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IT professionals urged to develop hybrid of legacy, new-age skills

By Ivor Rimmer
Johannesburg, 22 Oct 2001

Today`s IT professionals need the right mix of legacy and new-age skills to remain marketable. Without it, they could either become legacy dinosaurs or face the same uncertain future as many dot-com organisations.

MD Ivor Rimmer explains that both organisations and employees have realised that it`s not practical to ditch old skills such as Cobol. "The pendulum has swung from legacy to `e` and back to a multi-skilled environment," he says.

"At the beginning of 2000, everything was supposed to be cyber-based and running on Java. Corporations are sick of e-trading start-ups telling them that they`ll be out of business without `e`, especially when their business applications are still running efficiently on Cobol."

Rimmer recommends that IT professionals with legacy expertise make it a priority to learn new, niche skills. Organisations cannot plan and implement the systems they need in isolation, so people who can link and understand both types of systems are in high demand.

"An effective strategy is to grow skills in your current position, where you can expand your existing application knowledge," he says. "Then you can sell your new skills to your boss, and motivate to train someone up to fill your position when you are promoted."

Commenting on what organisations need to do to lock in their skills base and leverage their intellectual capital, Rimmer strongly advises identifying managerial and leadership skills. "All too often, the best programmer simply becomes team leader, and that`s how the promotion path is defined. To keep people through good and bad times, organisations need true leaders who are capable of inspiring people to stay with the company to reach a shared vision - even when times are tough."

Another important strategy, though it may appear to be a conflict of interests, is training people to leave. The majority of people in the IT industry are enthused by technology, and they will go where their passion is.

"These people will leave an organisation if they believe their skills or expertise are stagnating. By keeping them at the forefront of their fields, so that they could work anywhere, they will probably stay with you because their needs are being met. If, on top of all this, you have a policy of openness and fairness, you are streets ahead of the competition anyway!" Rimmer points out.

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Editorial contacts

Cathy van Zyl
C-Cubed Communications
(021) 852 7198
Ivor Rimmer
Bateleur
(011) 463 5519