Rallying around the need for digital excellence
Today was the formal start of the government's mission to develop solutions to the need for qualified digital skills, through a live conference attended by Åsa Zetterberg, Director of the Swedish Association of IT & Telecom Companies. For two years, the responsible authorities Tillväxtverket and UKÄ will collaborate with a number of actors to both map and develop proposals for solutions. Åsa Zetterberg emphasized the importance of the investigation working "action-based" - the solutions are needed now, not in two years.
The conference(which can be watched afterwards here) started with a presentation of a preliminary work on the concept of "digital excellence" itself, done by a team led by KTH professor Jan "Gulan" Gulliksen. The concept of excellence is problematic in several ways, as it - despite the word "excellence" - encompasses a wide range of knowledge, skills and abilities. The Gulan team has concluded that it includes six components, the first of which - knowledge - in turn consists of four parts - see below.
Digital excellence goes beyond technical skills
Åsa Zetterberg emphasized that "digital excellence" is not a term that is commonly used in the IT industry, but rather that the players in the industry are talking about the individual roles - developers, ux:ers, project managers, etc. However, the fact that IT competence/excellence consists of more than technical competence has been a given in the IT industry for a long time, and the reports produced by IT&Telekomföretagen use a triangle model in which, in addition to technical competence, the operational and business-related competencies are also highlighted. Åsa emphasized that around 40 percent of all those who work with digital excellence have roles that emphasize the "combinatorial", with project managers as a typical example.
Much of the discussion at the conference focused on the link to lifelong learning and how professionals can increase their digital excellence. Åsa Zetterberg highlighted the IT&Telecom companies' proposal for Tech Checks as a way to stimulate this.
Åsa also suggested that the Digital Skills Council proposed by the Gulan team be given a clear action-based and campaigning mission, so that we can develop solutions to the skills needs now and not wait for two years.