Year one core curriculum

By Steve Ulfelder
Network World, 05/14/01

Fire up your IT career! | Year one core curriculum
Year one extra credit

Business and Communication 101

When it comes to helping businesspeople grasp the value and risks of technology initiatives, "Those of us on the IT side need to realize the burden of communicating technology issues is on us," says Tim Peacock, vice president of development at service provider Intranets.com in Woburn, Mass.

The McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin features an optional Information Management concentration that enjoys a reputation as one of the nation's top techno-MBA programs.

According to Tim Ruefli, director of the concentration, students come from all walks of life - and that's the way they like it. "We'll have someone who's been writing C++ for the past three years and someone else who's been a dance instructor," Ruefli says.

First-year MBA students are immediately broken into study groups in which the techies are blended with the nontechies. The point, Ruefli says, is to encourage communication.

And experts agree that the ability to discuss technology with laypeople is one of the first two things network pros should learn as they seek to increase their value. Paula Hinchliffe, network administrator at Seal Master in Kent, Ohio, may be putting it a bit strongly when she says her colleagues are often perceived as "just a bunch of noncommunicative freaks." The stereotype may not be accurate, but it exists.

At the University of Texas, the techno-MBA program includes a simple way to address the problem: If a student with a technical background answers a question during class, Ruefli says, "we'll turn to a nontechnical person and ask if they understood the answer. If they say no, we'll make [the original answerer] do it again." By the end of the first semester, he says, this approach succeeds. The technologists learn how to speak in terms everybody can understand, and the nontechies learn more about IT.

There are plenty of resources available for networking professionals who seek to better connect with businesspeople and customers. Global Knowledge, an IT education company in Cary, N.C., offers a course called Customer Communication Skills for IT Professionals. George Proudfoot, a Global Knowledge product director, says the company added the course when "we heard from our client companies that their IT pros had a tough time communicating with internal customers."

Some network professionals eschew formal training and instead rely on common sense when it comes to addressing business executives. When Hinchliffe had to explain the benefits of an outsourcing arrangement to senior management, she reports: "I said, �OK, you're building a golf course. You can either have Jack Nicklaus come in and design it, or you can design it yourself. Which do you think is going to come out better?'"

Of course, it also helps to speak the language of business. For that reason, you need a working knowledge of business terms and economics. Chances are, you've already picked up at least a basic understanding of the economic laws that make business run. But if you haven't, you may need to find a book or a Web site and play some catch-up.

Introduction to project management

Project management goes hand in hand with communications skills, and many experts say it's a key development area for many IT pros. "Project management should come first," says Cushing Anderson, an analyst at IDC. "It's most important because it teaches technologists about the inter-relatedness of their department" with the overall business.

Some IT-education companies, including Global Knowledge, offer project management courses geared specifically toward technology professionals.