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162 the technologist of the future
The document discusses how career skills and expertise are changing in the modern workplace. It notes that expertise used to be highly valued, but technical skills now have shorter half-lives of only 5 years. The workplace is shifting to value flexibility over deep expertise in a single area. Individuals need to be able to rapidly learn new skills and adapt to changing technologies. While expertise still has value, the future is trending toward flexible generalists who can solve a variety of problems rather than narrow specialists. The document advises workers to expose themselves to many different skills and experiences to prepare for more varied career paths.
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162 the technologist of the future
- 1. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. By Peter Varhol and Gerie Owen The Technologist of the Future Building Skills for a Career
- 2. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon Learning Objectives • Understand and appreciate how career knowledge is changing, and how he or she can adapt to acquire and maintain knowledge throughout the course of a career. • Make career decisions based on the types of knowledge required in the future and stay one or more steps ahead of career dead ends. • Determine whether they are best suited as a traditional expert or flexible generalist. • Understand how career paths are changing, and what they have to do in order to stay on a viable path.
- 3. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon Peter Varhol • International speaker and writer • Graduate degrees in Math, CS, Psychology • Technology communicator • AWS certified • Former university professor, tech journalist • Cat owner and distance runner • peter@petervarhol.com
- 4. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon Gerie Owen • Quality Engineering Architect • Testing Strategist & Evangelist • Test Manager • Subject expert on testing for TechTarget’s SearchSoftwareQuality.com • International and Domestic Conference Presenter • gowen@gerieowen.com 4
- 5. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon Agenda • What we valued in the past • Why that has changed • Flexibility more than expertise • The limitations of flexibility • Flexibility and technology change • Conclusions
- 6. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon What You Will Learn • The changes affecting the work and skill sets • How these changes are impacting testing • How to prepare for new ways of thinking about technology and change
- 7. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon What We Valued in the Past • Let me tell you about Ernie • Ernie was one of my adult grad students • Ernie was an absolute expert in Turbo C++ • Version 3.0 • He thought Turbo C++ 3.0 would last forever • But it didn’t (nor did Borland) • And Ernie’s career crashed and burned
- 8. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon What We Valued in the Past • Malcom Gladwell wrote about Outliers • Expertise is rare • It takes at least 10,000 repetitions of an activity to become an expert • Today we value grit—putting your head down, blocking out distractions, committing over a course of many years to a chosen path • These are the experts we look up to
- 9. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon What We Valued in the Past • The times they are changing • There is an increasing need for “distracted” workers • People who tended to score high on “openness to new experience” means that they are also “easily distracted” • More distractible people are more flexible • Counterintuitively, conscientiousness correlates with poorer performance
- 10. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon Tech Skills Have a Short Half-Life • Our tech skills become obsolete within five years • https://blog.codinghorror.com/everything-you-know-will-be-obsolete-in-five-years/ • We can ride our once-valued tech skills into the ground • Or we can become more flexible
- 11. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon What Does This Mean for the Future? • As the rules change, so do ideas about what makes a good worker • These were important in the past • Focus • Ability to follow instructions • Grit and stick-to-it-iv-ness • But in the future • Adaptiveness to new concepts • Ability to change focus rapidly • Creativity
- 12. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon Just What Has Changed? • The Internet provides all the answers • Companies want to hire fewer people • More people cost more • Experts cost more • Expertise is typically narrow in focus • And goes out of scope quickly • We may be doing nothing more than running a Red Queen’s Race
- 13. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon And We Keep Running • In tech, expertise has a shelf life • And is not particularly useful outside of its problem domain • So we increasingly want general purpose problem solvers • Who can find the answers quickly • Google, YouTube, short online course • Asking the right questions • And knowing who to ask
- 14. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon What Is It About Flexibility? • The US Navy has extensively researched flexibility versus expertise • Those who adapt to changing circumstances do better jobs • The Navy has deployed new combat ships that have a crew of 40 • Versus several hundred on older variants • Each crew member has at least three jobs • No crew member is a specialist
- 15. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon But There Are Limits to Flexibility • The Navy had to call in a contractor to fix a ship crane • These ships had insufficient combat crew to deploy forward • Expertise still counts under certain circumstances • But maybe not enough to build a career out of • Minimal staffing may mean important work isn’t done • The military has always overstaffed during peacetime
