Slashdot Mirror
How Do I Become an IT/IS Manager?
link915 writes "For the last seven years I have moved around from job to job climbing the rungs of the IT ladder. I've worked in tech support, network operations, sys admin, and as a programmer. Two years ago I took a job with a company that has a small IT department. We are now hiring on more people and doubling the department, and along with this growth comes an IT manager. Now, I could stay and wait things out with the goal of taking over the IT manager's position someday; or I could look for a new job as a manager elsewhere. What are others' experiences with moving up the ranks in IT? Is it best to move on to another company or to stay where you are and try to get ahead there?"
1. Have you asked? If you have asked management when the company is growing if you could be an IT Manager explain why you would be a good one.
2. Show management incentives. Do you help out the new guys by being a mentor to them? When you go to meetings bring up your own ideas. Talk to management outside of meetings about your ideas?
3. Do you need a lot of management yourself? Make sure you do not need to be managed a lot, prove that you are self-reliant.
4. Do you have efficient education? 4 year degree, graduate degree, PHD. Having or working on an MBA is a big plus.
5. Do you show interest outside of IT? If not they you may want to.
As a manager of IT your jobs is looking out for the company first then IT second and make sure they work together.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Management... it's the beginning of all evil... They do earn more money, so if you want more $$$, go for it. Just be prepared to sell your integrity.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
And why?
Buy a tie, set impossible time scales and grow a fringe/bangs; they will cover the lobotomy scars.
Do you understand the company and the business? Not just IT.
An IT manager is NOT just someone who manages IT. You have to be able to explain to the other business people how you plan to help them achieve the business goals.
Generally, a company will look for someone who has experience working for that company so they'll understand what sort of management style is required for the department/position. Jumping around between companies is NOT the way to get someone to notice you. Your best bet is to stay where you are and try to get a promotion. Have you already asked and been turned down for the new job managing your current IT department? If not, then that's an excellent place to start--let them know that you're interested.
After 16 years in IT I finally accepted a management position in a large company. Yes it is more money and more responsibility but what it isn't is hands on. If you like the techy stuff then stay away from management. In just a few months I already feel like the guys I use to make fun of. If your goal is more money pick up some more certification and then start tossing your resume at the large IT consulting firms. I worked for six years traveling the country as an security consultant. Tough, difficult stuff but I was never bored.
Don't keep your head down.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
More meetings, more stress, having to deal with morons all day long. I haven't yet known anyone who went into management who's happy about it- in fact I know several who dropped out of management they were so miserable. If its about money, you can probably make more by switching companies than you can getting promoted locally.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
efforts for the workers to get their job done.
-- Many men would appreciate a woman's mind more if they could fondle it
Why would you want to be a manager?
Spend all your time in meetings and nagging lazy workers to do their job? Asking for money to develop improvements and being told you can't have the budget?
The only rewarding thing to come out of IT is getting into the guts of a computer and making it work, which is not something managers do. I've turned down several opportunities since this became my profession, and I'm glad I did because everyone I've ever seen who got moved into management became bitter, unhappy husks of what they used to be.
Make sure that you are documenting not only what you do, but how you do it. If you are the only person who knows how to do a set of tasks, then you will be the IT technician who does those tasks. If you ensure that others can do those tasks, then you have a better chance of convincing others to have IT technicians work for you (thus making you the manager or team leader). Remember, if they can't replace you, they can't promote you.
Utterly fail to understand the development process. It's just like quality control in a jam factory, right? You want the code now, dammit! Make sure the coders look like they're coding - none of that thinking, discussing, planning, prototyping. Fail to support the development/UAT/release cycle. Look impressive amongst your suit wearing goons by dictating technologies, rather than by using the right one for the job. Ensure you lose your subordinates respect by spouting buzzwords - badly - at every opportunity. Be an email warrior, and make sure you have a far more powerful pc than those who'll be developing enterprise apps.
hand in your notice then watch the realisation creep over management faces that you been single handedly keeping the entire place running for years then argue up their counter-offer to keep you up to manager level! BINGO
The top of an organization is not the place for anyone with a clue about technology. It is the realm of pure politics, and it's worst of all in IT.
A lot of guys I know got into IT management through two ways.
One.... work your way up... from helpdesk, there is usually a supervisor role that is not a manager, especially at large organizations. You prove to the manager that you're the most skilled or most "together" on the team, you will get that spot when it opens up. If it does not exist and there are a dozen or more people, write a proposal to create it, pitch it to the manager as taking some burden off his/her shoulders. If he likes you, he'll approve the job.
Two... work your way out... go work for a small, fast growing company. Usually the job of "I run the whole damn business" is called "IT Manager". Regardless of whether or not you are leading people, the independent decision making and self-reliance justify the title of Manager. Perhaps as the business grows you can hire someone to help you out. Perhaps you end up finding another job in a "supervisor" or "lead" role because of your former experience.
Regardless, getting "Manager" is not an exercise in duping people or some forumla... but it's a process of impressing the upper management and getting them to think that you are skilled, level headed and capable of being "in charge" of a mission-critical department.
SI
Why not give management a go in your current employment? If you don't like it, chances are that they won't fire your ass, but they will give you a chance to slip back into a technical role. I was a manager for five years, and decided after that it wasn't for me, so I 'dropped' (some would say rose) into a Solutions Architect role. The company knew my capabilities, and were willing to cut me a little slack. If I'd taken a management role with another company, I may have been paid more, but they might have let me go rather than try me in a technical role. YMMV
and email to Dilbert?
I started in the role of IT Admin when I was 19. Before I was 20 I was the manager ... and I didnt even finish my masters until i was 25. Must be the luck of the irish.
I've worked in tech support, network operations, sys admin, and as a programmer.
It sounds like you haven't really enjoyed much of anything you're doing. Why else would you change positions so often? Seven years is a pretty short time to have 4 different jobs in vastly different areas. Why do you want to be a manager, and why do you think you'd be any good at it? If your answer is "to make more money/be more accomplished", you've chosen the wrong path.
I'd say the first step in getting a management job is to show that you can do a job for more than 2 years without more "ladder" climbing.
AccountKiller
Find a smart programmer, steal their work, and claim it as your own. Oh wait, that would be how to move up the Microsoft ladder...
"Know but never fear the consequences of your actions."
learn the finer points of beef patty rotation. Sure the money would be less, but it would be less boring.
Being a lone gunman or independent worker gets you noticed as the guy who fixes things. And as such, you will always be pigeon-holed into being that guy.
When you start managing the people who fix things, you become that guy who knows people who know how to get things fixed. You begin to be asked for more advice as a strategic advisor and not the tactical fix-it in depth analysis. You move up the ladder many times dependent upon your group of people and how well they get things done as well as managing these same people. (do they do things without gripping or leaving? do they support you? do they keep quiet about asking for more money?)
Once you start managing the meat effectively, you begin that slow steady climb to higher positions. And once you arrive at a certain level, networking not only saves your ass , but it also helps you to climb higher.
Being that tech who does great things only keeps you forever in that position.
IT management is the most thankless, horrible job/career path on the planet. I know this from much experience and many friends.
I know it's very hard when you are a seasoned experienced IT person to know where to take your career, but IT management is NOT it. May I suggest some other options.
Sales Engineer: My favorite. Great pay, good hours, lots of good lunches, some very technical and challenging problems. It's just like being in IT, but you are paid well and everyone appreciates you.
Consultant: Takes a special personality, but hours and pay can be very good.
Field Engineer: Better pay, hours can be rough, but if you don't like dealing with the business side it's better than the previous two options.
Technical Marketing: Little harder to break into, but good pay (not as good as sales), great hours and you really get to make an impact.
Whatever you do, just say NO to management.
I'm sure I'm not the only person that will echo this same sentiment. Why become an IT manager? Seriously. Have you always had a long desire to manage others, develop policy, answer for everyone else' mistakes and or eccentricities that are often construed as mistakes? Many, if not most, really good IT types do not make great or even good managers. Many make really really great senior IT people. It is not a natural line of succession. Similarly, really good techs are often unhappy in management even if they succeed at it. I have been everything from a sys/net-admin to a Vice President/CIO. I was successful at both technical and managerial. I hated everything about the managerial positions I've held and I am in the process of leaving a very lucrative position as a program director to take a position as a very senior level technical operator (INFOSEC arena). I love management up to and including team leadership and mentoring and 'customer' interaction. Beyond that, no thanks. The money's really no different and in fact I believe that most top-notch technical folks will make more in the long run. Management is great for you if getting an MBA appeals to you and is truly where your passion lies. If, on the other had, your passion is 'in the weeds', stay technical. Just my two cents my friend. Best wishes to you.
Start reading Dilbert. The manager in that strip is an oracle of insight, and his methodology has been perfectly replicated in companies throughout the world.
If you decide you would prefer consulting to management, a certain Dogbert would be an excellent example to study.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
From what I've seen, a brown nose helps quite a bit.
