The Chief Information Officer's Body of Knowledge: People, Process, and Technology

Chapter 4

Why Provide Professional Development to IT Professionals?

John Moran, PhD

In some ways the question in the chapter title is an oxymoron. The rapidly changing nature of hardware, software, and responsibilities of any IT professional forces each of us to “develop professionally.” In other words, if we want to stay employed, we must keep up with the current technology and the shifting responsibilities of IT positions. Most IT professionals welcome the chance to explore new possibilities and seek psychological success through lateral or spiral career moves. They continually seek opportunities to learn new things and see their career as a series of learning cycles.

When I started in the “computer industry,” I was programming in assembly language and FORTRAN. The information system of the day was the IBM 360, used mainly for back-office financial record keeping. Very few people, if anyone, had even heard the term “chief information officer.” Along with many other computing industry veterans, I stayed employed by learning and growing professionally and personally as we moved from the mainframe era to minicomputers with distributed processing and UNIX, to the world of personal computers and servers. While most of the organizations that employed us would never have called our collective learning experience “professional development” that indeed is what it was.

In today's global marketplace, the objective of IT organizations is to provide businesses with access to the trusted ...