The State of the Technology Worker
There are a number of pressures on
the technology workforce that continue to make our work difficult. These
will be discussed briefly along with some suggestions for improving the quality
of our profession.
Just
five years ago, the primary consumers of tech
were other techies.
However,
we have Crossed the Chasm, and increasingly those who consume our services are less
technical and require more education, better UI's and higher levels of support.
This increases the amount of support we have to provide them.
The breadth and depth of our field is overwhelming, making it hard for us
to stay abreast of all the new advances and difficult to give sound business
recommendations on the many overlapping capabilities, especially to non-techies.
The growing complexity is daunting at times.
The rate of pay for the tech field
has barely kept pace with inflation. Although as an industry we are paid better
than many other workers, our responsibilities continue to increase as we get older
(average age in tech is now 40 something). The 90's saw attractive compensation
plans, but that is unusual today.
Finally, as technology becomes so mainstream, we are expected to integrate
with many different industries and contribute to their technology vision. While
the demand for in house technical workers decreases,
there will always be
a demand for those who effectively work in groups and can bring integrative and
analytical skills to bear in overcoming challenges in many different industries.
This means we have to work in teams, improve our communication skills and learn
more about the business we are trying to improve.
Strategies for Working More Effectively
Focus
on value to the client, not the underlying technology or steps required to
achieve their vision. One complaint I hear is that business has a hard time
understanding what the technical team is talking about. It's always fun to have
a low level debate about operating systems, programming languages, databases,
etc. but the client should not get dragged into that conversation. Instead, we
need to limit our discussions to what they want to accomplish and how the
solution we develop for them accomplishes that.
After
identifying what is valuable to the client, avoid techno jargon and
describe our efforts in terms they will understand. Using terms
the client does not understand will only alienate us, making things more
difficult. Instead,
we want to forge a better relationship. For example, In a recent eBusiness
project we received a request for an "email blast" feature. Throughout the
project, that was how we referred to it, NOT as an "HTML enhanced newsletter generator with self-managing
email address database."
As
techies, we are used to the blank-eyed looks we get in response to answering the
question "what do you do?" To compensate, we may keep it simple,
for example "I work with computers." However, instead of blending in with 1.5 million US
hi-tech workers, we need to distinguish ourselves. This is epitomized in the
Blue Ocean Strategy, an approach for improving any business, to include
technical services. Charting a new course means discovering what makes us unique and capitalizing on it.
The
last point is to avoid hourly fees (which
some argue are unethical) and instead focus on value.
One way to do this is spend a little time scoping out the project to learn how
your services can benefit the client. If their perceived value of your service
is in keeping with your own, then it is potentially a good fit. If you have a
sense of ownership of the big picture, and feel you are being equitably
compensated, you will take better care of their needs, and they will be more
satisfied with the outcome.