IT Hire Wire

Enterprise System Assessments Interview
Robert Schechter
IT Business Analysis

With the ever changing healthcare payer market, I have found that a systems assessment, at an enterprise level, gives an organization the tools for sound strategic decisions.  These assessments are vital in the identification of the strong and week points in a corporation’s systems architecture.  Therefore, enterprise system assessments with be critical for the impending 5010 and ICD10 federal mandates.

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Another early morning at the sunny and elegant Spangler Center at Harvard Business School finds over 100 leaders of industry preparing for HSBAB’s Future of Health Care Lecture First on the program was the well-known Ranch Kimball, President and CEO of Joslin Diabetes Center and former Secretary of Economic Development under Governor Mitt Romney.  Second was John Halamka the CIO of Harvard Medical School and one of the most sought-after thinkers and speakers in the world of health information technology (”HIT”). Although unclear at first why a CEO and CIO have been brought together, it soon becomes apparent.

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Software development has a long history of change. Whatever the latest and greatest programming language and application development environment is today is sure to be obsolete within 2 years. When it comes to Enterprise Software there’s been no more significant platform release in recent years than Microsoft Sharepoint. In April I sat down with Mark Vogt, a Senior IT Consultant and Sharepoint architect in the Chicago area to discuss Sharepoint, the future of knowledge sharing, and his experience working with Hudson as an IT contractor.

Q: So, Mark I got to know your work first hand as a software architect and developer on our Sharepoint Intranet project here at Hudson. How did you come into contact with Hudson?
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You don’t need to have the following of a celebrity to get a job through social networking, but utilizing these channels to “be seen and heard” by strategically networking on these sites will help. Two of the largest and most used sites to network for job opportunities right now are LinkedIn and Twitter.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is not only a place to upload an online profile and resume, you can also engage and connect with other LinkedIn users through groups. Groups are formed around interests, industries, location, etc. Hudson has their own group, Hudson Network, with over 1,259 members ranging from clients, candidate and employees. If you were looking for a job at Hudson, or any company with a group, participating in a group discussion is an easy way to get your foot in the door.
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Bernadette Floyd
Instructional Design Consultant and Project Manager
Hudson IT Learning & Development Contractor

Q: Can your responsibilities make or break the success of an IT project?

A: Absolutely. If the end-users don’t know how to use the system, how successful can the project be? My job is to ensure that the end-users know the correct and most efficient way to complete each task based on their job function.

Q: On a typical project, how do you collaborate with the IT world?

A: It all depends on the type and stage of the project. Often training is not involved at the very beginning of the project. Usually there is some document about the system. I try to read up on that before approaching anyone in IT so that I have a baseline level of knowledge. From there, there may be someone from IT assigned as your point person who will answer your questions. If there is a training database, I’ll work with IT to get the data needed for hands-on practices loaded.
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Robert Schechter
IT business analysis

Conducting JAD or business requirement gathering sessions can be a nightmare.  As a business analyst, the ability to find a path through the thick weeds of requirements is an important skill set.  In my experience with leading requirement gathering sessions for system migrations, identifying which requirements are crucial for a business is challenging.  A good percentage of the information captured from “subject matter experts” is based upon their assumptions which can not be validated rendering the information as useless.

Q: How do IT business analysts build up their skills in weeding through business requirements?
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Let’s assume that you have already used Twitter to increase your knowledge in the IT field as I’ve mentioned before, or as suggested to IT execs by Peter Kretzman in Getting’ Twitter, from the Technology Executives Perspective. Now you are following a strong network of interesting and potentially useful networking contacts. You’ll need to engage these Tweople to receive the maximum benefit for your job search.

Here are a few easy tips to quickly build a savvy network on Twitter and in the IT profession:
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It’s imperative to try Twitter for your IT job search if you want to make social networking work for you. The key to doing Twitter right though, is to use it as a turbo-powered networking tool rather than just another job board. Let me show you what I mean. Doing a simple search at search.twitter.com using the keywords “IT Job Chicago” turns out 48 job postings. You could give Twitterjobsearch.com a try (which I’m not yet a huge fan of) and get similar results. Job postings on Twitter link to the source of the posting and allow you to apply with your standard resume. The thing is, you could do that on Monster and CareerBuilder already, so how is using Twitter in this way any different?

Professional Networking on Twitter

I suggest that you think of your presence on Twitter as a new avenue to pursue your career interests. Notice that I didn’t say use Twitter as a new way to tell the world you are desperately seeking work.
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Jim Tomczyk
Project Manager specializing in IT healthcare
Hudson IT Contractor

Q: What has been your career path?

A: My path to project management began years ago, when I was a developer. I learned early that even the most elegant code (coding is an art form, after all) was useless if it didn’t serve the customer’s needs. By always keeping the customer in mind, it helped me to learn and grow the skills needed to move up the ranks in IT: requirements analysis, design, development, testing, implementation and support. My PM experience has included projects across several industries, including my current assignment in the Enterprise Program Management Office at a major health insurance company.

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This morning at Harvard Business School, Bob Brennan, President and CEO of Boston-based Iron Mountain, delivered a vision for the future and reflected on the notable mid-recession growth and profitability of this perennial giant in the world of records management, data storage and disaster recovery.

Casual observers marvel at how this company not only survives but thrives even though it shares the same challenges as “Dunder Mifflin Paper Company” on The Office - a core business built around a mundane, semi-obsolete medium, paper (similarly semi-obsolete medium, magnetic tape) in a hip digital age.

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