THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

by Peg Bogema

Queue the all too-familiar spaghetti western music. Picture a lone software slinger walking across the unemployment desert—sand, rocks and gravel crunching underneath his boots.

Yes, it’s a trite image. But if you judge the current state of IT employment exclusively by media reports, that just might be what comes to mind.

Factually, the current situation is not anything like the media portrayals. By rolling up the numbers—perhaps in an attempt to summarize the scene—they oversimplify matters to the point of losing the real story.

It actually is a case of the good, the bad and the ugly.

THE GOOD

There is a lot of hiring and contracting going on right now. Pent up demand has finally burst the dam. Companies are adding staff and contractors to handle backlogged projects and new development. Roles that went unfilled for one or two years are once again being funded.
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PMI: STILL RELEVANT FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT?

by Matt Wickey

For those of you not in the know, PMI is an acronym for the Project Management Institute. PMI offers a certification for professional project managers called the PMP or Project Management Professional. It is the standard by which most project managers (or their resumes) are judged in terms of preparedness to lead real projects in the real world. This certification has grown in popularity over the last 20 years as companies have realized that much of what they try to accomplish is project-based and that, as a whole, industry performance on project-based work is not good. In many cases that appraisal is overly charitable.

As projects went over-budget, blew their timelines, and delivered much less or much worse than promised, business began to take notice. Over time a “body of knowledge” about how to lead projects successfully and how to deliver what was promised was collected. It is this body of knowledge (actually the Project Management Body of Knowledge—PMBOK) that is taught and tested by PMI.

Nowhere is the project implementation track record more laden with failures big and small than in software development. As a rule, it is trickier business to get complete requirements for a large software system than for, say, a building project. More software projects than can be counted have gone off the rails in innumerable varied and creative ways. As PMI certification gained acceptance, it was natural to apply it to software development projects. The net result was that the software industry spent a couple decades diligently gathering requirements, capturing issues and qualifying risks, establishing communication plans, change management plans and procurement plans, etc. Larger companies endangered entire forests by publishing massive standards, detailed procedures and glossy cheat sheets to make sure no more software projects failed—ever!

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DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU’RE IN A
HIGH DEMAND PROFESSION?

by John W. Stout

Over and over I’m seeing press about the increasing demand for software developers, data analysts and IT professionals generally. The Bureau of Labor Statistics rates Network Systems and Data Analysts as the second fastest growing U.S. profession. The Bureau also expects that the number of software developers is, by necessity, to grow from over a half million to almost 700K. If the government says it, it must be true, right?

In my experience, I can say that demand to fill openings has clearly increased in the past few months. Certainly, the dam hasn’t burst yet, and I’m sure many would question the government’s optimism. But when you think about the initiatives that are being targeted and funded by the government—especially the health care IT initiative—the future does look rosier for IT workers.

Per a recent Computerworld (more…)

HTML Email: Etiquette, Technique and Benefits of

by Nick Staroba

In the current business environment, there are a few points about promotion that are often overlooked. First, a slump in sales is not a cue to tighten the belt and rein in the promotion budget. It is also not necessarily true that the budget should be inflated. The actual target is to maximize the amount of outgoing communication against the dollars spent.

Enter HTML emails: the ideal communication in the software and IT industries and, more and more, in every industry.

Starting out on the right foot is the way to go. Observe the etiquette of mass email whether in plain text or HTML:
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All Hail the IT Consultant!

by Matt Wickey

Ok, it’s time for me to share a little. For the record, all my sharing will be of a professional nature so don’t get too excited.

Several years ago, after leaving a company I’d called home for nearly 10 years, I found myself back in the job market trying to figure out how to sell myself. My career path had followed a rather common trajectory: a degree in Computer Science, years spent working as a software developer, a natural progression into positions with more responsibility (systems analysis, project management, team lead, etc.). This all had played out at a number of companies in a variety of industries.

But, once back in the job market, I was asked the same vexing question by prospective employer after prospective employer:

What is it you want to do?
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