Training the information systems professional: creating communication awareness

Focuses on the teaching of the communication skills required of information system (IS) specialists as they go about the social activity involved in their tasks of system development. The IS professional is undergoing a paradigm shift: from being merely a problem-solving expert in the domain of computing to becoming an expert partner with clients who are expert in other domains that use computing. This paper presents concrete examples of how to train IS professionals in their new career: sensitivity to different perceptions in different expert domains, identifying and avoiding some common patterns of miscommunications, using the classroom as a “real-life” situation, encouraging reflection as a mechanism for true learning, and fostering the ability to apply what one has learned in one situation to other situations. The ultimate objective of all our teaching is to make IS professionals extremely sensitive to the challenges involved in working with a wide range of professionals who have a stake in effective and efficient information systems