(Guess I'd better post this anonymously)
Why indeed? IT is nothing but thankless jobs; do you think that being an IT manager will be better? Why be a professional fall guy?
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Grow pointy hair, replace your PC with an Etch-A-Sketch.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Here is the magic formula for becoming a successful IT Manager:
1-Forget everything you know about IT
2-???
3-Profit!
Then you die.
Then you are reincarnated as an IT manager.
It would seem obvious that before they decided on that direction they must have considered promoting you -- you would most likely come cheaper than anyone they'd hire from the outside. There's probably two or more reasons for this:
1. They don't think you're capable and they can do better than you
2. One of the executive good ole boys has a friend or relative that needs a job
There's not a lot you can do about this sort of thing now. It's probably already too late. I have witnessed some HORRIBLE hiring decisions made in the recent past. (Paul Diviney, yes! I am talking about YOU, the incompetent cert chaser!) One case in particular comes to mind where this guy clearly lied beyond belief on his resume to get the job he was hired to do and was completely incapable of executing the functions required and then telling horrible lies while making excuses. (He actually claimed that "I lost the CDs" when asked why there was no Blackberry Server yet when any fool knows you can download the software from RIM's web site!) And to make matters worse, one of his underlings was asked by Paul's boss to "help train him in how to be a better leader!" They knew they made a bad hiring choice and was actually asking the people UNDER him to help train him to be better! (This is all true, by the way. Not an OUNCE of fiction in it and I'm not even changing names to protect the guilty. If you see a resume with Paul Diviney at the top of it, call him in for an interview! Most people can see through his BS even if he does talk the management talk.
Bottom line recommendation? Enroll in some school to please HR departments. You don't have a chance in hell of getting into management unless you're really in good with existing management.
what are you doing IT if you want to be a manager? you should have done a diploma in management and you'd already be ahead of 90% of the idiots who get into management with no formal management training. it's no wonder there are such strong stereotypes of managers being idiots who cant manage shit
TIAEAE!
You don't 'manage' the itis per se, it just happen.
Watch the boondocks for more information...
Are you already in a leadership type position? Do the people you work with already accept, and respect, you as a leader? If so, you would probably do ok in management where you are. If not, do you think you can gain that acceptance and respect?
If you don't think you can get that acceptance, then it is probably best to go else where, especially if you have never been in a meaningful leadership position before. All.....ALL managers go through that new manager floundering stage. Do it where you where and you might lose respect because people still expect you to do what you used to do. Do it else where and they are probably more forgiving. Additionally, at the new place you are introduced as being "in charge" and the frame of the relationship is set. You don't have to be a jerk, but you do have the right to be the boss. Don't make the mistake of assuming that you can be all buddy, buddy and still be the boss. You have to draw a line.
My general advice of my short, 9 year IT career is...find a BUSINESS with which you like to work, the technology will be irrelevant at that point.
-fragbait
If you've got good shot at getting the management spot where you are currently working, then you should go for it. Gain a little experience in your new role and get a couple of successful projects under your belt. But you shouldn't stick around for too long if you plan on moving up, unless you're a schmoozer and become buds with senior management. In every place I've worked over the last 15 years, I've come across some rank and file employees who got promoted and became good managers, but who became stuck career-wise because they never moved on to other opportunities with other companies. Their superiors were perfectly content on keeping them where they were because they were making them (their superiors) look good.
Seriously, to become a manager of any sort, one must open their head and remove the brain.
Why would you want to become a manager? Management is reprehensible. They are small-brained, unskilled in anything other than being able to bully people, and are typically alpha-males.
The world is so over-burdened with useless management types that productivity would increase significantly just by removing a third of these dead-wood morons from the workforce and boiling their bodies down into soap.
You will be bored silly in a management position. There's nothing to be done but paperwork, meetings and dealing with idiot staff who will drive you insane.
Get into contracting instead. More money, more interesting work, flexibility and you're not tied down.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
becoming a consultant in a management capacity is a good way to go. it's less of a risk for the party hiring you, because they can easily replace you. it's less of a risk for you, and easier to learn to boot, because you can focus on how to run a good team/department without being overly distracted by company politics. then you can turn around and point to your successes as a consultant in those capacities when looking to landing a full-time job.
those sorts of consulting gigs are most often found in companies or industries that are trying to get into new I.T. areas where they have no internal expertise. an example of that sort of thing would be, say, a pharmaceutical company that wants to build a social networking site for physicians. they know physicians, pharmaceuticals, and probably even have an I.T. dept. that runs around ghosting machines and helping people with their email, but they don't know how to build a successful social network and would therefore look to someone like you.
consulting is a better bet than trying to make the leap to management in the place where you are. there are several reasons.
first, if you're good at what you do they'll want you to stay there instead of promoting you, because having to bring in a good I.T. manager is one thing they have to worry about, but promoting you gives them two things to worry about, whether you'll be a good manager and also where are they going to find someone to replace you.
second, being promoted over your peers creates instant personnel/political problems for you, your peers, and the company. that is, will your peers accept you in your new role, and also will you be able to crack the whip when you need to with people you've come to consider colleagues and friends? again, this multiplies the worries for upper management.
and nobody in upper management wants to multiply their worries. so internal promotion to management is a tough sell.
becoming management elsewhere is also a tough sell if you don't have a track record as a manager. and when you do pull it off, it either only happens at the greenest of startups or at established places where you have a serious old-boy network connection pulling strings for you.
so if you don't fill that bill, consulting is the best way to make that transition.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Make yourself known around the upper management by going the extra mile, managing projects, stepping up to the plate, etc. These things go along way, but there's a fine line to this. You need to make sure you aren't counted on for "everything." This in turn would make you look like the go to guy for everything which will burn you out. To resolve something like this, assuming you are a senior-level person, delegate these tasks to people under you.
Like others said, make sure you aren't too technical, which could hurt you. A interest in managing and other responsibilities such as budget planning, people management, etc. go a long way.
- Becoming a Technical Leader by Gerry Weinberg. Gerry talks specifically about making the transition between being in the trenches and being a manager-type and just what you have to give up in the process.
- Journey of the Software Professional: The Sociology of Computer Programming by Luke Hohmann. This book is not nearly as well known (and read) as it should be; it's also a great source of references for hard research on IT development teams.
- The Mythical Man-Month (20th Anniversary Edition) by Fred Brooks. Just because anyone in IT management should read, understand, and believe this book. I deal with failing or failed IT projects for a living, and most of those failures occur for the same relatively small set of reasons.
Once you've read these three books, then decide whether you still want to be an IT manager.Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
how about starting ur own company ... ?
...
im sure after a while of running your entire setup fail or no fail u shall have enough knowledge to proceed into the working world
thats what im doing , also cause im too lazy to look for a job and school (tried to teach me visual basic) i left . and that was last fuckn year
I always thought the trick was to sell your soul to the devil then die...
Please read _Ask the Headhunter_, or at least go his web site. In a nutshell: do you know how to do the job the way the employer wants it done? Understanding that is what getting hired is all about. Best advice I ever got.
You stated "tech support, network operations, sys admin, and programming" in the last 7 years. That means you have less than 2 years of experience in each, on average. So where did you spend most of that time?
I am guessing tech support. If so, see if you can be a tech support manager. Don't even think you have enough experience to be a manager of programmers or real systems administrators.
Sorry, I am not trying to be rude, but the IT world is filled with non-talent "managers" who want the nice pay increase, but have zero real-world experience as a programmer or systems administrator.
I have been programming for 14 years or so. I still don't want to be an IT manager and never will. I need to get my hands in the code. I am sure the same goes for my fellow admins that know their stuff.
I think before any experienced IT people can give you an opinion, you need to elaborate on your experience more.
I personally think that if your 7 years in IT was spent doing just one specialty in IT, you wouldn't be asking this question, because your boss' would have offered you the IT manager job.
Clearly they didn't.
That should be a strong hint to stick with _something_ in IT and become good at it. After that, look into becoming an IT manager if that is what you really want.
General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one.
I take it you have people skills?
Before long you'll be taking the requests from the customers (via the clerk) to the Engineers - that's when you know your on your way!
When I worked for a large American Airline, the expectation was that all competent IT staffers would eventually "progress" into management. My stepmom, who worked for the same company, had to actively resist being promoted -- because she *wanted* to keep solving problems with code, not with overhead-projector (pre-PowerPoint) presentations.
I figured it wouldn't be so bad, so I moved in that direction by being the "lead" on a project. I got good feedback from our (internal) customer, so there was no reason to think I couldn't continue to "progress". It was really only because of a boss with personal hangups (he thought I wasn't "manly" enough for the mechanics -- the mechanics didn't care, they just wanted the thing to work) that I'm not still there, "progressing".
