IT is on the way to becoming a profession with the same
ethical and professional standards as medicine and the law, MPs and
IT practitioners heard recently.
Charles Hughes, former president of the
British Computer
Society, and leader of the BCS professionalism programme, told
the Parliamentary IT Committee that IT was about a third of the way
there, when benchmarked against other professions.
The BCS, suppliers group Intellect, the National Computing Centre, and
E-skills UK
are collaborating to put the building blocks in place to
professionalise IT, he said.
Their work aims to establish a commitment from IT professionals
to develop their skills and to apply them, and seeks IT
professionals to become more accountable for their decision
making.
Intellect has developed guidelines for organisations on how to
professionalise their operations. These are already attracting
interest in other areas outside of IT, said Hughes.
The joint project aims to usher in a sea change in the way IT
professionals and organisations view their work, said Hughes.
“We used to think we did a good job if the project we took on
worked. If it did not offer business benefits that was someone
else’s problem,” he said.
He pointed to developments in Australia, which allow IT
professionals to limit their liability in the event of a project
going wrong if they gain a formal accreditation with a professional
body. This could be a model for the UK, he said.
And Hughes said that politicians could help by being less quick
to blame technology for IT failures, when the root cause is often
poor management or poor planning.
“I believe moreorless all the issues to do with IT-enabled
projects are not to do with technology. They majority of problems
are concerned with people not doing IT in the right way. Most of
the problems are down to people, management and communications, and
not at all to do with basic technology.”
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