4 BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE Journal • vol. 17, no. 3 Soft Skills for Professional Success Hugh J. Watson Introduction Business intelligence managers and professionals must be technically competent. Although the skills vary, there are at least some technical requirements for every BI posi- tion. It may be possible to be successful based solely on superior technical skills, but the more likely case is that you also need to master some soft skills, especially if you want to progress up the organizational ladder. We strive to turn out strong MIS (management informa- tion systems) graduates at the University of Georgia, including the students who take my BI classes. We make sure that they have a good technical background with courses that cover, for example, data modeling and SQL, business process management, Java, systems analysis and design, and Web-based application development. We also work on their soft skills. We have project management and information system (IS) leadership courses. Most of our courses involve group projects and presentations. We invite many speakers from the business community who discuss the realities of IS work and the workplace. Our primary mechanism for interacting with the business community is the MIS Advisory Board (www.terry.uga. edu/misadvisoryboard). Board members meet in the fall (in Atlanta) and in the spring (in Athens) to discuss our curriculum, assess emerging trends and their potential impact, and explore ways of connecting our students with companies that want to hire them. Board members and their companies also speak to classes and to our student MIS organization, participate in research projects, and ofer internships and scholarships. SoFT SkIllS Hugh J. Watson is a C. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry Chair of Business Administration in the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia. He is a Fellow of TDWI and senior editor of the Business Intelligence Journal. hwatson@uga.edu