Professional Skills Presentation.

Topic - Novice Meets Expert

Course Objectives - This assessment task relates to the following course objectives:

-understand the nexus between business knowledge and IT professional practice at operational and strategic levels within a global context

-be able to develop and apply common business skills in an IT context

-value and understand the legal, social and ethical issues involved in IT professional practice within a cultural context

Background-

As information technology professionals entering the workforce it is important to develop an understanding of contemporary business practice, and the skills required to support the social impact of computers. Business skills include working on teams, teaching others, serving customers, leading, negotiating, working with cultural diversity, interviewing, listening, conducting meetings, and confliction resolution. Almost 90% of US companies believe some type of business skills training in necessary for their workforce (Hurley, 2008). As reported by Weinstein (2001) "it is no secret that business and technical skills are a magical combination". Many technologists and educators are seeing the wisdom of the combination of both skill sets.

So what are the combination of technical and business skills that modern employers are looking for, and which skills are most in demand in the modern workforce?

Requirements

You should work in a team. Team sizes should be limited to 4 students. Please organise your teams and let your lecturer/tutor know the members of your team by week 8. Your lecturer/tutor will assist in the allocation of students to teams where necessary.

The purpose of the interview is to explore:

a. the organization's approach to handling social issues facilitated by the use of computer technology e.g. social networking, social network security policies, etc.

b. aspects of the information technology project management related people issues within the organization e.g. personal/leadership/managerial skills, interpersonal skills, group skills, communication skills, etc.

Interview Guidelines-

Selecting a Target:

You should select someone who has a full-time role as a manager/IT professional, running a business or leading an organisation. The organisation may be autonomous, or it may be a clearly defined unit within a larger organisation. Your team may choose any IT organisation or IT department of an organisation. The important thing is that the interviewee manages people and has responsibility for the IT infrastructure in their organisation.

Interview Question Topics

Each team member must select TWO unique topics, one from list A and one from list B. From these topics, teams will develop questions to ask at the interviewee. One-2 questions per topic will be sufficient.

List A - Social Impact of Technology in Business:

1. Impact of social networks on a business organization

2. Using social networks for recruitment

3. Social network security policies in a business organization

4. Perceived benefits of Internet to a business organization

List B - Business and Professional Practice

1. Ethical issues in project management

2. Qualities of a good leader

3. How action learning can improve the organizational performance

4. Entrepreneurial negotiations

5. Major reasons for the change of an IT system in a business organization

6. Different stages of a team development

Reports should contain the following components and be structured as follows.

Title page

Executive summary

Table of contents-

Introduction
Novice Meets Expert
Social Impact of Technology in Business *
Business and Professional Practice *
Conclusion
References
Appendices

Individual Tasks-

As previously stated each individual member of the team is to write a section of the report (between 1000-1200 words) on their selected topics, one from list A, social impact of technology in business, and one from list B, the business and professional practice.

Each sub-section of the report should have a label which indicates the topic under investigation. The opening paragraph of each section should outline both the topic and indicate any relevant theory to be discussed.

The body of each section should provide an analysis of the interviewee's responses to the topic questions from the interview data, and synthesise these ideas with ideas from the literature.

Team Tasks -

This assessment task is to be submitted by each team as a single report, with the individual sections appended together. The report should include a team executive summary, a team introduction, a team conclusion and a team list of references. A reference used in more than one section should be listed once only.

The assessment criteria and feedback provides guidelines and a breakdown of individual and team marks. Students are advised to read it carefully. The team conclusion should be written after consensus has been reached by the whole team and should begin by summarising the individual contributions. Responsibility for creation of the executive, team conclusion and common reference list should be a shared responsibility and should be checked by all members of the team.

As part of the appendices, there should be a brief list of the contributions of each member of the team in addition to the writing of the report. This might be meeting minutes, writing the first draft of executive summary, conclusion or list of references and/or proofreading a report written by another team member and/or contributing in other ways to the work of the team.