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This article is the third part of a three-part series on Women in IT that I wrote after presenting the information at a Devoxx BOF. The first part of this series talked about challenges for women entering and pursuing a career in IT, followed by reasons why more women should be in IT. The series ends with this article presenting strategies to tackle the issues discussed earlier in the series. This series of articles aims to make visible and raise the awareness of the challenges, reasons, and strategies for women in IT.

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The Future of IT
According to the Society of Information Management’s annual IT Trends Survey (2008), IT and business alignment remains a top concern of CIOs. Alignment is a skill that is less technical than it is social. It is a the ability to articulate a business case while truly understanding and making use of the available technology at hand. CIOs who said they were aligned with the business were more likely to be able to use IT to enable new revenue streams, and more importantly, to use IT to create a competitive advantage for the company than unaligned CIOs. According to the latest Gartner CIO survey, 85 percent of CIOs see significant change coming as they look to meet rising business expectations for IT. The trend is towards IT as a partnership to business and no longer just subservient to it. Including IT in the decision-making processes affecting important organizational changes, instead of only engaged in the implementation of a project, allows businesses to fully tap the potential of their IT departments to deliver business value. However, we are not there yet. IT, as a whole, must learn to effectively communicate their contribution to business successes, and thereby, change the perception of IT from a cost center to one of strategic value. In other words, IT needs people who are able to combine the ability to articulate benefits of IT with technical skills.

The top ten concerns of CIOs from the survey are:

1. IT and business alignment
2. Build business skills in IT
3. IT strategic planning
4. Attracting new IT professionals
5. Making better use of information
6. Manage change
7. Reducing the cost of doing business
8. Improve IT quality *
9. Retaining IT professionals *
10. Security and privacy *

* tied

IT and business alignment (#1) will help to change the image of IT to be less purely technical and more interesting, which will help to attract more women (#4) into the field. In addition, retaining IT professionals (#9) includes retaining women.

Considering where the future of IT is going, individuals, companies, as well as public policies can go a long way in harnessing the largely untapped pool of female talent into the IT profession.

Strategies for Women in IT
Be visible
Related to the issue of self-confidence when presenting ideas, women also tend to have more problems with self-promotion than men. Women expect that in the workplace, like in school, doing well will be recognized and rewarded. The real world, however, does not work that way. I have known many technical people, men as well as women, who are undervalued at their work because they are not able to speak up for themselves and claim credit for ideas and work done. The advice is to trust in your own B.S. detector. Know your own accomplishments and abilities and be prepared to speak about them. In other words, try to be visible.
Lead Organizational Change
Secondly, women can help create the needed change in the organizational culture that will enable IT/business alignment and promote agility in implementing business process changes. Become agents of organizational change that will benefit the company by promoting teamwork and collaboration.
Network
Thirdly, networking brings us visibility and gives us a chance to reach out for help – or to help. Sharing our combined knowledge and experiences helps counter the old boy’s club and can help each of us succeed in the field of IT.

Tip: Ask Jo, a monthly advice column on the Anita Borg website, has great advice for women in IT.

Strategies for Individuals
Individuals, no matter what role they have in the organization, women or men, can make a difference in helping the company recruit and benefit from the participation of women in IT.

First and foremost, we can be aware of our own subconscious discriminations. Remember that women, as well as men, sometimes have false assumptions about the ability of women. In her presentation Who Do You Trust? at Agile 2008, Linda Rising, best known in the agile community for her book Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas, tells us that we are all hard-wired to be judgmental. Humans are born with an instinctive ability to make quick decisions about another human being in order to determine if they are friend or foe very quickly. From an evolutionary standpoint, this ability was essential to survival and because the ability is rooted in instinct, it influences everyone. While stereotyping is the categorization of people based on prior assumptions and presumed familiarity, prejudice is the preconceived judgment or opinion with positive or negative connotations about a person or people. Although prejudice influences everyone, some people falsely believe that they are not prejudiced. Being aware of our own subconscious prejudices will be a starting point in dispelling some of the assumptions about women and their innate abilities.

Secondly, sharing your knowledge with those around you – whether it is technical or informal knowledge – can help you and others stay on top of the game when others reciprocate the favor. I’ve found that sometimes sharing knowledge that seems to me to be trivial can make a big difference in someone else’s work. Information enables us to do our work effectively. So, the inverse of sharing your knowledge is to ask many questions. When everyone can collaborate by trusting each other and sharing knowledge, that is better for reaching the full potential of each individual. The resulting work culture can be more conducive to attract and retain women in IT.

