PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

SHORT NOTE

2022/11/20

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Personal development planning

PDP is driven by
• Reflecting
• Planning

Reflective practice is important to look back at your mistakes and from the experience you have gained,
you should not repeat those mistakes

PDP is also called professional development plan in professional world.

Goal analysis

To prepare a strategic plan to achieve your target, do a SWOT analysis.

• Strengths: What skills/experience you already possess
• Weaknesses: What could you improve on?
• Opportunities: What resources are available to you?
• Threats: What obstacles do you face?

After SWOT analysis, SMART plan can be used to develop the needed skills.
• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time bound

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Values, beliefs, attitudes and character

Values: Principles that helps to decide what is right and wrong, and how to act in various situations
• Foundation values: Values we need to have a solid foundation to our lives
• Focus values: value priorities in our lives
• Future values: values that we intend to develop in the future

Values help us understand why we believe and what we believe.

Shared values are the basis of relationship.
Understanding values will also help to motivate us.
Knowing our own values make us more tolerant of others values.
Knowing our foundation values helps us to deal with difficulty and stress

Beliefs: constructs that we hold to be true especially without any proof

Attitude: Mindset or a tendency to act in a particular way

Able to view a person's attitude from the behavior.
It is an emotional reaction to objects or people
It cause us to behave in a particular way toward a person

Positive attitude Negative attitude

Pay attention to the good rather than the bad Ignore good. Pay attention to the bad
Encouraged to do the same in the future Discouraged
Believes everything is happening for the best Believes their best days were in the past
Can achieve long term goals easily Not easy to achieve long term goals
Always see opportunities Only sees the limitations

Character: A group of qualities that make a person/thing different from others

Knowing values, beliefs and attitudes helps us

to develop a compelling character, to live a
remarkable professional life

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Teams for teamwork

• Large team (20 - 30)

• Small team (2 - 5)
• Short team
• Long team

Tuckman's 5 stages of group development

• Forming: Establish the group
• Storming: Start to communicate their feelings
• Norming: Start to feel as a part of the team
• Performing: Works in an open, trusting atmosphere
• Adjourning: conducts assessment of the year

Team Role: A set of behaviors expected of a person occupying a certain position in a group
• Formal roles
• Informal roles

Belbin team role theory

• Thought focused roles
• People focused roles
• Action focused roles

Problems with roles

• Role overload: Stress builds when attempted to get more work done in less time
• Role conflict: members of a group have a different expectation of another's responsibility
• Role ambiguity: Role is left undefined, individual does not know what is expected from them
• Rigidity: Prevents flexibility and other potentials
• Territoriality: Reluctance to get help from others
• Abdication: Avoiding contributing within another’s role just because it is someone else’s
responsibility
• Human nature: Habit of being unpredictable

Role re-delegation can be used to handle above problems with the aid of self-evaluation and personality
testing.

A successful team
• Works together towards a common goal
• Mutual respect for members
• Diversity of member experience
• Individual communication style

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Team leadership

Leadership: Function of knowing yourself and having a vision that is well communicated
• Great man theories: Leaders are born with qualities destined to lead

• Trait theories

• Functional theories
○ Task: goal setting, methods and processes
○ Team: Effective communication, clarify roles, team morale
○ Individual: Attention to behavior, feelings coaching

• Behaviorist theories: Leader's behavior and actions rather than their traits and skills

• Contingency leadership: Leadership style changes according to the situation

○ Low competence/Low commitment: DIRECTIVE
○ Some competence/variable commitment: COACHING
○ High competence/variable commitment: SUPPORTIVE
○ High competence/high commitment: DELEGATORY

• Transformational theory: Leaders inspire individuals, develop trust, and encourage creativity and
personal growth

• Ethical leadership: 4 P's (Purpose, People, Planet, Probity)

Key team leader responsibilities

1. Coordinate the team
2. Provide structure
3. Clarify working methods
4. Focus on performance

A good leader will give credit to others when delegated responsibilities succeed and will accept the blame
when delegated responsibilities fail.

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Decision making

Decision making: Cognitive process of reaching a decision. It is a logical and a systematic process.

