1. Appointment of a competent ICT Director. In order to support academic and administrative ICT services, the most important role of the CEO is to appoint a competent, committed, and credible ICT director. Competence should be based on a portfolio of past achievements and must be 50% technical competence and 50% ICT leadership competence. A credible ICT director must already be accepted as a leader by his/her peers and by the faculty
2. A pipeline of ICT staff is essential for smooth operation of ICT services. Operating a modern campus ICT infrastructure and ICT services requires a pipeline of ICT staff, starting with graduate trainees or entry-level employees recruited competitively and transparently, middle-level network and systems administrators/engineers, senior network and systems administrators / engineers.  Each campus established would need at least two ICT staff members just to operate the campus network, a middle-level and entry-level ICT staff. All staff must be hired on aptitude (critical thinking and analytical skills), competence (good engineering / ICT education background), work attitude (highly motivated to learn and grow). 
3. Capacity Development of ICT staff is critical for smooth operation of ICT services and must be included in Annual ICT budgets. Entry-level staff must be mentored by senior staff and allowed to spend at least 40% of their time developing their ICT skills in the first phase of employment. Middle-level staff must attend regular workshops to upgrade their skills (online and face-to-face) and spend at least 30% learning and developing new skills by being given challenging projects. Senior staff also need to attend appropriate workshops at least once a year and be allowed spend at least 20% of the time to develop new skills or acquire depth in their fields (Masters Degree or PhDs not always appropriate for deployment and operation of ICT services). The senior staff must also attend at least one leadership and communications workshop per year. Retaining a competent ICT workforce could be up to 30% of the ICT recurrent expenditure – ICT services are all about people.

Three things to know about developing adequate ICT Human Capacity by Prof. Meoli Kashorda, available under the Creative Commons License. Copyright © 2015 Prof. Meoli Kashorda.