Lastly, individuals can talk to others, especially young people, about your experiences and views on IT. My personal experience is that despite real challenges now and then, IT is a very creative, collaborative, and intellectually satisfying career. Why should others miss out on the fun?

Strategies for Companies
Some of the following strategies for companies to deal with gender diversity IT, while benefiting women in the company, can benefit the company as a whole.

• Evaluate existing policies and practices in hiring, evaluation, and promotion for awareness and advancement of diversity
• Create awareness and toleration of different communication styles
• Train managers about gender-related issues and make sure that any gender diversity policies is communicated
• Teamwork should be valued and rewarded – Senior members of the team should coach the more junior members and this responsibility should be clear to them. Performance appraisal can be used as incentive to coach and share knowledge. Especially in Europe, difficulties in hiring and firing have fueled a outsourcing economy, where consultancy firms gobble up the available knowledge workers. Consequently, consultants join and leave projects frequently, taking their knowledge with them. Even with permanent employees, company loyalty is no longer how it was decades ago. Therefore, managers have a responsibility to make sure that knowledge stays and spreads within the team, making it easier for resource planning in the short and long term.
• Recruit women into top management – Companies with women in leadership positions have shown to have better operational and financial performance.
• Create or participate in a mentoring program – Mentoring is identified as an important part of career development. Companies, such as IBM and Shell, have set good examples with their mentoring programs. Perhaps small and medium-sized companies and freelancers might find an opportunity to coordinate effort in mentoring women to find a place in IT.
• Invest in your people – Training people in continued technical skills as well as leadership development will make sure that they are working at their best potential. Not doing so means that employees’ skills slowly become obsolete, which is further detrimental to the ability of IT to prove its value to business.
• Consider returning women – Considering returning women would be a policy change that does not punish women for the double burden of child-bearing. Usually, people can be retrained and productive in a relatively short time, while keeping a vacancy open costs even more money. If you want to consider returning women in recruitment, make sure to communicate this with recruitment partners and managers.
• Implement family-friendly policies – Family-friendly policies, such as maternity/paternity leave, flex-time, telecommuting, and childcare have been shown to improve the bottom-line: fewer employee absences, lower heath-care costs, higher rates of worker retention, better motivation, and increased productivity.

Strategies for Nations
The strategies for nations to deal with gender diversity in IT are similar to those for companies, but are to be considered in a wider public context.

• Evaluate current policies for effectiveness – Change policies that are counter-productive. For example, instead of policies that promote birthrate at the expense of women staying in the workplace, make policies that support women with children.
• Implement family-friendly policies – In addition to the benefits to companies resulting from family-friendly policies, a national benefit is a lower overall unemployment.
• Collaborate and share initial investment costs for policy change with companies to encourage women to stay or return to the workforce
• Public Campaign – Re-branding of IT – Lastly, a public campaign to re-branding IT as a dynamic, creative, and innovative career option for both women and men can foster a country’s competitive edge.

Summary
Despite the fact that on-going challenges in gender equality exist in the IT industry, women have major economic potential and are well-suited for participation and leadership in the changing face of IT. In conclusion, companies and governments that are able to develop and harness this pool of talent will be more successful in a global economy in the years to come.

Also in this series:

• Part 1: Challenges for Women Entering and Pursuing a Career in IT
• Part 2: Reasons Why More Women Should Be in IT

References

This article is the second part of a three-part series on Women in IT that I wrote after presenting the information at a Devoxx BOF. The first part of this series talked about challenges for women entering and pursuing a career in IT, followed by this article on reasons why more women should be in IT. The series ends with strategies to tackle the issues. This series of articles aims to make visible and raise the awareness of the challenges, reasons, and strategies for women in IT.

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The case for gender diversity in technology is stronger than ever. Here are a few of the reasons why women should get more involved in the future of IT.

Shortage of Qualified IT professionals
In a press release for International Women’s Day (March 8, 2008), Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media, calls for more women in Europe’s ICT. In Europe, there is a current shortage of around 300,000 qualified IT staff. On average world-wide, women consists of around 25% or less of the IT workforce with the exception of countries from the former Soviet block, which pulls the average up for the entire Europe to 28%. In general, the percentage of women obtaining a computer science degree have decreased in recent years. Despite the uncertainties of the current global financial climate, I believe that more women should still join the IT profession. With the introduction of a global economy, companies and countries have to redefine themselves in terms of core competencies. Women can contribute to the success of IT because diversity leads to innovation, which in turn, is the basis for economic growth.

Communications and Languages Skills
It is widely accepted that communication is essential to the success of a project, especially in the global world with outsourcing and distributed teams. In an article about why more women should consider a career in computer programming, the author argues that women can contribute a lot to the field because of their intrinsic language and communications skills. He even goes one step further to say that linguistic skill is even more important than mathematical skill in computer programming, because programming languages are after all, languages. People with better language skill produce better code because the code would be more readable. This would in turn lead to lower development and maintenance costs. As Martin Fowler once said, “Any fool can write code that a computer can understand, but only good programmers write code that humans can understand.” A team must understand each other to produce the software together. Another related article was called “Men write code from Mars, Women write more helpful code from Venus”. In it, the author states that women want to write clear and concise code, because they think about the people who will use the code later. I, myself, have encountered guys who think they’re clever when they write cryptic code that no one understands. But this type of attitude is detrimental to a company. A funny quote that I’ve come across about this is: “Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.” – Martin Golding. Coding is not only about communicating with the computer, but it is one of the ways that you communicate with your team.

Women’s Increasing Purchase Power
In a study by McKinsey, an international management and consultancy firm, Women Matter: Gender Diversity, a Corporate Performance Driver, women are the driving force behind more than 70% of all household purchasing decisions and are 47% of PC users in Europe. In the US, women are central to 94% of home furnishing purchases, 91% of home purchases, 60% of vehicle purchases and 50% of business travel purchases. In Japan, women influence 60% of new car purchases. In the Business Case for Gender Diversity, while women influence more than 80% of consumer spending decisions, 90% of technology products and services are designed by men. Including women in the design process of technology means more competitive products in the market. Women, being half of the population, are paramount to user-driven innovation and can bring new markets and open up new lines of business. Some companies have started to take notice of the purchasing power of women. For example, in the US, Best Buy, through the leadership of Julie Gilbert and her WOLF program, increased female market share by more than $3.6 billion, increased the number of female job applicants by 37 percent, and reduced female employee turnover by 5.7 percent.

Diversity Leads to Innovation
The Business Case for Gender Diversity states that diversity makes for better decision-making at all organizational levels. Diversity is especially important for problem solving and innovation, both extremely relevant for IT. In the article Diversity Powers Innovation, the author writes that diverse teams find more innovative solutions, get stuck less often, and are able to find a solution faster because they have different perspectives within the team. In fact, diverse teams even outperform teams of experts, as experts are often trained to think in the same way. In other words, diversity trumps ability. Diversity leads to better innovation, which is the seed of economic growth.

Women Leadership Shows Better Performance
In the same study on gender diversity as a corporate performance driver mentioned above, companies in Europe, America, and Asia, across a spectrum of industries from energy to financial institutions were rated on nine criteria:

• leadership
• direction
• accountability
• coordination and control
• innovation
• external orientation
• capability, motivation
• work environment and values

What they found was that the companies with a higher proportion of women in top management performed higher on average in all nine criteria. After this study that noted a positive impact of women at the top on operational excellence, a second study compared 89 European listed companies with a stock market capitalization of over €150 million and a high proportion of women in the board and in top management with other companies in their sectors. The results of this second study shows that companies with women in top management also performed better financially: on return of equity, operating results, and stock price growth. Although McKinsey was quick to point out that correlation is not necessarily cause, the result can only be argued in favor of gender diversity.

Also in this series:

• Part 1: Challenges for Women Entering and Pursuing a Career in IT
• Part 3: Strategies to Tackle the Issues

References

This article is the first part of a three-part series on Women in IT that I wrote after presenting the information at a Devoxx BOF. In addition to this article about the challenges for women entering and pursuing a career in IT, the other two parts of the series discuss reasons why more women should be in IT and strategies to tackle the issues. This series of articles aims to make visible and raise the awareness of the challenges, reasons, and strategies for women in IT.

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Despite the fact that women have been making great strides in other fields such as medicine and the law, the number of women in IT have been declining drastically since the mid-80’s. Gender stereotypes both in academia and corporate culture continue to exist at the disadvantage of women. These sometimes subtle, sometimes offensive prejudices where women are perceived to be less capable and less suited for IT began when we were children, continued through school, and into our professional lives. Granted, many women have succeeded in IT, but there should be more. This article describes some of the challenges facing women before and after they have entered a career in IT.