3 main areas that support systematic process

• Environments for decision making (Features)
○ Attention
○ Equality
○ Appreciation
○ Encouragement
○ Diversity

• Methods for decision making

○ Decision by consensus
○ Decision by majority vote
○ Decision by minority vote
○ Decision made by an authority
○ Decision by average individuals
○ Decision by professionals

• Tools for decision making

○ Brainstorming: list of ideas contributed by the members is used to make a conclusion
○ Affinity grouping: Grouping unstructured ideas based on their natural relationship
○ Multi-voting: Each member is given many votes
○ Criteria matrix: List of values in rows and columns used to analyze data
○ Six thinking hats: Looking at a decision from a range of different perspectives

Advantages of team decision making

• Greater knowledge
• Shared responsibility
• Higher commitment

Disadvantages of team decision making

• Time consumption
• Less recognition
• Conformity: decision maker might
not feel valued or respected

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Embracing diversity

Team diversity: The significant uniqueness of each individual on a team

• Religion
○ Open up many view points for decision making
○ Most challenging diversity aspect
○ All employees must comply with the company policy regardless of the religion
○ Encourage employees to accept differences
○ Avoid overacting to simple things

• Gender
○ Widen organization's talent pool
○ Enhanced collaboration
○ Improve staff retention
○ Better understand customer needs
○ Gender communication issues can affect the team interactions
○ It can also lead to sexual harassments

• Age
○ Different mindsets
○ Increase flexibility
○ Decisions are well rounded
○ Importance of old workers
▪ Dedicated
▪ Punctual
▪ Efficient
▪ Good listeners
○ Why young people are needed
▪ New energy and perspective
▪ Affordable
▪ Tech advancement
▪ Adaptability and agility
• Culture
○ Refers to the standards of social interaction, value and beliefs from a group of people

• Race
○ A group of people often of a common geographic origin.
○ Racism is the belief that the inherited characteristics affect an individual's behavior

Benefits of diversity Challenges of diversity

Creates innovation Discrimination
Language skills are open doors for business Absenteeism
Grows the talent pool Conflicts in team members
Improves employee performance Decrease in productivity

How to overcome diversity issues

• Planning and implementation of a proper diversity plan
• Conflict resolution skills
• Communication

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Time management

Tools for effective time management Preparation for time management

• Online time tracking tools • Deep night sleep
• To do list • Balanced diet
• Time management matrix • Daily exercises
• Pomodoro technique • Organized environment
• Digital wellbeing • Mindfulness

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Computing landscape

History of computers
• Pre-Generation (Before ‘40s) – Mechanical
• First Generation (‘40s) – Vacuum Tube
• Second Generation (‘50s) – Transistor
• Third Generation (‘60s) – Integrated Circuits
• Fourth Generation (‘70s) – Micro-processors
• Fifth Generation (‘00) – AI

As time passed by, rapid advancements in computers (PC, notebooks, wearable devices, embedded
systems) and computer components (CPU, hard disk, memory, IO devices) were results of technology
advancements.

Today's computing landscape have connectivity to the digital world

• Internet
• Mobile phones
• Emails
• Social networks
• Online education
• Video sharing
• E-commerce

Areas of concern in current computer landscape

• Ethical issues
○ Intellectual property: intangible creations of humans
○ Information collection
○ Spam

• Legal issues
○ Intellectual property and licensing
○ Border between security and privacy
○ Cyber crimes

• Social Issues
○ Unemployment
○ Digital divide
○ Computerized customer service
○ Cyberbullying

• Environmental issues
○ E-waste
○ Energy for operation
○ Hard copies of documents

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Professional responsibilities and code of ethics

Profession: An area in the industry which requires specialized knowledge to work in

Professional: A person who is expertized in a certain field of study. They have special responsibilities
Professionalism: Qualities that is used to identify a profession / professional

Computing professional: Anyone who is employed in IT field

• SW / HW designers
• SW engineers
• Database admins
• SW managers
• Computer scientists

Some computer systems can have direct life threatening impacts

• Air traffic control systems
• Mass transportation systems
• Medical treatment systems
• Nuclear reactors

Ethics: A set of beliefs about right or wrong behavior

• Helps people to make moral decisions
• Assumes that people are rational
• Describes how people should act
• Professional ethics cover issues involving employees, employers and other people
• Computer ethics include social, political and personal issues

