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eing able to apply a high level of appropriate technical skill in partnership withother team members to resolve the situation(Scott and Wilson, 2002, p 6)2.1.4 Practitioner views of REFewer studies have examined practitioner views of the relevance of education in RE in thesame way.Green (1989), surveyed over 800 systems analysts and users to identify which skills, job roles,and ‘nonsalary incentives’ each group perceived to be most important for systems analysts.Curiously, he found that users tended to focus on the importance of systems analysts’ technicalskills and the technical roles they performed, whereas the analysts themselves focusedmuch more on importance of interpersonal skills and their nontechnical roles (eg diplomat,change agent, communicator and salesman). These findings may be seen to support Nikulaet al (2000)’s conclusion that general knowledge of RE in industry may be seen to be ‘quiteweak’.Leitheiser (1992) discusses the industry-education gap from a management perspective, and inthe context of a projected growth rate in demand for systems analysts in the US (1990-2000)of 87%. He quotes several early studies (eg Henry et al (1974), Benbasat et al (1980), as wellas Green (1989)) in which participants rated ‘people’ skills above technical in importance forsystems analysts. Another study (Watson et al, 1990) ranked analysis/design skills as mostimportant for MIS (Management Information Systems) graduates entering the workforce,with interpersonal skills second in importance. Of interest was Benbasat et al (1980)’s findingsthat organisational characteristics affect skills requirements, with organisational maturityrelated to perceived importance of generalist skills in systems analysts. Leitheiser (1992)’sown study rates interpersonal skills as of prime importance over the decade under study.Todd et al (1995) evaluated newspaper job advertisements over a 20-year period (1970-1990)at five-year intervals. They examined the trends in job skills demanded for three job types:programmers, systems analysts, and IT managers, and noted the most dramatic changes inthe skills required for systems analysts, compared to only minor changes for programmers andIT managers. In findings that differed from other previous studies, they found that, by 1990,the systems analyst job advertisements demanded nearly as many technical skills as those forprogrammers, while also continuing to emphasise non-technical skills. They concluded thattechnical skills were more important than non-technical skills (such as business, interpersonal,and communication skills) for systems analysts, and that systems analysts would face a toughset of job demands in the future, given the apparent trend toward greater demand for technical32