In this paper we follow up Developing Growing Need for Soft-Skills in IT Professionals, a paper from the 2003 ASCUE Conference. In that paper we examined the need for “soft-skills” by information technology professionals. In the current economic climate, IT outsourcing is becoming increasingly popular. Our Columbus, Indiana Purdue campus has a long history of partnerships with Cummins Inc. In the past two years we have worked with Cummins to develop a program to retool valued IT professionals at Cummins. The focus is on turning Cummins from a traditional IT organization into one that is increasingly based on dealing with offshore outsourcing. The skills required in-house will focus more on the “soft-skills” as Cummins transitions employees from programming to business/system analyst positions. Since presenting our paper last year we have delivered two sessions of the Business/Analyst training. In this paper we will provide an update with feedback from participants, management and faculty. How effective was the training? Is this a program that other universities can emulate? We will explore those and other issues in this paper
