Analysis of Professional Skills for ICT Professionals: A Report

This report analyzes the professional skills essential for success in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry, drawing upon a literature review of key academic sources. The report highlights the critical importance of project management skills, emphasizing the need for candidates with the right competencies, including leadership, team building, and communication. It examines the evolving demands of the ICT sector, where domain knowledge is insufficient without complementary soft skills. Furthermore, the report delves into risk management and critical success factors within ICT projects, stressing the significance of analyzing and mitigating potential risks. It references literature that underscores the need for professionals to understand project dimensions, conduct risk assessments, and apply risk management skills to prevent financial losses and career setbacks. The report concludes by recommending practical application of these skills, advocating for simulated environments and real-world project implementation to enhance the success rate of ICT initiatives. This analysis underscores the dynamic and multifaceted skill set required for ICT professionals to excel in a rapidly changing technological landscape.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL SKILLS FOR ICT
Professional skills for ICT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1PROFESSIONAL SKILLS FOR ICT
Reference 1:
Ahsan, K., Ho, M., & Khan, S. (2013). Recruiting project managers: A comparative
analysis of competencies and recruitment signals from job advertisements. Project
Management Journal, 44(5), 36-54.
Annotation:
The literature is about the core requirements and skills that are required in project
managers in the Information and Communication Technology industry. Only the candidates
with the right set of skills are appointed as project managers. The ICT industry is booming
with job opportunities but there are the number of obstacles that each candidate needs to
overcome in order to get into this industry. The recruiters are given a very high non-
negotiable criteria bar and they can recruit only those candidates are recruited who can meet
the criteria. The literature also states that the desired profile of a project manager must be
such that the collective skills of a project manager can be used to handle any project of the
domain that the manager belongs to. This has in turn dictated the competency parameters that
guide the project manager recruitment. The requirements of this industry is high as the
technology advances produced by this industry that would govern the work practices of other
industries. The author Kamrul Ahsan studied at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia
and author Marcus Ho studied at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. This
shows that these authors are in the academia field and are quite versed at researching the most
recent technologies. Author Sabik Khan works at Trust Bank Limited, Bangladesh. This sows
that he has quit6e a vivid idea on the professional skills that are needed by a project manager.
The key finding in this literature is that domain knowledge is not the only thing that is
required in an ICT project manager. The person needs leadership and various other soft skills
that are far more important and crucial for the completion of a project. Team building skills
along with the team management skills are also required, which also falls under the soft skill
set. A team with the right set of people is the essence of any project and thus it becomes thus
it becomes the responsibility of a project manager to keep the team involved for the duration
of the project tenure. The research conducted in this literature is qualitative and it focuses on
the various skill sets of a project manager. The reference is very beneficial in understanding
the requirements that a candidate needs to fulfil in order to become a project manager. The
limitation of the literature is that it does not describe in detail the individual skill of the
project manager skill set.

2PROFESSIONAL SKILLS FOR ICT
Recommendation:
The literature discusses about the different the different competencies of a project
manager and differentiates the basic from the advanced competencies. The basic
competencies such as expertise in the project and leadership capabilities are stated whereas
the advanced competencies include communication, pressure handling and technical skills.
Thus, in conclusion to the literature, the ICT industry needs highly competent project
managers to deliver high requirement projects and produce best quality results.
Page Number- 38, Paragraph Number- 03
Reference 2:
bin Ahlan, A. R. (2013, November). A coherent framework for understanding critical
success factors of ICT project environment. In Research and Innovation in Information
Systems (ICRIIS), 2013 International Conference on (pp. 342-347). IEEE.
Annotation:
The literature states that risk management and analysing critical success factors is one
of the core professional skills that are needed by the any organization of the ICT industry.
The planning phase of a project should include interviews from different managers in the
administration levels and the knowledge along with the content gained must be analysed and
utilized to under the risk management in a project. Many projects have failed in the past
because the managers were incompetent and did not give enough attention to the critical
success factors of a project. These factors are sometimes the make or break point of a project.
An ICT project might resemble as success to their project teams but the same projects can get
rejected by the stakeholders on account that the project had not met some requirements.
These risk factors are intertwined in different projects and the skills to understand such risks
and create a plan accordingly are very much coveted by the organizations of this industry.
Author A’ang Subiyakto studied at the Department of Information System of Syarif
Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta and author Abd. Rahman bin Ahlan studied at
the Department of Information System of International Islamic University, Malaysia. Both

3PROFESSIONAL SKILLS FOR ICT
the authors belong to the department of information system and thus they have extensive
knowledge in the professional skills that are required and are primarily needed to succeed in
the ICT industry. The key findings in this literature would include the understanding of the
risk assessment and the risk management skills that must be possessed by a professional of
the ICT industry. According to the literature there are four project dimensions that the
stakeholders focus on and the project managers must understand the intricacies and the
complexities of a project. Risk assessment is vital as a single failure of an ICT project can
cause substantial financial losses to the company and the losses would cost the professionals
their career. The research in this literature has been conducted in qualitative style as the
authors focus solely on evaluating each information source separately and discussed the
needs of a potent ICT professional with the required risk management skills. The literature is
very useful in providing an in-depth idea of the need for risk management and it helps in
providing definitive and mathematical ways for defining the critical success factors of a
project and its importance. The limitations of the literature would be that it fails to suggest
definite ways that could be adopted by different companies and professionals of the ICT
industry to better implement the risk management skills.
Recommendation:
Various skills are better to understand when implemented in real-life. Thus, the skills
must be first tested in simulated environments and then implemented in live projects. This
would greatly increase the success rate of the projects.
Page Number: 344, Paragraph Number: 02