BCS, IBSMA, IAITAM – looking back on May’s ITAM events

The last few weeks have been pretty hectic, with a lot of travel (although only two flights a week, as I’m getting to spend a few days in the same place each time - many of you will appreciate the luxury of this). I’m writing this on a very full flight back from Orlando after attending Gartner’s Digital Workplace Summit (I didn’t realise when booking flights that it was half term in the UK and I’d be coming home with lots of families returning from holiday) and have still managed to take a week to post it! I finally have time to reflect on the ITAM events I’ve participated in recently. I’ll leave the recent inputs from the Digital Workplace Summit to digest a bit longer, but it’s enough to say there are some really exciting ideas that I’m looking forward to exploring further.

With three ITAM-focussed events in quick succession (within two weeks in fact) it really brought home to me that ITAM professionals are a community. There were lots of familiar faces, many of whom were at more than one of each of these events - some in both San Diego and one or other (or both) of the London events. Whether practitioners, vendors or analysts, we share a common interest and common experience – and while there will always be competition in any commercial market, there is plenty of room for collaboration and ‘co-opetition’ in driving the industry forward (consider how many of us are involved in ISO 19770 for a start).

My ITAM conference marathon started with the BCS CMSG Conference in London on May 15th where I participated in a panel discussion considering ‘ITAM 2029’ hosted by Kylie Fowler considering where our industry will be in the next 5-10 years. While there were some interesting thoughts on the technologies that will impact us in the near term, for me the most interesting discussion was around the skills that ITAM will need in the future. While there was an acknowledgement that licensing knowledge is important for SAM practitioners, Julia Veall from Vodafone highlighted the fact that ‘we’re no longer about counting things’ and that we need to recruit for skills rather than domain knowledge. Analytical skills were flagged as important, but also communication and business knowledge – and to this end, Julia has recently recruited a new team member from the retail side of her business to bring insights and understanding of how the business works into a team with a more technical background.

The skills theme continued at IBSMA’s London SAM Summit, with questions raised about the size of ITAM teams. Steven Smith, Director IT & Business Operations at Cisco advocated a flexible sourcing team, with his small internal ITAM function providing governance, communication and business knowledge while tools, services and consultancy enhanced their capabilities and filled the gaps in their knowledge. At the other end of spectrum Rachel Ryan (Danske Bank, Global Head of IT Asset Management – has a large and expanding team as she’s adamant that she needs the licensing SMEs to sit within her internal team rather than be provided by a third party.

There were similar discussions at IAITAM ACE in San Diego both in presentations and in conversations on the exhibition floor – what skills do ITAM professionals need both now and in the future, and how do we source and develop them? I often ask audiences about their route into ITAM – was it a choice or did they fall into it by chance as I did? There is generally a wry chuckle when we talk about getting into ITAM by being in the wrong place and the wrong time – and finding out that it was in fact the right place for us after all. At IAITAM there was in fact one audience member who had chosen ITAM rather than being chosen by it, as a result of an internship that introduced her to ITAM.

So how do we deal with the gap in ITAM skills? Well firstly I’d say we need to look at the ex-intern. She tried ITAM and fell in love with it the way many of us did when we were given the ‘opportunity’ to deliver an ITAM project. So how many of us are offering internships? I know I used to do this, and even where interns didn’t choose this as a career path, they continued to evangelise as they moved through the organisation, and even now some of them are using what they learned in their current roles.

We also need to think about the business knowledge. Like Julia, I recruited from the business, introducing invaluable understanding of the issues facing frontline staff to a team based in corporate IT who were at risk of being distanced from the realities of day-to-day business activities.

All of this brings me back to the Gartner Digital Workplace Summit. It may initially seem unrelated – after all, it wasn’t about ITAM or licensing (although I met a few people who are setting up ITAM initiatives). But what it did raise was the need for ‘digital dexterity’ to counter the changing needs for skills. Where once highly technical skills were valued most, now we recruit for ‘soft skills’ and focus on adaptability – the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn as the digital world around us evolves.

If we’re going to build an ITAM profession fit for the future we need to embrace this need for digital dexterity, recruit for diversity and flexibility, offer internships so people can experience our world and make positive choices to join it, and build a community that supports the development of the individuals that make it up through collaboration and mutual support.