Do you have 10 soft skills that IT personnel must master?

In addition to technical ability, IT personnel in modern enterprises need to master some soft skills. Now, these soft skills are nothing new, but the scope and quantity of these soft skills that IT personnel need are increasing.

What kind of technical ability IT personnel need depends on which company they work in. But no matter which company's IT department employees need to have the same "soft skills". These requirements for IT personnel have long been put forward. More than 30 years ago, the IT department of an enterprise specially recruited graduates majoring in humanities and social sciences as business system analysts, hoping to break the communication barrier between technicians and end users with their interpersonal communication skills. Usually, corporate CIOs have more or less academic backgrounds in humanities and social sciences, because they have more advantages in soft skills. So, what soft skills do today's enterprises want their IT staff to have? The following will list the most important 10 soft skills that IT personnel need to have, summarized by Mary Shacklet, president of Global Data.

1, transaction negotiation and meeting skills

It needs the combination of people and technology to make products, so as to ensure the continuous operation of the enterprise's business. In the process of project implementation, as long as there are "people" factors involved, there will inevitably be differences, but in the end, everyone must achieve a certain degree of team consistency to ensure the ultimate goal of the project. This requires IT personnel to sacrifice themselves for knowledge.

2. Strong communication skills

IT personnel's expressive ability and reading and writing ability must be strengthened. Even in today's advanced science and technology, the cultivation of these abilities will not be outdated. Because any form of communication is very necessary within the enterprise. Every year, those IT projects with good ideas but ultimately fail in enterprise IT reports are mostly caused by the lack of communication between personnel.

3, the sixth sense of project management

There are some courses and trainings that can help IT staff improve the project management level. But for most people, IT takes years of work experience to really improve the management ability of IT projects, and it takes longer to turn this ability to judge the project status into an intuition. A natural project manager has the sixth sense of project management, and many times such talent can't even be cultivated. If the CIO finds that one of his employees can "read" the project, he will be entrusted with a heavy responsibility.

4. Empathy ability

IT personnel usually deal with technology, so it is not easy for them to understand the difficulties faced by a non-technical end user in practical application. This requires IT personnel to learn to look at technical problems from the perspective of others, understand the actual situation of end users, and try their best to make IT applications within the enterprise more user-friendly and convenient for colleagues in other departments to learn and use.

5. Good team spirit

IT personnel who are willing to learn can easily fall into an isolated interpersonal communication state. However, IT work can never be the work of one person. Only when members really integrate into their own team and communicate and cooperate with other colleagues smoothly can their true value be reflected, and these people are more likely to be listed as candidates for future job promotion.

6. Political mind

IT personnel also need to have a keen political mind, have a keen understanding of the interpersonal organization within the company, and at the same time constantly support their supporters and establish their own strong interpersonal circle in key departments of the enterprise, so that they will get a lot of convenience in their work.

7. Knowledge sharing ability

IT personnel often need to explain how to use newly developed applications for end users in other departments, and they are also important human resources for IT training within enterprises. If IT personnel can work with those end users and provide help and support in peacetime, they will become more valuable-because real IT training needs to be carried out in practical work most. More importantly, IT personnel need to be willing to share knowledge actively, and at the same time, they should be able to listen patiently to others telling their own difficulties.

8. Solve the problem of human factors

Most IT personnel like to bury their heads in the "binary" black and white world. Unfortunately, many problems in the implementation of IT projects are caused by human factors. These problems are often not absolutely right or wrong, which is the so-called "black and white." But in the end, we have to find a solution acceptable to everyone. Excellent IT personnel should be able to find the root of the problem, explain it to others accurately, and finally solve the problem in front of everyone. This will certainly help to clear the obstacles to project implementation and shorten the project cycle.

9. Supplier management

Some IT or management courses will mention the issue of supplier management, but few IT personnel are willing to do practical work in this area. In view of the rising trend of IT outsourcing, IT personnel with management ability will establish a good cooperative relationship with service providers to ensure that they can bring useful value in SLA and KPI. At the same time, these IT personnel are more likely to get opportunities for job promotion.

10, contract negotiation

Solutions based on cloud computing are becoming more and more popular, and when enterprises sign service cooperation agreements, the requirements for IT personnel's negotiation skills and legal awareness are getting higher and higher. When IT personnel have this ability, they will usually get the attention and appreciation of their superiors quickly, and even be promoted to administrative positions with higher salaries.