IT Skills Development Work Group

MATRIX committee meeting
February 3rd, 2009
Corrected February 10, 2009

Attendees;
Mario Chiarello, Co-chair MCHIARELLO@osc.state.ny.us 518-402-2462
James Nicol, co-chair james_nicol@compaid.com 518-449-1002
Connie Rowe, CAI connie_rowe@compaid.com 518-225-7328
Debbie Langevin, DMV dlang@dmv.state.ny.us 518-474-0605
Lin Fry, DMV lfry@dmv.state.ny.us 518-474-8992

Overview:
With the completion of the IT skills survey in 2006 and adoption of its findings, some imbalances were recognized between the state?s IT staff skill set and the IT skills needs of the state . It became apparent that steps would need to be taken to address those imbalances. The major goal of such an initiative would be a greater capability on the part of the state to support and lead the state in its IT efforts, and reduce the amount of contracting that agencies would need to do.

There are several types of skills required to be able to develop one?s capability:

  • Technical
  • IT professional skills
  • IT management skills

Since these have different attributes around curriculum development, certification, delivery and cost, if is beneficial to look at each separately to design tailored approaches.

Goals

  1. Short term:
    1. Refine the plan and gain agreement from major stakeholders, by 2/28
    2. In particular, establish a working relationship with all or a part of the Workforce Development Action Team
    3. Attract state and corporate members to MATRIX
    4. Gain agreement from NYS CIO to support a certification for professional and management skills NOTE: Last summer, GOER had been talking of offering this type of certification to everyone who completed their suite of supervisory and management courses; i.e. ?Skills for Working Effectively in Teams?, ?Process Improvement Essentials: Finding a Better Way?, ?Practical Skills for Supervisors?, etc.
    5. Publish an outline
    6. Plan first sessions/events
  2. 2009
    1. Help facilitate the establishment of an active plan: relevant, timely and of value to state staff and management, including the CIO committee and CIO.

IT Skills Outline

Skill Type Skills Structured ? Delivery Strategy
Technical High demand skills, such as:
  • Infrastructure
  • Web design and mgmt
  • DB and systems
  • Security and Encryption
  • IAM
  • Intrusion detection
  • HTML, XML
 Yes:
  • Multi-course technical career path outlined by product vendors
  • Certifications
  • Continuing education for new versions
  • Heavily vendor-supplied
  • Costly
  • Often off-site
  • Select high demand skills only
  • Create formal training track for technical staff
  • Facilitate existing initiatives from GOER and other resources
  • Promote sharing of expertise across agencies
  • Actively and aggressively engage local colleges by providing more student internships and paid summer programs in IT
IT Professional Skills High demand skills, such as:
  • Project Management
  • Business Analysis
 Yes:
  • Multi-course technical career path
  • Experience required
  • Professional Certification
  • Continuing education and use of skills required
 Mix of formal offerings and sharing of best practices
  • PM: no action ? already well covered via NYS PMCOE
  • BA: Support growth of local IIBA chapter through events and training
IT Management Skills
  • Process/Change Mgmt
  • Strategy and Planning
  • Management of information as an asset
  • IT performance management
  • Capital planning and acquisition
  • E-government
  • Enterprise Architecture
 No:
  • Formal education exists when needed
  • Much expertise exists in vendors to NYS: SI?s and product vendors
  • More amenable to a series of single education sessions. Can be less structured than other skills
  • Create a NYS Certificate of Completion to acknowledge participation in IT management education (see note below)
  • Explore the development of a COP where agency IT managers share best practices and expertise (especially on the topic of Enterprise Architecture)
  • Request active involvement of ITCR and other private sector groups to deliver training, best practices and case study experience
  • Follow up with SUNY to participate in SUNY-sponsored classes
  • In-house mentoring by an agency?s upper-level IT managers

Other issues:

  1. What skills are to be included in the technical track? They should be high demand standard skills with heavy re-use across agencies.
  2. Are agencies considering succession management issues?
  3. Will Civil Service look favorably at creating non-supervisory IT titles at 25 and 27?
  4. What can we do to help agencies find needed competencies in other agencies and what incentive would they have to share them?