Q: For which IT skills are you hiring or will you be hiring?
Our annual survey on IT trends turned up a pleasant surprise -- the resilience of enterprise architecture (EA). According to Jim Love, "fully 38% of responding companies say they will be hiring in this area. If you believe as I do that EA is the one skill that we must have if IT is to be truly strategic, these results are encouraging." He wonders that with the multiple architectures companies find themselves juggling, whether they'll ever "get the real efficiencies or results that businesses are looking for? But integration is only part of the story; the many and disparate architectures are a nightmare to support with the challenge of coordinating multiple providers through the finger-pointing exercise that often passes for problem resolution."
Jim concludes, "Without architecture in general, and EA specifically, we not only can't manage these challenges, but we risk devolving into islands of applications. These hiring intentions are a clear statement that organizations understand the real value EA provides in the new world of outsourced and SaaS applications. If it's true -- it bodes well for the future of IT."
* Driven by Data: Can We Invent the Future?," (
) Cutter Benchmark Review, Vol. 13 No. 1.