The difficulties IS professionals encounter in adapting their skills when transitioning from working in one area of knowledge to another are underestimated by software higher education and training in organizations. Not many measures are taken to cater to the learning difficulties.
An article that I came across titled "
UNDERSTANDING MINDSHIFT LEARNING: THE TRANSITION TO OBJECT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT.
by authors - Armstrong, Deborah J.1 djarmstrong@fsu.edu,
Hardgrave, Bill C.2 whardgra@uark.edu, source - MIS Quarterly; Sep2007, Vol. 31 Issue 3, p453-474, 22p." is an eye-opener in this area.
The authors discuss the scenarios of learning and training where it requires a shift in fundamental thinking for Information Systems professionals. They explain the context of Software development in a framework divided into "four hierarchical levels". They are paradigm, approach, methodology and techniques. They take the Objected oriented development versus traditional development as an example of the "approach level " in this paper.
New, changed and carried over concepts, difficulty levels of the concepts, years of experience of the developer are some of the factors discussed in this paper that influence the learning difficulties.
Their paper supports well their conclusion that an "understanding" of the issues will trigger "changes in management initiatives, instructional design, learning process..".
In making these changes management should bear in mind that IS professionals must also cope with the demands of learning spanning several areas such as tools, domain knowledge, version upgrades, system environment, languages, influence of standards.
Software higher education, management and organizations will need to be able to contend with the demands of frequent shifts in the areas of "paradigm, approaches, methodologies, techniques" in this industry.
Organizational training and management should ultimately be able to handle identifying and addressing the issues in transitioning. It need not be a "to do list" for the learner alone. Management initiatives in such areas will lessen the pyschological impact that an individual goes through without the proper mindset.
Points to ponder:
1. Are transitioning difficulties identified and addressed by training and teaching in the IS area?