- 16. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon Expertise Versus Flexibility • In stable environments, practice and expertise are valuable • Music, education systems, most manufacturing • All too often experts fail to inspect their knowledge structure for signs of decay • In rapidly changing environments, flexibility is valuable • War • Technology • Aviation/space
- 17. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon But Flexibility Relies on Expertise • We need the right answer to be available on Google • So some expert must put it there • Yet experts may not be the best people to apply their expertise • That’s straight out of Kahneman – Thinking Fast and Slow • If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail • So there is a symbiotic relationship between expertise and flexibility
- 18. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon An Uncomfortable Truth About Careers • The military services have hundreds of specializations • And promotions and more responsibility are based on these specializations • It is almost impossible to change specializations • Many civilian employers also have career tracks • Corporations fill slots • And generalists need not apply • We may find that our career (in a particular company) is tied to a specialization
- 19. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon What Does This Say About Technology? • It is becoming less common to find a traditional role • SDET • SRE • Automation engineer • Agile team member • Are all technologists • But they also do many things • Write scripts • Pair programming • Product/workflow maintenance • Documentation
- 20. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon Titles May Go Away Almost Entirely • But skill sets will remain • And be combined with others • If you don’t know how to do something, you find a YouTube video • Or a MOOC • What does that make you? • We often associate our life with our jobs or skills • Does this cheapen our self-image? • And there will be fewer of you
- 21. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon The Trend Toward Flexible Generalists • Employers are increasing using “aptitude tests” • General logic and computational ability • Personality tests • These tests measure general intelligence and knowledge, flexibility and the ability to work well with others (maybe) • They specifically do not measure expertise in the problem domain
- 22. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon Yet Classical Technologists Fill the Expertise Gap • Software design • Test plans, test procedures, test cases • Documentation • Assessing risk • Writing bug reports • But there won’t be nearly as many
- 23. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon Nothing We Said is Clear-Cut • Do all tech skills become obsolete rapidly? • Open source frameworks seem to have a longer shelf life • Legacy hardware and operating systems can linger for years • But you need more than a framework to build an app • Some legacy code lasts a long time before it fades • We know many thought leaders in technology • But most of them do training, with few or no practitioner roles • Can a few quick-thinking generalists really replace a fleet of specialists?
- 24. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon So How Should You Prepare Your Career? • Take an interest in everything in your environment • See all experience as interesting and meaningful • Pay attention to all skills needed to design/develop/test/deliver apps • Learn and practice those skills
- 25. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon Are We There Yet? • Not nearly • There will be friction getting there • Some jobs will demand experts, some will shun them • You may be caught in the middle • And • Expertise is the last refuge of certain groups • Older workers, minorities, handicapped
- 26. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon And Last • Despite best efforts, your individual mileage may vary
- 27. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #ISACACon References • Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell • Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman • The End of Expertise, The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/future-of-work-expertise- navy/590647/ • Everything You Know Will Be Obsolete in Five Years, https://blog.codinghorror.com/everything-you-know-will-be-obsolete-in-five-years/ • Millennials are job market darlings, https://www.linkedin.com/feed/news/millennials-are-job-market-darlings-5099802/
- 28. Copyright © 2020Information Systems Audit and Control Association, Inc. All rights reserved. #AfricaCACS Questions? Thank you!
Editor's Notes
- #8 Geek humor. 127.0.0.1 is localhost, or the computer you are currently using. https://qz.com/work/1702462/what-happens-to-tech-workers-when-their-skills-become-obsolete/
- #13 'Now! Now!' cried the Queen. 'Faster! Faster!' And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, breathless and giddy. The Queen propped her up against a tree, and said kindly, 'You may rest a little now.' Alice looked round her in great surprise. 'Why, I do believe we've been under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it was!' 'Of course it is,' said the Queen, 'what would you have it?' 'Well, in our country,' said Alice, still panting a little, 'you'd generally get to somewhere else -- if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing.' 'A slow sort of country!' said the Queen. `Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!'