But I'm extremely happy where I'm at now. There is no obvious path from technical expert to management, and it works just fine. The most senior programmers are free to -- get this -- program at a senior level. Our management consists almost entirely of folks with a deep understanding of the business, not the code. As a result, we have virtually none of the micromanagement of the coding process that sometimes gummed up the works at the major American Airline. There's one project in particular that was completely FUBARed because management had no understanding of the business needs of the customer. That's never happened in my 12 years at my current employer.
So I'd suggest you ask yourself: are you asking how to get into management because that's what you want to do? Would you really rather direct projects and people than program? Or is the "path to management" a false career path foisted on you by the culture of your current employer?
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Many people are right when they say, stay in the weeds, and that IT management is a pretty thankless job, it is.
I am not a manager, but I see what happens to my co-workers who move up the ladder to that position. Unless you can keep you integrity people below you won't respect you. And unless you are willing to take risks with timelines that are impossible to meet, higher management won't want you.
It takes a rare individual to make a good IT manager. If this is where you want to go, build up your knowledge and stay with a company for a while. Having moved around to different postions actually makes you well rounded, and sometimes seen as too hands on.
Some companies prefer their employees cross over to different departments every 2 years to make them more marketable when layoffs come around.
If you've been at this company for a while and you like the company, and pay is decent, I'd stay and ride the waves. Some stability and loyality to a company is helpful.
Good luck in what you decide.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
I ran the IT gambit. Ben there, done that.
:)
I liked programming the best.
My current job promoted me to a manager, I figured why not?
You win and lose.
I grew from just me to a dozen working for me.
At first it was fun, I got to program still (what I enjoyed) and got to have the power to make decisions.
But as time goes on and the team grows, things change.
First thing with being a manager - You represent the company.
When your a programmer you can bitch with the rest of the team. Complain about things, and not worry about the details.
As a manager, that all changes. It doesn't matter if you agree with the decision or not, but when it comes to explaining it to your team, as you represent the company, your expected to back the companies decisions.
You have to find reasons to get your team to agree to things you may hate.
At the same time, your expected to bring up issues your team wants delt with. So you have to represent them.
And if your boss says "Its not something we can deal with right now", you have to find a polite way to explain to your team without hurting their motivation - As if they are late, you answer for it.
And what about budget issues? Do you have to keep a budget? And prioritizing projects?
As a programmer, you may not want to cut corners. But as a manager you have to balance all the issues.
If you make it bullet-proof, it'll be late. Leave a bug or two in, it'll be on time.
The programmer says do it right - But your the manager, people yell at you when it late, you have a decision to make.
Are you prepared to argue your case up the chain? Say you wanna make it bullet proof, how many battles do you have to fight to get it?
What value does it add to the customer? What percentage of users are going to see the bug, does it justify the delay for the other customers?
And then there is the politics. Hard to avoid in most companies.
As a manager you have to argue the politics you may have blissfully avoided as a programmer.
All of these are now things you get to deal with.
Then there is - Are you friends with those who work for you?
What if you have to fire that person?
What if two people don't get along? How do you handle the situation?
Your the one in charge - You have to make it work.
Being a manager puts a line between you, regardless if you want it to or not - You have to represent your team and shield them from any issues so they can focus on their jobs.
But you also have to represent the company when it comes to pushing decisions back down.
Being a good programmer doesn't automatically make a good manager.
More often then not I've seen bad managers then good.
Don't expect to remain programming either.
As the team grows that part goes away with it.
The pay is usually better, but it always comes with a price.
If you can do all that without issues, then maybe you can be a manager.
Me? I'd personally preferred to be paid less and deal with code issues then get paid more and deal with people and political issues that I might not like myself for.
I split my team, so I get to program more now, and less politics.
...whether this is a place you'd like to make career. You could probably go a little bit faster up the corporate ladder by jumping around for that high branch, but my experience from some years as a consultant now is that companies are different. Even companies that are in the same line of business and that you'd think are very similar are worlds apart. Some are very informal, some are authoritarian, some er beurocratic, some are indecisive, some are commiteeish, some are loose cannons and some are just bizarre. I'd get an ulcer working for some of these companies, others are really cool. If I got a job with a company I liked, I'd stay unless I felt I was seriously held back (and wanted to go into management, it's a different ballgame).
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Despite what many of the basement-dwellers here think, it IS possible to be an IT Manager and keep your integrity, and it can be a very rewarding career step. I moved into management years ago and never looked back. I love having the ability to influence the strategic direction of a business.
A few tips for you:
1. Leaders get promoted. Are you acting like a leader? Do you mentor junior employees, step in when not called upon, and/or speak up in a professional manner when a problem arises? If you want to move into a leadership position, the time to lead is now.
2. Take an interest in the larger business. I can't stress enough how important this is. The easiest way to distinguish yourself from your peers is to really understand your company's specific business needs and tailor technology to meet those needs, and not (as is often the case) trying to force-feed technology to the business.
3. Make your case. Have you shown your ability to lead in your current role? If so, by all means talk to your employer about it. Most likely, they will appreciate knowing where you stand.
I think in your situation, it would have been wise to get some sort of certifcation in management. If management has always been your goal, a MBA is probably the best bet. With your years of experience though, you should probably try to apply to management type of position with other companies.
or a lobotomy, its cheaper with more immediate results.
Almost forgot.
Get your haircut short on top, short on the sides and back, long & curly at 10 & 2.
Getting a management position is a crapshoot of who you know, whose butt you kissed and has absolutely NOTHING to do with your qualifications. I have only had TWO managers worth spit who were capable intelligent individuals; one at Amazon who they pretty much chased away for that very fact and another at a failed dotcom which failed because all the other managers were prime examples of what he wasn't.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
You need to show them you are knowledgeable about business as well as technology. See if you can take on leadership roles at your current company, even if they are non-technical. You should also talk to your boss and mentors for advice - the next time something comes up, they'll know to point you to it.
I asked the owner of my company for the job, provided him with documentation (hierarchy chart, a detailed description of the position), and discussed him with how I felt my taking over the department would make a difference. We agreed that this would be a trial position for 3 months, to see if I could implement constructive changes. It is several months past the end of my trial and things are going.
I found my foothold because the company is growing and there was no direct management of the IT staff, just a hodge podge of upper level managers making, often contradictory, decisions that had a negative impact on those beneath them. Since I had spent time in the trenches, I knew what it was like to be there and some things that could be done about it. I also had several supervisory roles on past jobs, so had an inkling how to do it.
For those of you saying that it is a horrible and thankless job, generally I agree. Why did I ask for this position? Because I am interested in leaving IT in a couple of years and having manager in my title and the experience to go with it helps my long term career.
Do I want to stay here forever? No. Is the money great? No. But it opens up a large number of doors for the future.
-- You don't shoot to kill, you shoot to stay alive.
I think it really depends on how happy you are where you are at...
Do you like what you are doing, and do you like the company you are working for?
If you do- I'd stay and gun for the IT Manager job. Although- if they just hired one out of the blue without even offering it to you- that may be the writing on the wall...
I'm a sysadmin/network manager/developer right now, and from what I've seen my boss go through in the last 8 years- I don't want his job. For that reason- I wouldn't be all that eager to be an IT Manager anyway. You are just a fall-guy every time something goes wrong, and you have to constantly explain to upper management how you can't give them what they want because they won't give you a budget to do anything with. I really don't think that's all that unusual...
With the economy on the decline- I would be very hesitant to leave any job right now, even in IT.
It's the first question in damn near every management interview and it's a good gut check to see if you'll be happy. If the answer is more money, you need to think twice about going in that direction.
IT Manager is a manager position in the IT department, not an IT position with more money. If you want to make more money in IT, it is far better to grow your skills and expertise in a technology that interests you and get certified as high as you can in that technology.
If you want to enter into management, you'll only be truly successful if it's because that's the work you want to do every day. The good part of it is you have a better say in the direction things are headed, the bad part is you have to make the tough choices: layoffs, hiring decisions, dealing with performance problems, and deciding where to spend your limited budget. You'll be placed in a position where you may have to fire a friend or former coworker and if you can't live with that, don't apply for the job.
STFU & GBTW
... so he's already partially qualified for management. However he didn't use any buzzwords in his question so he's not completely ready yet.
Computer programming is a one rung ladder. Once you get into management, you are no longer doing computer programming.
A number of companies i've worked for have pushed me towards management in one way or another. My experience is that people who want to be managers should in no circumstances be allowed to do it. One good reason to do it is if your current management is so bad that something just has to be done about it. At that point, you're ready for it.
There's a long standing argument over whether computer programming is engineering or not. As an engineer and practicing computer programmer, i can say with authority that computer programming is engineering, only more so. Non-engineers can't manage engineers. It's far worse with computer programmers. Even engineers aren't prepared to manage them.
So read Fred Brooks' book - The Mythical Man Month. Understand how it relates to what you do. It's a start. A bad manager can set up the programmers for a 30x slow down with a guarantee of poor quality. Who has time for that? Life is too short.
-- Stephen.
