IT Manager's Handbook: The Business Edition

Bill Holtsnider,Brian D. Jaffe

• Editorial: Morgan Kaufmann
• Año: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780123751119
• Categoría: Ciencia de la computación
• Categoría: Tecnología de la información

IT Manager's Handbook: The Business Edition is a MUST-HAVE guide for the advancing technology professional who is looking to move up into a supervisory role, and is ideal for newly-promoted IT managers who needs to quickly understand their positions. It uses IT–related examples to discuss business topics and recognizes the ever-changing and growing demands of IT in today's world as well as how these demands impact those who work in the field. Specific attention is paid to the latest issues, including the challenges of dealing with a mobile and virtual workforce, managing Gen-X/Yers, and running an IT organization in a troubled economy. Rich with external references and written in-easy-to-read sections, IT Manager's Handbook: The Business Edition is the definitive manual to managing an IT department in today's corporate environment.

• Focuses on Web 2.0 ideas and how they impact and play into today's organizations, so you can keep up on social networking, YouTube, web conferencing, instant messaging, Twitter, RSS Feeds, and other collaboration tools
• Provides strategies on how to get employees to focus in the 24/7 data word
• Discusses key IT topics in 'layman's terms' for business personnel who need to understand IT topics

Chapter One The Role of an IT Manager

The buck stops here.

—HARRY TRUMAN

Chapter Table of Contents

• 1. Just What Does an IT Manager Do? 2
• 2. Managers in General 3
• 3. The Strategic Value of the IT Department 10
• 4. Developing an IT Strategy 12
• 5. Starting Your New Job 15
• 6. The First 100 Days 23
• 7. Two IT Departments—What Happens if Your Company Merges with Another? 32

What does an IT Manager actually do? Did you recently receive a promotion into that job? Are you glad you got the job? Or, do you eventually want to become one? Before we help you answer those questions, we discuss the definition and the pros and cons of being a manager. Clearly management as a career path is well suited for some people, but not for everyone. Is it right for you?

IT Managers need to wear a lot of hats. Different parts of the organization will have different expectations of this position, and you’ll have to address them all. Finance expects you to manage costs; Sales and Marketing will want to see IT help generate revenue; your staff is looking for guidance, career development, and a work–life balance; and the administrative assistant down the hall just wants her printer to stop smudging. This chapter examines the roles and responsibilities of an IT Manager.

1.1 Just What Does an IT Manager Do?

IT Managers now have many responsibilities (data centers, staff management, telecommunications, servers, workstations, Web sites, user support, regulatory compliance, disaster recovery, etc.) and connect with almost all the departments (accounting, marketing, sales, distribution, etc.) within a company or organization.

This is both the good and the bad news. At some companies, an IT Manager can have direct influence on the strategic direction of the company, suggesting and helping implement e-commerce initiatives, for example. In other companies, an IT Manager is really a technician, a software developer, or network engineer. And to complicate things even further, those definitions change quickly over time. Yesterday’s network engineer is today’s e-commerce consultant.

Why All That Change and Flexibility Is Good

The position of IT Manager can be very challenging. It is extremely varied in scope, allows you to come in contact with a large portion of your company, provides you with opportunities to directly affect the overall direction of your organization, and is excellent professional experience to acquire. In addition, you get to increase your range of experience; you are forced to (and get to) keep up with the latest changes in technology (so your skill set will always be in demand); and your network of contacts gets large.

As important as all that is, there is an added bonus: in recent years, IT has taken on a strategic value in the roles companies play in the new economy. Information Technology is now a critical component of many companies and the U.S. economy: in the 2008–2009 Occupational Outlook Handbook released by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics: “computer and mathematical science occupations are projected to grow by 25 percent [between 2006 and 2016]—more than twice as fast as the average for all occupations.” And for IT Managers, the report says, “Employment of computer and information systems managers is expected to grow 16 percent over the 2006-16 decade, which is faster than the average for all occupations. New applications of technology in the workplace will continue to drive demand for workers, fueling the need for more managers.” Not only is your job interesting and rewarding, it is also very important and increasingly in demand. Dependence on technology is only growing, and issues such as security and compliance are making IT more visible throughout the organization. What more could you ask for?

Why All That Change and Flexibility Is Bad

However, being an IT Manager is a difficult, often thankless, task. Like many service jobs, if you do it superbly, most people don’t notice. In addition, the responsibilities differ radically from company to company. Some companies actually have many IT Managers and several layers of management. At others, although this number is shrinking, an IT Manager is a part-time role someone fills while doing their “real” job.

In addition, the role of an IT Manager can often vary widely within an organization, depending on who is making the decisions at the time. The “Western Region Sales Manager” knows what his or her role is—get more sales as soon as possible—and that isn’t going to vary much from company to company. An IT Manager, however, can mean many things to many people, and the job changes as technology and needs advance and evolve. Addressing all these needs and people can mean that time for “extras” such as sleep and meals has to be sacrificed. As a manager, everyone else’s crises become yours. People (your users, your management, your staff, etc.) demand quick resolutions to problems and look to you to fix them. In this book, we discuss in detail the positive and negative elements of the key components of being an IT Manager. If a process is littered with political landmines (“budgeting,” for example), we’ll warn you about it; if a process has hidden perks (being an unofficial project manager can put you in contact with many different people at many different layers of the organization), we’ll tell you that, too.

1.2 Managers in General

Before you decide whether you want to become an IT Manager, you should decide whether you want to become a manager at all. One method of evaluating a potential career is to read books or take introductory classes about how to do it; sometimes, reading a book about a subject will make you realize you do not want to pursue that particular career (see Table 1.1).

Table 1.1 Pros and cons of being a manager

Pro	Con
May have more control over your life. You manage others instead of only managing yourself. Of course, you will also have a manager above you.	May have less control over your life (since the problems of others now become your problems).
Typically make more money than those in non-management roles, although this, too, is changing. There are technical tracks in many companies that are almost as lucrative as management, but not every company has this option.	Typically (but not always) a manager has more responsibility than a non-manager. There is more credit if things go right and a bigger price to pay if things go wrong.
Do work on a larger scale. A simplistic example might be: one non-management worker may generate $1000 a day in revenue for the company, but a manager may manage six such workers, generating $6000 daily for the company.	Management looks and sounds a lot easier than it is. Often, managers are seen attending endless meetings or just having casual conversations all the time—not doing “real work.” In fact, they carry a great deal of responsibility and have to make difficult decisions routinely.
Have greater potential to “make a difference.”	Numerous headaches come with managing people: meeting your project’s budget and schedule projections, dealing with challenging employees, and administrative annoyances (“those 200 new PCs arrived; where do we store them until we’re ready to work on them?”).
Get the credit for all the good work that your team does on your watch … whether it happened because of you, your staff, or by random chance.	You get the blame for all the bad stuff that happens on your watch … whether it happened because of you, your staff, or by random chance.
Get the opportunity to develop non-IT skills, working with other departments, vendors, partners, etc.	There are tough decisions to make: budget cuts, employee performance, having to choose between Jenine and Peter for the promotion.
Have the opportunity to determine strategy and to set direction for both a department and the company as a whole.
Acquire the ability to add more value to a department and a company.
Have the opportunity to develop, coach, and mentor other people.

Like most topics in this book, we present you with both the positive and the negative aspects of being a manager. We’d like to share our experiences and those of other managers we know; managers with over 100 years of comb...