IS Human Capital: Assessing Gaps to Strengthen Skill and Competency Sourcing

Past research has mainly focused on defining information systems (IS) skills and competencies at the industry or
global level; it has offered little guidance on best practices for managing IS at the organization level. And yet, a
resource-based view indicates that failure to properly manage skills and competencies could lead to suboptimal
outcomes such as a loss of IS process knowledge and innovation, an inability to adequately evaluate vendor
performance, and a lack of critical skills and competencies needed to meet future demands. In this paper, we
examine how one government agency managed its systems for testing personnel. We describe the need for a
process to assess IS skills and competencies in order to analyze the gaps and ensure they are filled. A concrete
understanding of existing gaps guides sourcing of skills and competencies through hiring, training, internal transfers, and work allocation. This paper presents an effective methodology for this purpose.