Depends on the compnay too...
I was an IT pleeb for about 10 years...and then got promoted to "IT Manager"
I'm doing the same shit I've always done, with more money for sure, but more morons breathing down my neck for "results" at a company that seems to pride itself on "doing things as it has always been done" and "meeting about new ideas and getting excited about them while doing nothing to achieve the ideas from the meeting", and I can't forget the "Expecting 24/7 IT service in an industry that SHOULD shut down at 5pm, without compensation". Oh, and "Not approving the budget for Technology xxx when Technology xxx is required to implement idea yyy that you've demanded we implement"
Honestly, I was a fuck of alot happier just going in, doing my thing, and letting someone else take the fall for "fucking up" when they had no chance or support to succeed.
My only hope now is to survive 3 or 4 years in this pseudo-management role & move again to a company that actually strives to excel - hopefully the experience in generating & following budgets, managing other IT-people & the continued hands-on techie stuff will get me the better position when I go after it.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I've been in this field for a little more than a decade, and I've had good managers that are very happy with their work, and then I've had BAAAAD managers. We all know bad managers, and good managers are worth their weight in gold.
- Good IT managers take the excrement raining down from upper management, wash it off, box it up in tissue paper, and present it to their employees as motivation, while bad ones just point fingers at their own people and forward the nasty email chains.
- Good IT managers are available 24/7 ready and willing and able to put an emergency plan into place if systems fail, while bad ones wig out and then forward all calls to the project leaders.
- Good IT managers help their employees succeed in their goals (usually by getting to know their employees really well.) Bad IT managers thwart their employees goals and then wonder why there's no retention.
- Good IT managers know when to decline meeting invites. Bad ones SEND meeting invites.
I could go on for hours about this topic.
The way I've seen good managers become good managers is they start acting like good managers LOOOONG before they get the job - encouraging people, offering to help others, being available after hours, establishing good rapport with other teams/project leaders, etc.
So please do the universe a favor and figure out if you have what it takes to be a good manager before you submit that application.
I worked for a fortune 100 company while finishing my degree, and wanted to continue after I graduated. Now admittedly I was a student and as such made some (small) dumb mistakes along the way, but overall I always thought I did a pretty good job (at least I got good reviews and decent raises).
It also just so happened the VP of Human Resources knew my mom and was always happy to give career advice - he even helped me polish my resume and cover letter. While we were talking one time I asked him about applying for a management position after graduation. While it kind of hurt at the time I thought he gave me some good advice. He said sometimes you have to move on to move up. He went on to say that I was a good at what I did and was easy to get along with, but it would be hard for people to forget when I was the new kid learning the ropes. And it helped that he said he too had started with another company in a similar position and had to look elsewhere to get into management.
I took this to mean that I should look for employment elsewhere after graduation. So I did, and fortunately got a decent job.
I've seen it happen to lots of people. They have great skills and work experience, but the companies they work for don't recognize, or value, those skills. In today's workplace where CEOs have no qualms about laying off thousands of employees in order jack the stock price up for their bonuses, you should always keep your resume handy, keep your ear to the ground about openings (network and stay in touch with business associates, classmates, and even your professors), and don't be afraid to apply for jobs elsewhere even if you aren't sure you want them.
You never know when something better may open up.
1. Forget everything you know about the technical operations of your organization.
2. Forget how to communicate in anything remotely resembling the English language. Practice stringing random words together and assume that your subordinates will be able to translate it accurately into a sentence!
3. Formulate a plan for actively sabotaging your operations. Bonus points if you can spend millions of dollars on an off-the-shelf software package that supports none of your current business practices and jumps you back ten years in customer service.
4. Congratulations, you're an IT manager!
And sit....
Nah, like you would any job. They advertise them internally and externally, but aside from the money I really don't know WHY you'd want to be in management. It removes you from useful rotation.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
Don't forget about the other half of this power structure. Look after your subordinates. Talk a page from the military leadership book. Always protect your people. Respect and loyalty are earned. If you earn that, your people will make you look good. When they do, remember to reward them for it.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
BINGO! That's the answer. In the role of IT manager, the staff needs to respect you. If they don't WANT to follow your lead, it's a lost cause. Mentoring the new people is one way to achieve respect. No matter how good you might be at achieving your OWN goals, the manager is expected to help others achieve THEIRS. The rest of the management team wants a person who distributes accurate information about how IT really works, offers solutions in lieu of excuses, and has the respect of the rest of the department. At the very least, volunteer and offer a solution for every problem you think you can solve.
Aside from mentoring, the next key is communication -- verbal and written. Public speaking and presenting is often overlooked. Either take a course, or at least learn from the examples you see. If nothing else, watch politicians face a tough question from a reporter.
Joining the world of IT management is not something that happens when you fill the checklist with credentials. I have essentially no credentials but I have been in IT management for 14 years. You get admitted to the club when other members ASK you to join.
Do you like getting your hands dirty playing with the latest toys? Do you enjoy being intellectually challenged? Do you have a low tolerance for duplicity?
If so, then avoid management like the plague. I've seen a lot of guys fall into the same trap you're going into. They got lured by the money and took the management position, and then all of a sudden they were buried in paperwork, kissing corporate's ass, and ordering people around. Their skillset ended up rotting. One friend of mine decided he couldn't take it anymore, and had a hard time getting back into the tech side of things because his knowledge was so outdated. He ended up taking an entry level tech position at a small company.
Leave management to the brainless MBA bean counters. Tech guys don't belong in that position.
-R
Lots of useless and some useful advice here. Let me give you mine:
1 - I assume you know this is what you want to do. If not, see other posts as they're fairly accurate.
2 - Easiest way to get a job is to do the job. Start acting like a manager, start doing the job and it'll become yours even if you have to go elsewhere to get it. (If you can't manage, you can't make a case for being a manager at another company, and if you've never done it you can't make a case).
3 - Make the Director's/CIO's job easy. That's the whole idea behind a manager is to make life easier for the people up the chain. Figure out the best way to do that and get it done. This is the part where people say you're political or brownnosing or whatever. That's one way to do it but it doesn't have to be brown-nosing to make someone else's job easier)
4 - DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT make yourself indispensible as an engineer (or whatever job you have). If you do they'll never promote you. If you can't let go of the daily work once you're a manager, then you're failing.
5 - If you want to stay where you are and move into that job, again... start doing the job. Make it obvious you're the manager's replacement if/when (s)he goes away. Make sure you train your own replacement while you're doing this. That's the best way to mentor a team and prepare to move up.
I am an IT manager and the best thing you can do is to defend your "guys".
They want a bigger screen? More RAM? More Time?
Give it to them!!
Shield them from all other PHBs, be their umbrella (ella, ella, ey, ey).
When the shit hits the fan, take it like a man and don't let them get hit by it.
When one of the guys isn't helping the rest out, send him away.
Ask them what you should do.
In short:
Don't become a manager, become a leader.
You need to have the correct haircut.
The more pointy, the better.
For examples, see 'The Boss'.
Excel
Powerpoint
Project
I find this discussion very confusing. Network administration/helpdesk/IT manager and software engineer/programmer are very different fields. I understand how layman could mix the two areas. They're all computer-related, after all. But anyone with an IT or CS degree should know better. I think you should pick a discipline and stick with it. An IT manager has no need to keep up with the latest software design principles or language changes. A software engineer or programmer doesn't need to know how a network or email system is deployed or managed. Unless you've received specific on-the-job training in other areas, you should consider sticking to the area you studied in college.
we dont need any managers, all you managers do is cause us trouble and get a bonus for making us work our asses off and taking the credit for it.
For the last seven years I have moved around from job to job climbing the rungs of the IT ladder.
I don't know how it works in IT, and I don't know how many times you've jumped, but when we're hiring it's a big red flag if a guy can't stay in a job. I'd try staying where you are for a little while, feel out what your chances are at your current place.
....sleep with the Boss.
IT management and System Administration is 2 different things. Primarily people with management degrees do IT management, and people with some sort of CS degree do sysadmin. The best thing for you would to be in a small company (around 50 or less) that doesn't need an IT manager and do both responsibilities. After a time at this, you can decide if you REALLY want to switch to full time management, then go to school for it. This is what I've been doing, and I've found i enjoy doing sysadmin stuff (researching new technologies, troubleshooting network/hardware issues, helping people find better ways to do things with technology) ALOT better than doing the management side (brainless/continuous meetings, listening to stupid complaints/gripes, having "management" meeting).
As talented as you might be in the trenches, it is very difficult to make the transition to management without a degree.
Why spend three or four years killing yourself to live when you've got a decade's worth of experience? Get a new position, give your two weeks' and get the hell out before you resort to punching kittens in order to work off job stress.
Seriously, get the hell out. For the kittens' sake, if not your own.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
I am in a small shop. I have one direct report. I am the "manager" for all intents and purposes. However, what I am, is "not" hand off. My hands are dirty every day with something that should be handed by "non-management" types -- if we had more. I make 2.5x more than when I started, and I work about the same number of hours.
If you are going to ask for management, make sure you are fully aware of how much, if any, hands-on is expected.
Look at the questions posted by jellomizer. Ask yourself all of those. Guess what...I "need" managing, because I have a dual role, and folks still see me as the non-manager and it becomes a territorial scuffle as to who's need is more pressing. They see their department, I see the whole company. Senior management has to step in. Outside of that, I work totally unsupervised and produce quality work, no matter the task that crosses my desk.
Also, make sure that the management/ownership will listen to you. I am on my way out -- why? because I was asked for a Disaster Recovery Plan, and they ignored it, and chose to operate with a single point of failure for the company. It failed last week, and they are still not willing to invest in the necessary equipment. 1) Asked my input 2) ignored my input 100% (no debate, no on going discussion) 3) system failed 4) I've got the emails, so no blame here, but they didn't learn from the lesson.
I do not plan on being here for the next failure which would most likely spell the end of the company.
Sig? What's a Sig?
I have seen people successfully transition to the management ladder by allowing their boss to off-load unwanted responsibilities. The boss wants to have time and energy to get his promotion, so he needs someone loyal to accept some of his current duties. I believe this is how most tiered management works. You have to do this for as many years as it takes for a position to open... I have seen some people work their ass off for as much as 4 years.
Show your initiative by taking meeting minutes, tracking progress, and "help" others to deliver there action items on-time (and unofficially take credit for those actions).
Most of your former & present co-workers will resent what you are doing and see right thru it. You will be treated differently and talked about behind your back. As this happens, management will see that you are not willing to change your behavior to make friends (good management realizes that they are to be respected, not liked). I have seen some very despised people promoted with no problems (they would kiss-ass and status other people's work).
I am perfectly happy with my present job duties, pay and security... and have no desire to change any of that. Watching people switch into management is so very entertaining when you have accepted what management is.
It's far easier to grow into management in a place you know with people who respect you than trying to come in and earn respect and learn a new environment at the same time as a first time manager. Let your manager know you are interested in that growth path, take classes (at work and a local college, maybe MBA if you are industrious) and you'll get there eventually.
Listen, I don't mean to be rude here, but your question makes the assumption that you have the skill set to hold a manager level position. Have you considered that perhaps the reason you have been passed over for management positions is because those above you have considered it, but determined that your skill set is better suited to rank-and-file work? Not everyone is cut out for management, and it's a bad idea to automatically promote someone to management simply because of seniority. It requires a specific set of skills, and if you don't have those skills you can make your entire team perform poorly.
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I forgot to answer the original question. I'm not sure I can? Sometimes it's a confluence of events. All you can really do is a) ask for it if it seems appropriate and b) show leadership in everything you do. The latter doesn't mean boss people around. It refers to doing every undertaking with an eye towards excellence and with a professional attitude towards your coworkers.
In my own case I had managed several projects when they suddenly found they needed an Ops manager. I got tapped and I stepped up. Again, YMMV. Keep your eye open for opportunities and don't be afraid to ask for more responsibility. Just be cafeful what you wish for.
If you're doing this just because it seems like the next step, think long and hard about it. Part of the problem the business people have with IT is that they don't understand what IT does. And it's not (just) that the business people aren't real bright. IMHO, that's because IT consistently promotes "the best programmer" into leadership positions and they aren't able to communicate in non-technical terms. The skill set, how you spend your day, and what constitutes success is definitely different.
That being said, I do miss the fact that I used to be a pretty good programmer. However, for me, it's rewarding to be at the table and have a say in the higher level decisions. I'm able to steer our business partners away from technology missteps and unrealistic expectations. I'm able to advocate certain technology over others and actually be listened to. I feel like I can do much more for the business, and for the IT staff, in the position I'm in rather that working on code all day. I'm able to stay close enough to my team's activities to appreciate the purely technical challenges they work on and conquer, and also incorporate their desires into higher level decisions. Management certainly is not for everyone, but works just fine for me.
Life is just one damn thing after another- Mark Twain
Switch Jobs. Every time I move jobs I do so for an average raise in salary of about 30% You won't get that by staying.
Sorry Tom, you are 25 years old. Most people don't get to be IT managers until their mid-30s. Try working for a couple more years until you get more experience on the IT side of it before worrying about managing other people. Especially with your jumping around from position to position, it would take a large leap for a company to trust you with managing their IT staff. My advice: Continue doing good work in what you're doing now and take some extra outside courses in management to see if you even have the aptitude to become a manager, or it would even interest you.
It seems the younger generation doesn't want to put in the time doing the work before they become the boss, and I say this as a 27 year old...
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
My opinion is only get an MBA if:
The company will pay for it.
You can do your homework on the job.
and you get it from Harvard, Yale, Wharton, Stanford ...in that order and only from those schools (The business magazine ratings are full of shit). Otherwise, MBA degrees are completely worthless. I know, I have one and it was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
If this is just a complaint that you were 'held down' by the man .. then don't read any more - nothing I say will chance your mind that you were 'screwed over'. However, if you are honestly asking 'what happened' ..please .. read on.
.. managers are not asked their opinion on if something can be done, but told to do it, and figure out how it gets done, on time, under budget. [If its any consolation, its like that all the way up the food chain, ESPECIALLY if your VC funded.]
.. reconsider. To successfully manage anyone, you need to understand that its a completely different skill set than what might make you good at your job now. A somewhat weak example would be comparing it to the jump from a .NET programmer, to a DBA. Sure, most applications now use a DB as a back end, and there is a certainly more cross over between the two roles, but a programmer probably can not maintain a DB as well, and a DBA probably doesn't write code as efficiently.
First, in your situation you said your company grew 100% then brought an outside manager in.
I'm going to guess that you went from a team of 3-4 developers, to a team of 7 or 8 developers, and were previously managed directly by upper management. [who was providing most of the technical guidance for the projects you were working on.]
I must pose the question first: Why do you feel as if you were passed over on this promotion? Did you ask them for a promotion? Have you been actively involved in choosing the direction of the projects assigned to your group? Have you been tapped, often, by the current management to give them an idea of how to solve a problem that the business is having? How much experience do you have in your current role? Are you, and be honest here, exceptionally good in your field? Is your company going into a new round of funding? How has it been performing fiscally over the past few quarters, and have you done anything to help improve its performance.
These are a lot of pointed questions, and any of them being answered in a 'negative response' [or causing you to say 'huh??!'] could have caused you to be passed over.
They also have to consider the rest of the developers, are you all the same age/tenure/work level? are you all friendly? these are also reasons to bring in outside management. If you have a functioning team, that is very productive and works well together - you do not break that up if you do not have to.
I will make the assumption that your a great guy, who codes well, and has asked for more responsibility, often - and when given more, has stepped up to the plate. In that case, chances are they brought the other guy in because he has actual management experience.
A manager, even in IT, isn't about being 'awesome' at your job. You should be competent, but folks who are exceptional in their field - have a certain laser-focus that actually makes them horrible in management roles. A manager needs to step back from the fine details of a project, and manage the workload and the people. Depending on the company, an IT manager might be reasonable for making decisions that affect the growth of the company. Normally
So - back to your real question : How does one become a manager.
First ask yourself why you want the role. If its for more money, or as a natural progression, or because you see it as a promotion
An IT manager has to be good with people, potentially weird introverted people with intelligence and strong conviction on how to do things. [read:stubborn know-IT-all]. They have to be able to manage multiple time lines, projects, deadlines, and report all this information back to upper management - in NON IT terms most of the time. They have to be able to motivate their teams to work, and know how to help them work smarter, not just crack the whip. They have to be willing to put their ass on the line - writing checks based on the future performance of their staff (who will hate them
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
You'll need them for dealing with upper management.
Patriot - A fan of expanding government power and spending while not wanting to pay higher taxes.
of course you do have to grow the pointy hair
Forget the naysayers,
being an effective leader can mean getting your hands dirty. It means getting people motivated by:
A) your dedication
B) your honesty
C) your willingness to be realistic with upper management
D) your ability to give a shit about management goals AND your staff
E) your willingness to deal with a lot of shit.
F) your ability to listen to your staff and credit them whenever possible for their good ideas to upper management. For the record- this is the way to get your staff to be less competitive and more motivated.
G) your ability to talk up your staff to others when they EARNED that RESPECT, not falsely given...
H) your ability to match effort with management goals with effort on the floor, but realistic about how your mission as a team does in fact match the goals of upper management.
I) your high expectations of yourself and your team.
J) Getting creative when A-I dont pan out.
Dont listen to the cynics. Management of people (who will work hard for you if you establish credibility) is a BLAST and makes everyones life a hell of a lot more fun and engaging.
For those of you with shit heads for management - I am very sorry.
Foston
I would concur with those who suggest trying to take on the managerial role at your present job, and I think one big reason for the negative experiences of those who've taken that path is the lack of a clear definition of the job duties & responsibilities.
In a small, growing company that never had an IT manager, this is quite likely. Upper management is not likely to really understand what any of the IT department does, and may expect the IT manager to be responsible for any activity that requires employees to touch anything electronic. It's a recipe for unhappiness if you don't set limits.
I am sort of getting the impression your passion is not IT, at least not programming because most of the programmers I know do it not to climb some ladder but because they love to code. It's in their blood and it's what they want to do it regardless of which rung on the ladder it may be.
Your approach to a career appears to be unfocused, just going where the money is, taking this opportunity or that as you float along. You obviously have intelligence and aptitude to do IT work but seemingly no passion for it. Now that you've exhausted the tech positions you figure management is where you can go to keep climbing the corporate ladder. Are you perhaps painting yourself into a corner?
Are you going into management because you want to or because it's just another step on the treadmill?
To be a successful, effective manager you really need the following skills:
I'd make your company an offer: hire me as the IT manager and this is the (negotiable) salary I desire. If not, then move on.
counselor: Well chartered accountancy is rather exciting isn't it?
Mr. Anchovy: Exciting? No it's not. It's dull. Dull. Dull. My God it's dull, it's so desperately dull and tedious and stuffy and boring and des-per-ate-ly DULL.A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver --Proverbs 25:11
I've seen several friends make the transition successfully, but I've seen several fail miserably. Good luck with that...
A clever person solves a problem, A wise person avoids it. -Einstein
I have no insights to offer on how to become an IT manager. Frankly, it seems such a thankless and boring job that I would presume a severe shortage of candidates. But I freely offer the following advice on how to stay an IT manager and not get fired:
You are already half way there, sending the question here... ...next step, try applying for a job as IT manager!
You need to consider the fact that being an IT manager for a small/mid size organization is far different than being a manager for a large corporation, especially if you are thinking about joining one of the mega consulting firms. Being an IT manager for small to mid size business will allow you more opportunity to remain hands-on, have more say in what goes on, perform managerial tasks that actually mean something and eventually progress beyond middle management if you desire. Being an IT manager for a large corporation will not be anywhere close to this. You'll be stuck with long hours, less time actually working on IT things, policy out the ass, lots of stress, not much more pay and the scape goat of your boss who is still pissed off because he/she has spent 20-30 years in big business and still can't make it out of middle management. You'll also have 10 different bosses who are all stabbing each other in the back trying to reach the top of the middle management food chain in some delusional hope that they might, just might, actually get promoted to upper management.
But that was just my experience...
I'm guessing that if you read /., you are fairly technical, and actually enjoy it. If not, don't bother reading the rest of this.
If you are technically oriented and enjoy it, then I wouldn't necessarily recommend becoming an IT manager. It all depends on the size of the business.
That is, if your company is of any decent size (say > 250 employees), you're truly managing, and it's boring (to me). Your people skills count far more than anything else.
If, on the other hand, you can get a job as the IT manager for a smaller firm, you get 2 great things: 1) at your age, you're more likely to get the job and be given the benefit of the doubt on your age, and 2) you'll still get to be fairly technical.
RANT:
IMHO, IT at large companies sucks. It's filled with loser careerists who aren't even sure why they are in the jobs they are in.
If you enjoy getting things done, you will find it next to impossible. Things that you know should really take a day or two to solve end up taking months or years. And all the people involved seem to be perfectly fine with it. Oh, they'll say, "so much is riding on our systems, we have to do all this process stuff or else calamity will befall us!" I say BS. It's all about control. Nothing more, nothing less.
The best managers are the ones who have no choice. Their personalities and their knowledge of not just their own little world (in this case, IT), but of the company and the industry as a whole force them to lead their teams through example and mentoring.
They are the ones who cannot sit back and let things slide, they're forced to try and do something to make things better. This can be making everyone's job easier through analyzing processes and changing them, or finding new implementations, finding new business for the company, etc.
They are detail oriented, gregarious and socially enabled. Quick thinkers who put in extra time to FULLY understand situations, products and requirements. They know what each person on their team is doing (not just what they're supposed to be working on) but do not spend all day micro-ing the hell out of them.
They plan ahead, display forethought and understand the politics of the organization they're working within so that they forge relationships with other managers that both sides can use to get their projects completed.
They can communicate effectively both verbally and in written form. They understand the needs of different audiences and can talk to upper management and the techs in the trenches keeping stuff running.
They understand change and know what changes are for a reason, and what the reason is. They are flexible and quick on their mental feet.
All of these because thats just what they do, thats who they are. Thats what they'd be doing no matter where they were; no matter what business they're in.
If you fit 80% of the above description, consider it. If not, then... why not? And why management?
...from last Sunday's strip.
Donate your brain to a gum museum!
Actually, I have been in Management mode at several places in the past. What I found was that my technical skills were underutilized as I was spending more time being a politician than a nerd.
Hated it. And I feared it would actually make me LESS employable down the road.
I've been at my current Fortune 500 gig for 12 years. Turned down the management slot 3 times. After that, they don't ask anymore. Which is fine. I get to actually WORK instead of pushing paper, attending endless meetings, or other trivial crap that gets in the way of rolling up the sleeves and having fun.
But, if you must be King, good luck to you!
I am my own gestalt.
Once you've read it and laughed at it, move on. I've been the PHB for 8 years now, and frankly there are many many more "Wally's" out there than there are PHB's. The malcontents are everywhere, whining about how their COBOL skills are no longer revered and complaining you took their red stapler (oops, crossing into Office Space land now).
I became a department manager by accident once. Not IT but management is management. All I wanted to do was get a couple people up to speed on my job so I could quit. I wasn't sure if I was going to quit but one particular task was done by me and only me and I needed to make sure there was someone who could take over. 15-20% of their business would have disappeared overnight without a backup. So I got my boss to give me a couple people part time "in case I get hit by a bus or something". 2 grew to 4 grew to 6.
One evening, I complained to a friend that I hadn't had time to take a breath all week but I hadn't cranked out one single report. It's all balancing work loads, handling exceptions, checking regulations, project tracking, prioritizing. "I'm exhausted but I haven't done a damn thing all week." "Dude, you're a manager."
...sorry to be picky, but you probably meant hoard.
Read those, and especially Brooks, and weep. Brooks did it on the IBM 360 (or was it earlier?) and the same mistakes are happening now, only more so
Down with categorical imperatives
The 7 habits of highly effective people. - Stephen R. Covey
The other books will make you a good manager, this one will help in not becoming a bastard in the process.
1. Become an idiot, and a bad techie. Forget everything you may have known. Don't listen to reason. Avoid all contact with technical matters.
2. Since you're now an idiot, you're going to make your half-assed decisions with acronyms and buzzwords. See, you need to collect acronyms. Since you're insecure because you're worth shit, you stick to acronyms you won't even understand hoping that they'll bring your business to success byart of magic. Does this product do XFTD? Oh but this one has JKML 2.0! In case of doubt, you read and write business-speak. Every professional scalable mission-critical turnkey enterprise business solution must offer five-nines availability, create synergy between your business departments, optimize cash flows, discover business logic, convert visitors into customers and so on. If still on doubt (which you'll always be, being a manager), go for the product that says the word "business" the most time. After all, that's what you want to get, right? To sound insightful to other managers, be sure to use the word "business" every other second, too.
3. Read magazines, watch "webinars" and listen to "podcasts". This is how you collect new buzzwords you need to look and ask for in your products. It's like Pokemon, gotta catch 'em all! The more "business-oriented" (read: shitty) the magazine is, the better. And a tip: I know looking at the pictures is easier, but make an effort to read the titles every article. That's where the buzzwords are. They almost always follow this pattern: "{acronym} allows your business to {whatever stupid shit}".
4. You gotta love shortcuts. Especially the folly ones, where you see a petty gain and completely ignore a huge loss. This sort of thing also keeps business with customers going by never finishing it, and if you're a software consulting company your customers are probably idiots too, and will "understand" if you toss a dozen buzzwords on them and say "business" another dozen of times. There are many examples of these kinds of shortcuts, but I'm going to use a metaphor to make it clear. If you were fixing a car (hmm... well, let's suppose you actually did anything; it's just a metaphor), you, as a manager, would take a wheel out. Hey, the car still stands, and you're saving a wheel, that means $$$ and more customers for your business! You're the smartest man in the Universe!
5. Well, there was going to be a fifth step, but by now you're enough of a manager to be completely useless, even to follow steps.
I was about to say 13256278887989457651018865901401704640, but it appears this number is private property.
1. Do you want to be a manager or a technical lead? If you are in true management you won't be able to put as much time into the nitty gritty, some geeks will find this distressing. A technical lead position has a leadership component but you would still have to get your hands dirty. If you play it right, you can take your pick of the most challenging or interesting work as a way to lead by example.
2. Can you handle stress well? If you can't, don't bother because management is not for you.
3. How are your political skills? As a manager you are doing many things: directing a group of people, exchanging resources with other departments, little turf wars, big turf wars, etc.
4. Are you able to look a person in the eye and order him/her to do something you know he/she won't like? What about asking the person to work unpaid overtime when you know that your employee would rather be at his precious snowflake's thanksgiving play? Managers get to make these decisions, many times knowing well that there is an obvious disruption of the employee's personal life.
5. Are you able to work a 9:00 AM - 5:30 PM work day with a 1.5 hour (working) lunch, knowing half your team is pulling 15 hours day for its third week in a row, weekends included?
6. What would you do if you get pulled into your division VP's office and asked to reduce your workforce by one warm body every 90 days over a 9-month period? Laying off employees, many of which used to be your own coworkers, is extremely hard.
7. Would you be able to draw the line and move on with firing an employee that doesn't measure up to your standards? Laying off people is really hard, but nowhere as hard as firing a person for cause.
8. Are you a problem solver? If you are a real problem solver, you will be sucked into "fire fighting" drills (at a previous job each of us managers actually had a toy fireman's helmet). This is an easy way to get fast tracked even higher, but it also means you lose time you should have spent taking care of your own people and dealing with your own deliverables.
9. Are you a territorial person? Each manager has his own little turf to share with friends and defend from intruders. Some managers are easier to deal in regards to this than others.
10. Are you willing to act as a shit shield for your team? One of the most important jobs of a manager is to protect his/her team so they can get their jobs done with as little external disruption as possible. Think of your past bosses and try to remember which ones were more respected, the ones that protected their people (within reason) or the ones that fed them to the wolves at the first chance?
11. Can you play golf? Regardless of sex, golf is a great way to get together with your team or other managers at your level. If the weather is nice you can schedule your meeting late in the afternoon and run it while playing 9 holes. There's bound to be a cheap course at a reasonable distance. We used to sneak out of Bethesda to play at River Road, a municipal course in Potomac. It was very nice and dirt cheap.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
The most important thing to realize about the IT management position is that the job role is a people job, not a technology job. You need to find out what people outside IT (your direct management, others in the company) think about IT and need from IT, and interface your group out to them to provide them services and success.
It's not an easy jump for technology people to make. Many fail miserably, or don't have any fun doing it.
If you're already a leader on the IT team - asked for advice, inside and outside the group; someone that the team look up to; etc - then you have a good chance at succeeding.
If you find yourself wanting to get back on system console and not wanting to email people and talk to them in person several times a day, not doing management-by-walking-around, then it may not be the job for you.
Good luck!
if you want your technicians to respect you.
You can manage people who don't respect you, but it's more difficult. knowing what they are doing might not be absolutely required, but it's a pretty big plus.
Also, I find that you are much more likely to get promoted if you have strong technical skills. the place I'm currently at seems to keep wanting me to manage projects with the one other guy in my group who is less technical than I am. the annoying thing is that my organizational skills suck, and I've said as much- and the projects we are involved with don't really require much tech. skill- this other guy really would make a better organizational manager than I would.
This is exactly what happens.
Do it as a government employee......
Anything related to sales can be tough work.
If sales are good, yes it can be great pay, good hours, lots of good lunches, etc.
If sales are struggling, it's poor base pay, few commissions, long hours, tiny expense account, low budget travel (often doubling up with another sales guy), etc.
For every high flying, super sales stud, there are hundreds of Willie Loman's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Loman
I deal with failing or failed IT projects for a living [bfwa.com], and most of those failures occur for the same relatively small set of reasons. Me too, and I agree. However getting Senior Management to change thier ways is tough. I've done this work for NASA, DOD, IBM and now another big firm (competitor to IBM) and I see same song different verse over and over. Fred Brooks book is good as is Ed Yourdon's book "Death March"
How to become an IT manager:
* Show up on time
* Dress neatly
* Lay off the profanity
* Do your bladder-control exercises for the meetings
How to become a GOOD IT manager (IMAO of course):
* Come from the trenches in at least 1 respectable area
* Set reasonable expectations both above and below
* Define deliverables/milestones and hold people to them, allowing leeway once they're met
* Stand up for your people but don't be an enabler for misanthropy
* Don't ask anyone to do anything you wouldn't do
* Plan disruptive work well in advance
* Be transparent
Some combination of the two = success
The main skill you need if you wish to become management has barely anything to do with the fields you have flitted between. I've been in the industry since the late 90s and have only seen one (1) (besides me) under 30 person become management, and that was because a) She was one of the best technologically rounded people I've ever known and b) She knew how to communicate requirements both to the Client (Management) and to the Geeks doing the work in a diplomatic fashion. She was also very organized, driven and able to talk to anyone about the projects she was heading. If you can't bridge that gap between the plebs and the geeks in a graceful, organized and illuminating manner, you won't get anywhere and people will dislike you on both sides of a project.
Sorry if I sound dubious about your question, I'd say 99.999% of the Geeks who want to move up to Management aren't going to be good at it because they are inept at diplomacy (I'm not talking the board game) and the creative thinking that you need to have to deal with interpersonal relationships. You're not only dealing with project requirements and timing, you're dealing with egos (which are wild and varied in the Geek community; much easier to judge someone NOT in the technical field). You need to be very flexible in your thinking about situations (which most Geeks aren't, thank you logical thinking!), and be prepared to change based on someone's bad mood and not take it personally.
I skipped from developer to owner of a company, which is a whole new level of diplomacy (read as insanity). Just know that what you're thinking about doing shouldn't be taken lightly and might not be as easy to jump into with your limited credentials. Take some business classes and see if it is of interest to you still.
Businesses constantly need innovative ideas and fresh approaches to the same problems. I worked for the same company 3 times. Each time I left, I did it on good terms. I learned new skills at other jobs, then came back for 10-15k more a year later.
I'd look for a new job. If your current employer values you, they will ask what they could do to keep you around. Don't use the new job offer to hold them hostage. It will only leave a sour after taste behind.
Job hopping is the way it's done. Have worked for managers under 25. 2 managers on the Sony Blu-Ray player were under 25 and look who won the format war. The key is job hopping, don't do anything more substantial than your day job, including open source.
Don't bother if you're over 30. Too much experience is a liability. Executives don't like to be around people more experienced than them or who have taken on bigger projects than theirs in open source.
Management is recession proof. The current generation wasn't around for the last round of outsourcing so the media isn't covering it, but it'll be back.
If you want to work in Edinburgh (Scotland) send me your CV (resumé). I'm hiring.
...that you start with reading "The Peter Principle" by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and look at "The Dilbert Principle" by Scott Adams
Then you may reconsider your desire of getting the word "manager" in your title...
...unless of course you do have a masochistic desire of being spanked by everybody in the business for the sins of others.
The custom, at least in the US, is that IT/programming managers should have a degree (if any) from outside this field and little experience within it...
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
One good tech can replace a whole department of not so good techs. some management knows this, and will pay accordingly. A good manager knows to not wait for the 'prime meat' to start looking around- s/he will make sure that the guys that save his bacon are compensated. If you are good, and you are at a place that doesn't pay accordingly, your manager is a moron. Find a better place to work and let your manager deal with less-compitent meat.
There is a lot of overlap between the job of SysAdmin and, say, NetOps. Management, well, management is quite a bit different. If that's your deal, that's fine- but it is a paralel (and not necesairly higher) career-path. I know as one of the 'dumb grunts' at a large company within a very compitent group I'm making what the VPs did at some of the small places I've worked.
On the other hand, if you really do want to go into management, go for it- but only if you enjoy management. If you like being a tech and just want more money, well, learn more and look around. there are places that will pay techs more, sometimes a lot more. Generally, (though not always) those places have higher standards.
By your definition, I'm not in that 80%-- but I'm willing to improve to reach it.
I started in the IT field in December of '92, and didn't get into management until about two years ago. I'd had one brief (6 months) experience leading a two-person team during all that time, and hated it. It turns out, years later, that the reason I hated it is that I wasn't given sufficient resources to lead my other team-member, let alone to drive toward anything new. I've learned since then.
In my current position, I'm the leader for a team of (currently seven people, but it'll grow to nine in the next two or three weeks). We serve a large group of a much larger division of one of the largest five corporations in the world, but we're contractors (although at least we get good benefits). As a result, we're flexible, we're forced to work well together as a team, and because our corporate management is solid, we have the ability to, as Nancy Reagan said, "just say no."
Here are the things I pay the most attention to:
I hope this helps someone out there. I've had to discover each piece of it myself through hard experience (especially the "dealing with assholes" part), and wish anyone just entering into management much luck in figuring out these bits of strategy.
