of what it is, and why we should care about it.

In July 2003, the BCS, the IEE, and IMIS formed the SFIA (Skills for the Information Age) foundation. The primary goal of this was to create a high level skills competency framework for IT professionals, much like those that already existed in other industries, as well as a standard language for talking about IT skills. Indeed, it grew in part from the BCS's ISM (Industry Standard Model) which was subsequently modified in accordance with SFIA and rebranded as SFIA+. It is SFIA+ that forms the basis of the BCS professional development product offerings. But I digress, back to the framework itself.

SFIA version 3 is at first sight a relatively simple two-dimensional matrix. There are 7 responsibility levels across the top (1 being the lowest) and 6 main categories of work down the left as follows:

Strategy and Planning
Development
Business Change
Service Provision
Procurement and management support
Ancillary Skills

Each main category incorporates sub-categories and skills. It should be noted that the placement of skills within categories can be argued (and has been). When using the matrix to assess your skills as an IT professional it is important to indicate where you have a competency regardless of which category it falls under; the categories are really a convenient matrix navigation aid and not intended to be limiting. For example, if your main role at work is that of network support this falls within the Service Provision category. However, you also have project management experience which falls under Business Change. Therefore you have skills in both areas, and that is okay. In today's environment I'd go so far as to say cultivating skills in the business change arena is to be encouraged!

Okay, so far it seems sensible enough, but how do you know if you are selecting the 'right' skill and how do you decide which level to record against it? That's where the skills definitions reference document comes in. Let's look at the example of Network support within User support on page 29.

Network support (NTAS)
The provision of network maintenance and support services. Support may be provided both to users of the systems and to service delivery functions. Support typically takes the form of investigating and resolving problems and providing information about the systems. It may also include monitoring their performance. Problems may be resolved by providing advice or training to users about the network’s functionality, correct operation or constraints, by devising work-arounds, correcting faults, or making general or site-specific modifications.

Level 2 Assists in investigation and resolution of network problems. Assists with specified maintenance procedures.

Level 3 Identifies and resolves network problems following agreed procedures. Uses network management software and tools to collect agreed performance statistics. Carries out agreed network maintenance tasks.

Level 4 Maintains the network support process and checks that all requests for support are dealt with according to agreed procedures. Uses network management software and tools to investigate problems, collect performance statistics and create reports.

Level 5 Drafts and maintains procedures and documentation for network support. Ensures that all requests for support are dealt with according to set standards and procedures.

From this we can decide whether it is the most appropriate skill and furthermore, the appropriate level with which to assess ourselves against.

For IT professionals, this framework is an excellent tool to help identify your strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement, i.e. peform a gap analysis. However, I'd go a step further and say that IT professionals should join the British Computer Society and make use of the Career Developer facility using SFIA+ which has much more depth. More on that in another blog entry.

For employers, once your staff have completed an assessment you then have an accurate skills database which is a plus point for auditors and Investors in People assessments! However, far more use is the fact that should someone leave the organisation, you now have the information at your fingertips to decide which of their skills you wish to hire back in, or make the decision that actually you need someone with another skill set.

Long-term I see the terminology used in SFIA forming the basis of job adverts. As it becomes the recognised standard for the industry by the IT professionals themselves; recruitment can be streamlined as candidates will have a clearer idea of what the job entails before making an application, and employers will have a clearer idea of what they are actually looking for. A definite improvement over the current situation.

The emerald city that is the BCS London Office

I arrived at the London office of the British Computer Society (BCS) in Southampton street a little early so plucked up the courage to mingle a little.

First I spoke with a guy who was not actually there for the forum, but an oral exam for one of his programme management certifications. Over the past year he's certified in Prince 2, MSP, and APM - busy busy! He said that the Prince 2 exam wasn't that hard as it was open book and that as long as you understand the concepts and overall process it's fine - food for thought (but then it sounds like he has a LOT of experience unlike me!). I was curious as to the sudden need for accreditations and he explained the he works for a large telecommunications company and it is the customers to whom they are increasingly providing ICT services that are the real driver. In today's private sector marketplace there is a real need to demonstrate the professionalism of their staff through accreditations. This interested me because it is one of the very themes that the government is beginning to accept. Perhaps we aren't that far behind the private sector after all...

I also bumped into a lady I met at the Government IT roadshow 2 weeks ago. It turns out she works for a county council, so it will be interesting to see how they progress as I suspect we will face many similar issues with implementation/culture change.

Anyhow, the forum itself focused on the differences between SFIA v2 and v3 and how these changes have been implemented in the BCS products. I was particularly pleased that they spent some time talking about the Government IT profession model based upon SFIA v3 and how SFIA+ has also pulled from this and will continue to do so. I was certainly reassured that we haven't wasted our investment. If anything it has only motivated me to try and realise further benefits from it.

There was also a case study from Deloitte regarding the BCS Group Membership scheme. Fundamentally it's a fast-track way to get their staff accredited and be able to say to customers 'we are professional' and have the BCS seal of approval to show it. They've done well, but I can't see it working for us - not yet anyway.

The afternoon finished with a Professional Development Quiz. The first part was to check if we were listening, but the second half prompted some interesting discussion in our small groups based around the following areas:

3 key principles of professional development
Development against a recognised external standard
Creating a personal development plan as the start of a cycle
Monitoring and recording against the plan
Review sign-off at the end of the cycle

3 most important factors to achieve successful implementation of a professional development programme
Senior management buy-in
Treat as a project using a suitable methodology, e.g. Prince 2.
Appoint a co-ordinator / project manager who is responsible for making it happen
Communicate!

3 most important factors to sustain a successful professional development programme
Continued and visible backing from senior management
Perceived standing of scheme in organisation
Ability to motivate all participants

3 aspects where Quality Assurance can make a major contribution to effectiveness
Correct and consistent use of the SFIA+ framework
Training and monitoring of supervisors
Advice and guidance to supervisors and participants
Regular reviews of scheme operation

3 way SFIA+ should be used in planning personal development
Explore potential career paths and long term development options
Identify main skill and level to develop
Add components from other skill levels if required
Identify specific work activities, knowledge, and skills to develop over the next cycle
Review other components such as training activities, professional development activities, and qualifications

I have some notes I will type up and publish regarding the content of the presentations themselves which may be interesting to someone out there - I certainly found it useful. Until then, there's no place like home! *clicks heels*

P.S. Did I mention our team won? ;)

We're off to see the wizard...

Okay, so maybe not - but it was a nice idea.

I'm actually off to the British Computer Society Professional National Forum in London tomorrow. We use their BCS Skill Builder tool at work to identify our skill base and also to help build job descriptions. It's a little clunky but it gets the job done. To be honest we need to make more use of it than we are currently, but that's a topic for another time.

The point is that BCS Skills Manager is based on the Skills For the Information Age competency framework (known as SFIA) which has just been updated to version 3. I'm hoping that tomorrow I will find out how the BCS intend to reconcile SFIA+ v3 with the Government IT Profession Competency Framework (which is also based on SFIA v3). I'm guessing that we aren't their only customer from the public sector and I wouldn't want to see our investment wasted now that the government have finally caught up!