Did you know that IBM i security guru Carol Woodbury began her career as an office admin at IBM? Neither did we!
Some of the dynamics that drove her success can be replicated by today’s IBM i teams and their management. In fact, her story could help you future-proof your IBM i team and bridge the skills gap.
Our client “Bruce” was discussing the RPG talent shortfall and how to get the next generation on board to write and maintain legacy RPG code dating back to the 1980s in a recent iChime meeting.
Bruce had a System 36 manufacturing application written in fixed-format RPG. The system was solid and users were satisfied. But Bruce knew that he had to modernize the code for ease of maintenance and to expand the developer talent pool for future applications.
When I told my friends I was learning RPGLE, they thought I had gone a bit crazy. Why would I want to learn that “old” programming language?
My quest stemmed from a common issue that I experienced first hand. As a web developer, I would often hear, “The business logic is located in RPG code and we don’t know what it does. We will have to wait and ask the RPG programmer to explain it to us before we can continue with the project, but that person is too busy now.”
Or worse yet, “We are completely redoing our ERP system because we can’t find RPG programmers.”
Heidi Schmidt draws on science to solve one of the biggest issues facing CIOs today—how to transfer knowledge of core business applications and processes to younger developers, while fostering new skills that lead to innovation.
At the CIO Summit in Dallas, March 23, 2020, Heidi will share her experience with collaborative learning and other techniques that aid generational change and find untapped potential within development teams.
Steve Will discusses IBM i strategy
We recently hosted a day of strategy discussions for IT executives at Seiden Group’s CIO Summit in Dallas. Special guest Steve Will, Chief Architect of IBM i, joined the group to share his direction for the platform.
In late April in Manhattan, Seiden Group had the pleasure of hosting its first IBM i CIO Summit.
Now we’ve gone a step further, teaming up with System i Developer partners Susan Gantner, Jon Paris and Paul Tuohy, to organize an IBM i CIO Summit “Plus.” The event will be held October 16-17, 2017, in Minneapolis, in conjunction with the RPG & DB2 Summit.
CIO-level view at the
CIO Summit in Manhattan
Most people know Seiden Group as PHP specialists who help IBM i teams develop and tune PHP applications running on IBM i. But we also work with CIOs to help them solve the unique challenges they face.
We’ve found that for many IBM i CIOs, it’s lonely at the top. CIOs would love to have a community of peers who fully understood the nature of the decisions they must make. Whereas developers can discuss technical issues with team members or through online forums, CIOs often lack such support and sharing because of the confidential nature of their work.
I was thrilled yesterday to see the familiar face of Seiden Group’s own Stephanie Rabbani smiling up at me from IBM i’s Home page, next to our friend and Club Seiden colleague Liam Allan.
Both are currently featured by IBM as “Fresh Faces of IBM i” along with Kody Robinson of Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation — just a few of the outstanding young professionals on our platform.
This honor calls attention to what I know of Stephanie first-hand from working side-by-side with her on Seiden Group consulting projects. With 14 years experience on the IBM i, she is versatile, resourceful, and personable, with skills in PHP, RPG, WebSmart, and more. And she strongly advocates the continued use of IBM i as the best business platform. Well done, Steph!
Liam Allan is another impressive young developer. At just 19 years old, he earned the 2016 COMMON Student Innovation Award and quickly found himself at home on the speaking circuit with audiences eager to learn his techniques. He could program in any language but has chosen primarily to advance the art of RPG. I’m looking forward to seeing him again in March, when we both travel to Orlando to speak at the RPG & DB2 Summit. Go Liam!
But these “Fresh Faces” represent something bigger than individual excellence. To all of us with valuable business assets on the IBM i, they are visible evidence that we are beginning to succeed in attracting young talent to the platform. I see other such evidence in my work as a consultant, in my sessions at conferences, in the classroom when I train.
So thank you, IBM! Your efforts to modernize the IBM i development environment are paying off.
And thank you to all of the seasoned developers who have moved to RSE and free format RPG, who have led their organizations to rewrite or extend their applications using ILE, SQL, new DB2 techniques…and, my favorite of course, PHP.
With efforts to make IBM i code more broadly accessible, coupled with talented young developers who are interested in working on the IBM i, the future of our data and business logic looks brighter than it has in years.
You can personally be a part of IBM i’s revitalization. Adopt modern development techniques. Mentor a younger developer. Continually learn new skills. Ask for help when you need it.
If you’d like to discuss what Steph and the whole Seiden Group can help you accomplish, send us a note.
Congratulations to Steph, Liam and Kody!