3 Skills Your Technology Team Is Missing Today

So, if every part of your organization needs technology advancements, is it enough for your technology team to only have the skills needed to perform technology tasks? If you’re looking to succeed or simply keep pace, the answer is likely no. Technology team members, but especially leaders, need to have a shared interest in the success of other departments and be a collaborative part of the process.

On the flip side, your entire organization, especially outside your tech team, needs to develop the technical skills necessary for digitally enabled work. Technology skills are no longer highly centered in IT; they need to be “marbled” across organizational functions and businesses and coupled with soft skills to achieve transformation success, according to Gartner. And, as Deloitte puts it, some roles, such as technology product owners, may be filled by workers in business functions rather than those in technology functions.

Your tech team can’t be all things to all departments, so it’s key to ensure the right relationships are made between your team and the rest of the organization. To fully integrate your technology team with the rest of your organization, rethink your organizational needs and processes from the top down and bottom up, and consider these questions when reassessing what skills your team needs today:

Something you might also want to consider is sourcing talent from other departments outside IT. These individuals may already possess these non-technical skills and instead be able to ramp up on the technology acumen through on-the-job training or additional outside courses and certificate programs. In fact, there is a growing trend that IT leaders are being sourced from outside the technology team. According to a 2020 study conducted by Deloitte and WSJ Intelligence, 87% of CEOs agree it is “more important now for technology leaders to understand business operations, strategy, and innovation than to have deep expertise in technology systems.”

While every organization and team is different, it’s worth looking at skills that aren’t traditional to the technology department—the need for and value of these skills might surprise you. Filling in these skills gaps can go a long way toward helping your tech team become more integrated and collaborative throughout your organization.

Think of learning agility as the quick consumption of new information and skills on a continual basis, and then the ability to apply those skills in your job and career—sometimes people with these traits are also known as life-long learners.

You might be able to achieve this with on-the-job training by tapping your critical talent to work on cross-functional projects, either within your technology department or with other departments. A variety of projects can help your team by giving them access to hands-on experiences in a wide range of areas where they can build confidence. At the same time, this approach can provide a valuable opportunity to develop specialized skills and strengthen key relationships.

Other areas to consider are workplace development and training solutions. There is a challenge with doing this in house, according to one global study, only 21% of people are happy with their employers’ learning and development experience, while 47% are dissatisfied. Partnering with external sources to help develop employee skills through things like certificate programs can help your team learn new competencies and pursue credentials to validate them. Such programs can enable your team to develop skills specific for a project or business function, like project management, leadership, global supply chain and big data and analytics.  

According to the World Economic Forum, employers believe that critical thinking and problem-solving skills will top the list by growing in prominence in the next five years.

Critical thinking goes hand-in-hand with learning agility. It is the ability to assess a problem, develop a hypothesis and conclusion, and decide on a course of action. Team members with strong critical thinking skills can bring tremendous value to the entire organization and your team, as these skills can be applied to any problem. By putting this into action, your team may be better positioned to proactively assess situations, spot potential issues and implement preventive measures, rather than solely reacting to situations as they unfold.

As Gartner puts it, in the digital business world, it is essential that CIOs and IT leaders be able to show the role of IT within the business strategy. The challenge exists in building the business acumen across the IT organization, so each member of the team can effectively execute on the digital business strategy. For your tech team to fully integrate into your overall organization, they’ll need to develop a strong understanding of the organizational strategy and how their work not only fits in but can truly lift and accelerate that strategy.

If an IT team can directly attribute a project to a revenue stream or efficiency savings, they may be able to see a clearer view of how their work contributes to the bottom line. This level of understanding can help build a team of strong collaborators who are also better partners, able to prioritize demands and equip them to find novel solutions to the biggest challenges your organization faces.

Determining current and future skills gaps is critical to your team and organizational success. Consider these three elements when establishing a flexible, but measurable skills gap analysis process:

There are a few different pathways you could follow to help fill your identified skills gaps. Depending on your business needs and the individual needs of your team, you may want to implement two or more solutions simultaneously.

It’s a powerful tool to reskill or upskill talent when you already have the knowledge on your team, and your team has the bandwidth to support. This is often a great resource for on-boarding new talent to the team, from either outside your organization or team. Training them on processes, procedures and software that are needed for their jobs.

Sometimes your team doesn’t have the needed skills or the bandwidth to help reskill and upskill their team members. When this is the case you might benefit from finding an educational partner or partners that specialize in helping reskill and upskill talent. Consider this when establishing a partnership: