ITECH7402 Professional It Culture: Stakeholders Analysis

Task 2: Using the SFIA 6 to Develop a Career Plan for Classroom/Career Transition

The Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) is one of the frameworks developed to guide professionals or aspiring professionals and employers in the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). Employers can match the skills of an applicant for a job to the skills needed to fill a specific vacancy in the business, and (prospective) job seekers can use the SFIA to build their skills for their aspired employment.

A main objective for an average student is how to become a professional. Therefore, knowing and embracing the set of skills, knowledge and competencies needed for the aspiring careers is foremost important. The objective of this assignment is to motivate students to achieve that. SFIA is developed and managed by SFIA Foundation, which is a global not-for-profit organization headquartered in the United Kingdom. SFIA Version 6 (aka SFIA 6), released on 1^st July 2015, has seven levels of responsibilities, and there are a number of skills for each level of responsibility. An overview of SFIA 6 can be downloaded by clicking here. The website address is also provided under the section Resources in this document.

Task:

Investigate the SFIA 6 framework, and apply it to develop a career plan to prepare you for your transition into the IT profession upon your graduation. First, identity and specify which of the seven SFIA 6 responsibility levels whose skills your developed career plan seeks to achieve.

Here, Mrs McDonald used the ethical approach of virtue to react to this ethical situation. She told her test engineer to proceed with the project despite knowing the seriousness of the issue. In this situation, the she failed to carry out her duty properly and stuck with her internal values. With this assumption, she decided not to miss the deadline that was set up by XYZ Pty Ltd.  In one or the other way, she was also responsible for creating the bug due to her careless recruitment process (Trevino & Nelson, 2016). She chose the candidates based on the universities that they have passed out of rather than choosing them based on their merit. She decided not to risk the jobs of her employees and acted to the situation as per her assumption. Moreover, she also made a gross mistake of not making XYZ Pty Ltd not aware of the impending situation which caused the company a lot of damage.

The consequences for each of the stakeholders

The decisions that were taken by Mrs McDonald not only affected the reputation of the company but also led to large compensations that need to be provided by the company itself. The employees were also responsible for the situation as they failed to do their duty properly. This created the Mc. Donald virus in the first place and should have been stopped during the development phase (Crane & Matten, 2016). As per the ACS code of professional conduct, they should have carried out their profession in proper and comprehensive manner and the creation was a clear dereliction of their duty.

The personnel of XYZ Pty Ltd had to face the impact of the situation. As the company represents the tablets to the end users the entire situation will be pointed at them. The professionalism aspect that is mentioned in the ACS code of professional conduct has been compromised in this situation as they should have checked the Operating system first before distributing it to the mass public.

ACS code of Professional conduct and its case study applications

A number of rules and regulations are mentioned in the ACS code of professional conduct that allows the personnel working at a particular company to act in an ethical manner and act accordingly (Solomon et al., 2014). Here from the code of conduct, Mrs McDonald did not comply with the Primacy of the Public Interest which is also stated as value 1. Without thinking about the consequences of the situation she immediately told the test engineer to proceed with the project and hand over the incomplete project to the intended company XYZ. Her way of recruitment was inconsistent and not up to the mark of the present generation processes. She was comfortable with her own profession and never strived to reach higher designations (Romiszowski, 2016). Due to the excessive number of improper candidates she was also responsible indirectly in creating the bug that has the potential to affect the reputation of the company. In this way, she failed to comply with three codes from the ACS code of professional conduct namely Value 6, Value 4 and Value 5 (Professionalism, Honesty and Professional development). She never strived to improve her professional excellence.

The mayor of the company also failed to comply with the ethical morality properly. He acted on the decision as he was interested in getting the public support from the job opportunities that the company has created in the city. He violated the honesty as well as the professionalism, namely value 3 and value 6 of the ACS code of professional conduct.

Analysing the position of two stakeholders with ethical philosophies

The utilitarian theory could have used by Mrs McDonald instead of the virtue based theory of approach. She should have assessed how the consequences of the product that she was deciding to launch in the market and should have thought about the total good. Mr. McBright who carried out a duty based approach also failed to properly follow the ethical rules of professionalism and failed to highlight the seriousness of the issue to his higher authorities. This could have saved the reputation of the company. 

Conclusion

To conclude the report, it can be stated that from the given case study, the activities of each and every stakeholder has been assessed carefully. Proper use of ethical methods and theories have been applied in the analysis section of the report. The case study has been evaluated with the values that are mentioned in the ACS code of professional conduct. The actions of both Mrs McDonald as well as Mr. McBright have been assessed and evaluated carefully.

Task 2:

SFI6 framework has been focusing in the career development of student in the University.  The use of the SFI6 framework has been helping in the development if skills and knowledge among students sin the university. These skill sets have been maintaining a keen approach to the Information Age of personal career development. Therefore, a personal experience in the framework, various skill set have been discussed in the report.

Analysis:  Reflective interpretation of SFIA 6

SFI6 framework has been created in order to maintain the incompetence of the ICT professionals. I have experienced the realization for matching the sill set of different organization in the different modes. The SFIA 6 is used to each students in every universities. This framework has been created over 30 organizations including various multinational companies and governmental organizations (Roy et al., 2014). The working of the framework is used in order to develop skill sets among students and employees. The management of the skillset has been depicted in a 2D table. This framework has been used in managing several responsibilities and is divided into six categories including transformation, change, implementation and development, strategy, skills and quality, relationships and engagement. After researching, I learnt about seven levels of responsibilities that have been provided by the framework known as follow, assist, enable, ensure, advice and apply.

Justification of responsibility level and the required skills for career development

There have been several levels of the framework that can be accessed by the researchers in the framework.  The first level of the framework has been focusing on the completion of tasks under supervisors and maintaining proper guidelines in order to perform their responsibilities.

However, in the next level of the responsibility, the assist responsibility helps in providing the standards that are maintained by the framework. In this segment of the framework, the framework of the responsibility has been discussed. This helps in maintaining a proper approach for the development of the skillset of the students in the university (Ma et al., 2016).  This will help the student in maintaining overall task for helping various people in the personal development. This is responsible for the development of the customer relationship in various organizations.  These can be applied in my personal development. The responsibility ladder has been kept in next level that helps in the development of the students (Liao et al., 2015).  The operational benefits of the management is to maintain the levels included in the responsibility level.  

The next level is also named as ensure and advice. Responsibilities have been provided with appropriate direction by maintaining a keen approach in the development of skillset.  The advice related to career development has been provided in the level. I have been following this responsibility for checking fields of IT in Australia.

The next level of responsibility is refereed as initiate and influence. Therefore, in this level, authorization has been required for gaining personal development (Tyner, 2014). Out of all the several responsibilities, this responsibility level will help me in developing my career plan for achieving my future goals.

Proficiency in a business can be achieved by maintaining proper policies and support system to the customers. The next level has been focusing on the strategies and inspiration. Various strategies have been developed in order to develop a person personally and professionally (Rettig & Hu, 2016).  The use of strategies for development of the IT skills among students have been discussed.  I have understood various IT skills by meeting with various IT professionals that have been providing IT knowledge and skills to the people (Asselin, 2016). I have been benefited by their skills and strategies provided by them. The strategies have been focusing in the leadership and management strategies in the universities. Therefore, an overall development of personal skills and strategies is required. After becoming a professional IT expert, this might help me in developing my career and reaching my future professional goals in life.

Conclusion

Thus it can be concluded that that the use of the SFI6 have been helping in developing various strategies for the development of the students in the universities. A proper analysis of SFI6 framework has been provided in the report that helps in understanding the core elements if the framework.  The development of the career can be analysed by understanding the levels of responsibilities in the framework.

References

Asselin, M. (2016). Teaching information skills in the information age: An examination of trends in the middle grades. Librarians and Educators Collaborating for Success: The International Perspective, 82.

Liao, R., Tao, X., Li, R., Ma, Z., & Jia, J. (2015). Video super-resolution via deep draft-ensemble learning. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (pp. 531-539).

Ma, S., Zhang, X., Zhang, J., Jia, C., Wang, S., & Gao, W. (2016). Nonlocal in-loop filter: The way toward next-generation video coding?. IEEE MultiMedia, 23(2), 16-26.

Rettig, J., & Hu, S. (2016). College sport participation and student educational experiences and selected college outcomes. Journal of College Student Development, 57(4), 428-446.

Roy, R., Chen, W., Cong, L., Goodell, L. A., Foran, D. J., & Desai, J. P. (2014). Probabilistic estimation of mechanical properties of biomaterials using atomic force microscopy. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 61(2), 547-556.

Tyner, K. (2014). Literacy in a digital world: Teaching and learning in the age of information. Routledge.

Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2016). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.

DesJardins, J. R. (2014). An introduction to business ethics. McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Romiszowski, A. J. (2016). Designing instructional systems: Decision making in course planning and curriculum design. Routledge.

Shapiro, J. P., & Stefkovich, J. A. (2016). Ethical leadership and decision making in education: Applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas. Routledge.

Solomon, M. R., Dahl, D. W., White, K., Zaichkowsky, J. L., & Polegato, R. (2014). Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). London: Pearson.

Trevino, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2016). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right. John Wiley & Sons.