IT Manager's Handbook

An anonymous reader writes "I have managed a lot of technical people in my career, and one thing I know: managing geeks is hard. Rewarding, interesting, challenging — and hard. Hard to do well. Dealing with all of the complexities of a modern IT environment is extremely difficult. There is precious little time, even less (skilled) help, and many, many "mission-critical" demands. This book is written for that over-worked, tech-savvy (and perhaps business newbie) IT Manager (and IT Manager wannabee.) It discusses both sides of the IT department equation: both the technical, as well as the business issues. It talks about not only how to write a good SLA but also how to avoid burnout in your employees." Read below for the rest of the review. IT Manager's Handbook 2nd Edition author Bill Holtsnider and Brian D. Jaffe pages 589 publisher Morgan Kaufmann rating 8 reviewer anonymous ISBN 012370488X summary discusses both the technical and business side of being an IT manager

This book has 20 chapters that discuss both the concepts and the details about critical IT tasks. The first ten chapters discuss the Business of Being an IT Manager: What is an IT Manager?, Managing Your IT Team, Staffing your IT Team, Project Management, Changing Companies, Budgeting, Vendors and Their Products, IT Compliance and Controls. The second ten chapters discuss The Technology of being an IT Manager: Getting Started with the Technical Environment, Operations, Physical Plant, Networking, Security, Software and Operating Systems, Enterprise Applications, Storage and Backup, User Support Services, Websites, User Equipment, Disaster Recovery.

Back in the day, IT was a relatively well-defined activity. Not a lot of people knew about it, it was complex but pretty isolated, and there was precious little "interaction" (interference) with the business side of an organization. When I started managing, there was the technical side and everything else. Now things are very different. IT Managers not only need to have the latest patches installed on the network but they also need to know the five standards steps in project management. They have to know to write a disaster recovery plan as well as what the relative value of a certification is, what phishing is as well as what not to ask in a job interview.

The concepts discussed in this book are relatively classic; the principles of project management, implementing physical security or estimating costs for a budget are not new areas. The authors discuss these topics with a lot of hands-on detail, specific information that a manager can grab quickly. This book let me read ten pages on "Change Management," for example. I knew what change management was, but I needed more that a buzzword before I met with my boss. This book gave me enough detail to talk about it.

From the preface: "We wrote the book for new IT managers and future IT managers. Much of the material in this book will be familiar to experienced IT managers — those people who have been managing IT departments since the space program in the 1960s. But for many individuals, the late 1990s and early 2000s have brought a radical change in responsibilities with little or no help along with it." While that is not me, that is a lot of people I know and have worked with. They got shoved into management because they knew what a "service pack" was and the previous IT manager had left. One minute they were connecting CAT 5 cables and the next minute they are in a ten-person meeting trying to explain why the department needs two new server racks, and two more servers, and two more service techs and three more fill-in-the-blank.

It can be a challenge to make text about operating systems interesting, but I liked their comparison of the Linux/open source and/or Windows discussion. They point out the strengths and weaknesses of each. There are Pro/Con tables scattered throughout the book that I like a lot. Give me the facts, and I'll make up my own mind.

I don't want to say I could not put the book down, because I could. It's designed to let me. I can jump in, get the data I need ("What does ILM stand for again, and what is it?") and jump out. With a fourteen page, two-column Index, a Glossary and each of the chapters ending with both websites and book citations, I can find the stuff I need quickly.

Most individuals in IT today could benefit from a book like this. No one knows everything, and most people don't even know the range of what they are supposed to know. This is a good book for the current IT manager — there are going to be some topics that they are not familiar with, such as the details of Compliance. It is also a good book for a person that wants to or thinks they want to be an IT Manager. He or she can read through this book and determine, if these are the kinds of issues they want to deal with daily.

You can purchase IT Manager's Handbook 2nd Edition from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Re:Everybody IT needs these skills, not just bosse

[Scott Lockwood]

Well, that's true - unless you're talking about about perforce. Perforce is just crap.

Re:In a nutshell

[stratjakt]

You may be a prima donna diva who's so scary talented to get away with that.

All this "different way of working" is bullshit, you want to sit at home and scratch your nuts, and get the same amount of pay. You think you're a valuable asset, despite the fact that you obviously lack any sort of interpersonal skills.

Well, wake up, sport. High level boxed apps are taking over, and we've reached a point where almost anybody can write enough "code" to get what they need done.

What the workplace is looking for is motivated professionals, who are pleasant to work with, not condescending, and are comitted to the job.

You're going to find it harder and harder to get payed to sit at home noodling on some C function. The workplace doesn't work that way, never did, and never will.

You are less and less necessary every passing day, as the average employee picks up more and more computer skills. Your technical skills will not carry your career on their own. Get the fuck out, show up 15 minutes early. Impressions are everything. The guy who's consistantly late looks like he doesn't care, he's not the guy you count on, he's not the guy you promote to a position of importance.

Or get all haughty and look down at everyone else, and assume you're more important. Doesn't matter to me.