The Most Important Skill an IT Professional Could Have

As in any field, one needs a combination of several skills to succeed and be able to climb the ladder.

In IT though, is there one skill that’s more important than any other? Communication skills? The ability to program in many coding languages? Great people skills? It is none of that, although those are important.

Above all, the ability to find a solution to a problem is the most important skill an IT professional could have.

Every day, IT professionals face a number of problems–and some of them are new ones that consequently need a new way to solve. Thankfully, becoming a problem solver can be learned–just like any skill.

For starters, we have a guide below for the IT professional who wants to improve their problem-solving proficiency.

1. Identify the core question out of a problem.

When a client says “I can’t connect to the network,” transform it into a question for yourself: “Why can’t they connect to the network?” This way, you can set your mind to finding an answer.

2. Visualize possible explanations for the problem.

Once you have a question in your head, you can work on plotting out several solutions. List all the possible answers to the question you asked, which you can then test out in the succeeding steps.

3. Count on your experience

Experience is important. What have you done before to address a similar problem? Systematically figure out which solutions might work best depending on what your former experiences are telling you.

4. Test your theories

From the conceptual, we move to the actual execution. Perform each solution one at a time, so you can carefully analyze how it affected the situation? Did it help? How much did it help? Do these for all the solutions you’ve laid out and measure the success of each one.

5. Examine final results

Once you’ve completed the task and have solved the problem, make sure to keep tabs on how you did things to address the problem. That way, when a similar problem occurs in the problem, you can draw on something to help you solve it easier the next time around–thus saving you time, resources and headaches.

Are you an IT graduate or an experienced IT professional? You might just be what AIM.ph is looking for. Click here for our list of career opportunities.

Vlad de Ramos

Vlad de Ramos has been in the IT industry for more than 22 years with focus on IT Management, Infrastructure Design and IT Security. He is also a professional business and life coach, a teacher and a change manager. He has been focused on IT security awareness in the Philippines. He is a certified information security professional, a certified ethical hacker and forensics investigator and a certified information systems auditor.