Girls and Boys and Self-Confidence
Starting at an early age, girls and boys are treated differently. Girls are given toys that promote social interaction and communication, while boys are given toys that promote competition and spatial orientation (hand-eye coordination). Boys are encouraged to play outside and be active, while girls are encouraged to sit quietly and be passive. After the childhood years, studies show that girls in adolescence begin and continue to have low self-esteem, which predictably have an enormous affect on academic achievement and furthermore, on their careers. To counter this problem, a US-based website on education has put together some information on how to encourage more girls in math and science. I found that another article that discusses what parents can do to promote self-esteem in girls is a valuable list for all of us in our own attitudes about learning, challenging stereotypes, and speaking up to get our voices heard.

Image of IT
The image of IT as a geeky, male-only, boring profession with long hours isolated at a computer is out-dated. In fact, the world of IT has been changing and the image of IT needs a makeover to match the reality. In a global economy, IT is more and more about communication and teamwork, and increasingly about delivering business value. Technical knowledge only gets you in the door, but it takes more than just technical knowledge to really succeed in a career in IT. Skills such as being able to collaborate and work well in a team and being able to communicate the business benefit of a piece of technology are essential in the growth of a technical career. In a study on women in mid-career at technology companies by the Anita Borg Institute, the following characteristics were identified as qualities critical for success in a technical career:

• analytical
• innovator
• questioning
• risk-taking
• collaborative
• entrepreneurial
• assertive

This suggests that the traditional (and popular) image of IT as “an anti-social hacker who works isolated in the glow of his computer screen” is simply out-dated. The future of IT requires engaged thinkers who work closely with others and who can align with business to achieve mutual success.

Cultural Expectations and Stereotypes
In some cultures, “traditional values” prevent women from working, driving, traveling, or even getting an education. In developed countries, although women are encouraged to get an education, they often choose non-technical studies, and a large percentage drop out of the workforce all together. Despite advances in education and career opportunities for women in the last decades, women are still more likely to have to deal with the double burden of doing more housework and being the primary caregiver for children and elderly family members. They are also more likely to experience a “family penalty” where the woman is perceived as less devoted to the company, while the man is seen as the primary “breadwinner” of the family. Based on stereotypes of the abilities of women, they are sometimes pushed into support roles or non-technical work, or they are passed over for promotions because they are (or assumed to be) family-focused or unwilling to travel.

Male Work Culture
When the women who either through sheer talent, support of their families, or just dogged determination begin a career in IT, some find that the male culture of the workplace is not ideal. In a report about the status of women in the IT industry, IT culture is largely described a “white, male-dominated, anti-social, individualistic, [and] competitive”. Cultural stereotypes contribute to an environment where women’s strengths are consistently undervalued. Women who start at a new job have to work harder to prove themselves, while men who start at a new job are assumed to be good at what they do. Women often have to work harder and longer hours to gain the same level of respect and recognition from managers and colleagues. Sometimes, macho “alpha-male” boorish types, who are offensive towards women because they cannot stand to have a woman as a colleague or superior, are tolerated by managers in exchange for the perceived price of intellectual contribution. Furthermore, despite the agreement among both women and men that collaboration is a key to success in technology, an hero culture sometimes exists where an individual is valued for being (and staying) an expert, while teamwork and knowledge-sharing are rarely rewarded. Problems such as feelings of isolation, lower salaries, less opportunities, and openly hostile colleagues persist in some workplaces. In my opinion, companies have an obligation to instill a culture of respect for all employees.

Advancement and Promotions
In the same study on women in technology mentioned above, barriers to advancement cause 56% of women in high-tech companies to leave at mid-career, usually at a high cost to these high-tech companies. The main barriers to advancement for mid-career technical women identified in the study are:
stereotyping

Women are sometimes pushed into support roles or non-technical work, or they are passed over for promotions because they are assumed to be family-focused or unwilling to travel.

old boy’s network, lack of role models and mentors

The old boy’s network where informal information is exchanged often do not allow women in. Furthermore, there is also a lack of role models and mentors and as a result, women often have a harder time finding their place in the industry.

work-life balance

Family-friendly policies can alleviate the issue of double burden for women. If quality childcare is available and if the culture moves towards involving fathers more in fathering, there would be a chance for work-life balance for both men and women.

company policies

Company policies and practices that appear to be gender-neutral or meritocratic are often created for “white upper-middle-class males” and are centered around men’s traditional role as sole breadwinners. This means that hiring, promotion, and evaluation practices often fail to take diversity into account, as the social phenomenon of desire to be surrounded by “people like me” (i.e.white males) cause women to be evaluated poorly compared to their male counterparts.

Also in this series:

• Part 2: Reasons Why More Women Should be in IT
• Part 3: Strategies to Tackle the Issues

References