Codes of ethics relevant to some professional bodies like CSSL, IEEE

• Professional development
• Added value to Sri Lanka
• Honesty
• Accept responsibility when making decisions
• Reject bribery on all forms
• Avoid harm to others
• Respect privacy of others
• Honor confidentiality

Purpose of professional codes

These are often designed to motivate members of an association to behave in certain ways
Five primary functions of codes
○ Inspire
○ Educate
○ Guide
○ Responsibilities
○ Discipline in members

IT professionals need to commit to…

• Integrity
• Competence
• Professional responsibility
• Work responsibility
• Societal responsibility

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Intellectual property

Intellectual property is an intangible human creation. It can include artistic works, symbols, names,
images etc. It can also be defined as an intangible asset with exclusive ownership for a limited period of
time.

IP assets can be owned / transferred / sold or licensed

Types of IP protection

What is the purpose of intellectual property system?

• Enables people to earn recognition for their creation
• Enables to earn a financial benefit
• Creates an environment for creative thinkers to create new innovations

A patent is a legal certificate that gives you the right to protect your invention for a specific time period
in a specific region
• 3 principal requirements of a patent
○ Novelty: New characteristic which was not known to the public
○ Utility: Invention needs to be able to be used by the industry
○ Non-obviousness: invention should not be obvious

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• Why file a patent application
○ To get exclusive control in the market for your product (TO prevent creating knockoffs)
○ Patent can be transferred or sold
○ To attract investors and funding
○ To obtain recognition

• What cannot be patented?

○ Mathematical formulae
○ Natural phenomenon
○ Laws of nature

• Who has the right to patent

○ Inventor, Employee, contractor

• When to file the patent application

○ As soon as you come up with the invention

• Where to file the patent application

○ File a national application in national office
○ File a regional application in the regional office
○ File an international application using the PCT

Licensing of IP
○ A permission that an IP owner grant to another person to use the IP under certain conditions
○ Ownership is still with the original owner
○ Licensing creates an income source
○ Creates a market presence for the technology

Software piracy
○ Unauthorized and illegal duplication of copyrighted software
○ Soft lifting
○ Client-server overuse
○ Internet piracy
○ Hard-disk loading
○ Software counterfeiting

Fair use
○ Copyright law protects certain exclusive rights of copyright holders

Open source software

○ Source code is freely available to the public
○ New versions appear much more quickly
○ Anyone can make money by providing support

How to protect the intellectual property?

○ Register the appropriate IP protection
○ Trademark registration
○ Patent
○ Registering the copyright

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Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs are people with the ability to create a new business where none existed before.
Entrepreneurship is the process of designing, launching and running a new business.

Value proposition: Should clearly explain how a product fills a need, communicate the specifics and the
reason why it is better than the similar products on the market

Skills, Expertise and aptitude

• Skills
○ Refers to manual work like electrician, hairdresser
• Expertise
○ Based on the knowledge you obtained by studying / experience
• Talents
○ What you are born with

Personal Attributes External factors (PEST analysis)

• Political
Successful Unsuccessful ○ Gov. policies
Creative and innovative Low work ethic ○ Pressure groups
Create new products Poor money managers ○ Wars and conflicts

Strong money management Failure to plan • Economic

Hard working and disciplined Afraid to take risks ○ Home economic situations/trends
Take responsibility for own actions Less motivation ○ Interest/exchange rates
○ Taxation

• Social
Strong management skills ○ Lifestyle trends
• Time management ○ Consumer opinions
• Employee management ○ Media news
• Customer management ○ Demographics
• Sales management ○ Role models
• Financial management
• Business management • Technological
○ Intellectual property issues
○ Competing technologies
○ Innovation potential
○ Research funding

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Laws related to ICT

• Computer related offences

○ Computer related frauds
○ Theft of information
○ Forgery
○ Identity theft
○ Phishing
○ Cyber squatting

• Content related offences

○ Illegal content
○ Infringement of right to privacy
○ Infringement of freedom of expression

• Computer integrity offences

○ Unauthorized access
○ Unauthorized acts
○ Unlawful devices

Only the needed information is included. There may be errors as I'm not an expert.

Perera O.R.V

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