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themselves what they needed to know in order to perform the task successfully. He concludes...educators should also help students to develop their initiatives and abilities todeal with ill-structured problems. This would require approaches which emphasizeindependent learning and collaborative teamwork.(Lee, 2004, p 135)Full integration into the organisation was seen to take up to two years, during which timethey were not considered an ‘insider’ and ‘working professional’.These results also verify Noll and Wilikens (2002)’s work. They identified the need for ISworkers to comprehend business functions as well as know how to develop technical solutions.Importance is given to team work, communication and organisational skills: these are fundamentalto IS professionals regardless of their main tasks. In turn, this confirms earlier workby Parker et al (1999), who conclude that people who fail to develop skills other than masteryover current technological tools are much more likely to become technologically stagnated inan interactive, social setting. Table 2.3 lists the core skills identified for all IS professionalsby Noll and Wilikens’ study.Table 2.3: Noll: core IS skillsSkillKnowledge of business functional areasAbility to interpret business problems and develop appropriate technical solutionAbility to understand the business environmentKnowledge of specific industryAbility to work collaboratively in a team project environmentAbility to develop and deliver effective, informative and persuasive presentationsAbility to plan, organise, and lead projectsAbility to plan, organise, and write technical manuals, documentation, and reportsSimilar issues arise throughout practitioner studies of IS since the early 1990s – a long termshift from programming and other technical subjects to business analysis and people-orientedskills – a change in emphasis to both generic attributes and managerial knowledge. Meanwhile,from the student perspective, awareness of the need for ‘career resilience’ has surfaced(Waterman et al, 1994).Gupta and Wachter (1998) notes that, often, a capstone project is recommended as themeans of achieving the needs expressed by industry in IS. This aspect of formal education isdiscussed in Chapter 3.24