A Competency Model for the Information Technology Workforce: Implications for Training and Selection

Abstract

With a new wave of demand for information technology (IT) staff, it is time for the IT community to discover what competencies are needed for IT workers in the new millennium. Most organizations have outsourced their IT projects to low-cost centers in developing countries, and this has changed expectations about local workers—organizations need, and expect, to employ highly skilled IT professionals. This article draws on the competency model to explore what competencies are needed to successfully equip the IT workforce. This research uses the example of IT architects to illustrate how to use the competency model to identify important sets of competencies. We interview professional architects, analyze the content of the discussions and derive a list of fourteen competency attributes important to IT architects. Some competencies are easy to develop, others are difficult to change, and this has implications for university education and industry hiring. This article also discusses the general use of competency models for IT workforce training and selection.