Computerworld posted this great article on career development for the new year. Call it an option for a new year’s resolution (if you ever believe in that) for IT workers but it brings a lot of insight especially to those who want to advance in their fields next year. Here’s their list with my comments:

1. Incorporate security into your responsibilities - You really have to beef up on these things. And security doesn’t necessarily just cover malicious attacks or data theft. Security also covers recovery in case shit happens.
2. Re-engineer processes - Why not automate some of your business processes. It lessens the time that people have to go about bureaucratic processes and more time working on things that are more productive.
3. Use analytics to guide business decisions - Enough of speculation. Use concrete data to back your decisions.
4. Be more versatile - Let’s face it, you can’t just be a unitasker these days. Try to expand your skill sets beyond your current specializations.
5. Work on multifunctional programs and multidisciplinary teams - With the boundaries of the different subfields of IT getting more obscure, be sure that yourself, your people and your business will be prepare to take things in all fields.
6. Beef up your business skills - If you’re an IT professional, you should not only focus on being up to date with technologies, you should be making yourself a lot more competitive by building business skills because it’s in the business side where the real money is.
7. Be more accountable - Responsibility in the workplace is more of just passing on the blame to others. Be prepared to take responsibility for your own actions. Besides, if you do things right, you need not be accountable to anyone else for merits.
8. Manage your own career - It’s quite true that you need not have a boss to tell you how you should plan your career. Be your own self in plotting what’s the next big step for you career-wise.

A sensible list indeed.