IT Skills Development

Background

In July of 2009 there was discussion at the Forum's Interim Corporate Board as to the future of this work group (at that time it was called MATRIX). We were invited to the August 12, 2009 meeting to discuss MATRIX mission, goals, and future viability.

We met with the Forum Board in February to review our progress and to discuss our on-going plans. At that meeting it was the consensus of the Board to continue to allow this group to meet with the understanding that the work group needed to continue to show value in order to maintain its status as a work group within the Forum.

2009-2010 Accomplishments

  • We have established a new mission, vision, goals based on the NYS Forum's Strategic Planning session held in July of 2009 and from various conversations with the identified stakeholders of this group:
    • A sampling of NYS CIOs
    • NYS OFT Training and Management Offices
    • NYS CIO Council Workforce Development Co-chair
    • NYS Forum Interim Corporate Board and Executive Officers.

New Mission and Objectives

Mission - To provide NYS IT Professionals with resources and information that allows them to build their capabilities so that they may take on more advanced roles and tasks in their workplace.
New Objective - To provide the NYS IT professionals with access to all of the various resources for professional development that the state has to offer so that they (IT Professionals) are able to enhance their professional development and profession as a whole, take on more advanced roles and tasks and ultimately bring greater value to New York State agencies.
  • We have changed the name of the work group to help reflect this new focus and mission. New name is now IT Skills Development Work Group.
  • We have updated the Forum work group Web pages to help communicate this new focus.
    • The Web pages have been reformatted to better map to the other work groups and to provide resources for our constituents.
  • We have reviewed and cleaned up the work group listserv to better communicate to those interested in our activities.
    • Since the fall event and the subsequent updating of our Web pages we have received a steady flow of new members to the work group and list serv.
  • Membership of the work group has gone from 2 active members to a total of 7 with several more interested in participating virtually via conference calls since they cannot attend the monthly meeting.
  • We have participated in the Emerging Technologies exploration of using social media tools to help us within the workgroup and within the community.
    • We have found NING not a viable resource however have not discounted the benefits of social media tools.
      • We are currently using a Google Group to help us in the development of the Community of Practice Starter Kit.
  • We held another successful Business Analysis event held at the Empire State Plaza. From this meeting we collected 44 names of individuals who are interested in a BA CoP.
  • We have created a meeting plan to meet the needs of the audience we are attempting to reach.
  • In the early Spring of this year, it was decided to scale back on our public events due to the strain it will put on the Forum's resources.
  • Our focus was put on the creation of a Community of Practice Starter Kit to help groups around the state with an interest in a discipline or skill area to establish and broaden their skills and perspectives in that particular area. We established a CoP Charter and content for the starter kit and are making it available in beta version to other workgroups, as well as the Business Analysis CoP.

2010-2011 Projected Initiatives

Presentations

  • A fall event will be planned based on the data gathered at the Strategic Planning event allowing us the opportunity to create a format that meets the needs of those interested within a specific topic area

Tool Development

  • Complete and beta test the CoP Starter Kit with BA group and Extend the CoP beyond IT (15)
  • Partner with other Forum Work Groups for proof of concept (1)

Collaboration

  • Follow-up with CIO Council Workforce Development Committee alignment (7)