"Good people skills weren't a major consideration," Orr said. "End users with issues were generally regarded as a problem and not as a customer. They were spoken to in technical terms, often creating confusion. The ability to patch up problems reactively was highly regarded, as was the ability to keep things running without asking for extra money!"

Orr believes five years from now a strong business focus will be important, so will being more proactive about working with the business to understand its needs and identify where technology offers a better solution.

"IT managers increasingly need to move on from their programming and network admin roots and broaden their skill base - perhaps by undertaking further studies such as an MBA, accounting and law," she said.

IDC Australia's senior IT management analyst Peter Hind said there was a sense of opportunity in 2000 about Y2K and to "fix the issues bigger than Y2K".

"So the focus was technical [and] there was a sense of unease that business was getting too far down the dotcom trail," Hind said. "Five years from today the focus will be more business-oriented and IT managers will require communication and writing skills."