When I first entered management ranks, I talked with my father about leadership roles and responsibilities, and my skittishness about the idea. As he'd been a USAF officer for over 20 years (and has been retired for just as long), I value his input on this subject. His only advice was not to worry, and that in his experience, nobody is a born leader. We all have to learn along the way. Personally I still believe that there are people who learn easier and earlier how to lead than others (and I'm a hard late-comer), but his words encouraged me, and today I'm (mostly) successful in my management endeavors.
Allegedly real newspaper headline from 1998:
Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
That's easy:
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Where I work, managers get a larger bonus and more pay. That does provide incentive, especially when you have been working in IT for some time.
6. What would you do if you get pulled into your division VP's office and asked to reduce your workforce by one warm body every 90 days over a 9-month period? Laying off employees, many of which used to be your own coworkers, is extremely hard.
Thats quite true. My girlfriend is a warehouse manager for a known clothing company, she started about one year ago and it seems she has been quite good at it. About a month ago they called the managers from several departments (it is a manufacturing facility) and toll them that they will start a "Cost Reduction" plan in the facility and that there was going to be a consulter who will help them in the "cost reduction" works. Of course, that immediately meant laying off several people, including some which were in my girlfriend's department. Fortunately it seems they decided to avoid the "cost reduction" plans for now.
As a manager *you* are the one that has to make the hard decisions, and of course you are the one who gets to blame when things go wrong (even if it is out of your control like some merchandise trailer missing because the driver did not know how to get to the factory and he did not have mobile to communicate). That is one of the reasons why as a simple work pawn you see you manager yelling agree at you and your coworkers. It is because of the pressure they are putting to him which, believe me you can not compare against the pressure the guy puts on you.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
The various jobs you listed don't sound like you've done a lot of climbing rank-wise, it sounds like you've bounced around in different areas of specialty. Programmer, sys admin, tech support... most of the companies I've worked for, these aren't rungs, they're completely separate ladders.
If you're sure that Management (which would actually distance you from all of the above) is really what you want to do, try out a management position within a specialized area, e.g. Senior Programmer at a large company, Customer Support Manager, Lead Systems Engineer. Most importantly, figure out what type of work you like to and whether you want to get involved with management at all.
"Someone's gotta have some damn perspective around here!" -- Commander Susan Ivonova, Babylon 5
Take a crayon, insert it as far up your nose as you can.
The hard way: apply for a management job, in a firm that doesn't know you, and with no management experience on your resume.
The easy way: tell your boss he needs you in management, using the credibility you've built up with him. If you don't have any credibility, then this is the hard way.
Generally, if you are person that makes things happen, and if people on the management team like working with you, and you have a good argument for why putting you in that position would make save money or make everyone's life easier, it isn't hard.
The third way is probably even easier, but it backloads some drama. You simply start managing things. You find something that needs to be managed and you do it. You remove burdens from weary managerial shoulders. You fix things everybody knows are broken but nobody has the energy to do anything about. In short you become a manager. Now comes the drama: you point out that you are managing, and you want the title and a better salary. If you get both, great. If not, settle for the title, wait a decent period, then apply for a job elsewhere.
Come to think of it, that's how I got into IT management.
I was hired to maintain a custom software system that was written in C and an obscure database system I happened to know. The department had a backlog that nobody had ever bothered to characterize, so I did, just to figure out how much work I had. The backlog was over three years. So I went to the various people who had various things on the list which I didn't quite understand. I talked with them and heard countless stories of frustration and anxiety over various business functions. While I began to whittle down the list, a pattern began to emerge of people asking for things because they needed the answer to a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place. So I diagrammed out the worst processes, what they were supposed to do, who participated in them, and who used the things the process produced. Then I convened meetings of people who had things on the list.
There was a lot of stuff like this: "Betsy wants a status projection on such and so. Look here. Bob, did you know when you don't get this stuff done by a certain point in the month, this other thing doesn't make it to Betsy in time, and her whole department ends up working late to make deadline? No? Well, why are you in charge of this at all? Betsy could do this, it would take a task off your plate and a load off of her mind." Then people would scratch their heads, and wonder why it hadn't been set up that way all along. There were dozens of meetings like this, where we found critical pieces of information that were never available on time because it was on somebody's desk who had no idea of its significance to somebody else. Several critical information flows that could be cut from three weeks to less than a day; several instances where incoming checks got filed in somebody's drawer because they happened to be attached to a particular form instead of going to finance to be cashed right away.
To make a long story short, the three year backlog became a three month backlog, practically without a lick of programming. little programming and the backlog went under the 1 month benchmark. After a couple of years of taking the bull by the horns, I had streamlined most of the critical business processes, identified numerous serious problems with financial control and reporting, which I addressed by finding a tech saavy CPA and suggesting he be hired to fix them. As a result, over the course of a year a new finance department was in place, headed by a Sloane school MBA with a CPA as comptroller, and professionals with years of experience heading up AP and AR.
Now to me, this wasn't management. It was engineering. To solve a problem, you identify what really needs to be accomplished and document the environment it has to be done in. You discover metrics by which a system's performance can be measured and improved. You persuade people to agree with your d
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I feel a lot of people's "Do you have?" lists are pretty inaccurate. I was turned down for the job while my co-worker got it. For one, I was a spectacular coder, and he was shit. But aside from that, he always dressed up while I came to work in t-shirt and jeans.. and he's a lot more of a people person than I am. I strongly feel these reasons are why I lost out.
If you don't have at least 2 direct reports, hire/fire authority, _and_ a budget, you're not a manager no matter what your job title says.
I've worked for my current company for 6 and a half years, the last 3 years and 10 months as IT Manager, and IT Assistant before that. On day 1 in the job, I was "Monkey Boy" to the one and only other IT staff... The IT Manager..., basically doing all the crappy jobs, and redeveloping the company website.
Over time, our parent company demanded more time of the other guy for their needs, meaning I had more responsibility to the "child" company that actually employed us. At one point, I ended up writing his reports while he (or sometimes both of us) presented them to senior management. He then got "promoted" (the p-word is an in joke between the two of us!!) to IT Manager for the parent company full time, and so I got promoted to his old job. I took on a new assistant under me, and over time recruited another.
I'm blowing my own trumpet by saying I'm well trusted by the senior management to do a good job and to ensure my team do a good job, and sometimes I don't feel I deserve the position because I never specifically worked towards it. But I guess that at least some of them saw that I could take charge of running a large company's IT infrastructure, managing change, and trying to make the best technical decisions even in times of crisis (like today when a server almost died).
If you're up to the challenge of those last three points, go for it - You obviously feel you can do the job, and if this makes you stop job-hopping so much, it'll make you happier (and a happy employee is a hard-working, long-lasting employee!) It just sounds like you'll have to force the natural progression a bit more than I did!!
Incompetence. It works at my place of employment, it might work for you.
As much as geeks and techies might slag off their PHB, management does actually serve a function and is a non-technical skillset. Stop asking questions about Mbits and Tbytes, start asking questions about costs, market share, critical business success factors... Or, but another way: where does the company want to be in 5 years time and what other managers want to achieve; not how much bandwidth they need in 5 years time.
The managers provide a service to the organisation and help it function. An IT manager is one step back from that: he provides service to those other managers by providing the IT tools they need to meet their goals.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Slashdot is a bunch of people who live in their mom's basement, write FOSS text editors for Teh Lunix, and spend all day telling everyone how much they hate Microsoft. What on earth do any of them know about IT? By which I mean, REAL Information Techology work, like in the corporate world. You know... a REAL job in the REAL world, where people choose Microsoft because it's a superior product (as opposed to the FOSSie fantasy land where Microsoft is "forcing" everyone to use their products).
Asking Slashdot about the real world is like asking a hobo for financial advice. The only difference is that maybe 1% of the time the hobo might have something relevant to say.
You need to be very giving of yourself - a good manager will put the needs of their direct reports over their own to make sure that the company prospers. Monetarily, this means fighting for raises for your staff while not doing so for yourself and not having a problem making less money than your top people. It also means giving up some of your perks so your staff can develop like giving up a trip to a big conference for someone else to go. Some others have mentioned being the 'shit shield' which is very true - good managers absorb the crap so their staff doesn't have to (unless it is deserved). In addition to all this giving, you also have to be able to be a dick when needed and push people who aren't cutting it.
While some companies may have "real" requirements for managers, in my limited experience, it seems the biggest requirement seems to be the ability to dissimulate, convincingly, at will. While I've known (and had) managers that didn't have this talent, they were usually managers who had been good software engineers who had been recently promoted to management. Those who learned the talent progressed up the management chain, those who didn't found themselves either cross- or down-moved to a senior engineer position.
The ability to manipulate others into doing things against their nature is a strong plus!
Yep. "And still I persist in wondering whether folly must always be our nemesis." So far, the answer seems to be, "Yes, it must."
Yes, I definitely should have mentioned Ed in there.
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
I'm serious.
I think any manager has to be a good bullshit artist. Lie to the customer about schedules, lie to their underlings about deadlines. Lie lie lie. It's like being a used car salesman. You have to lie to do the job efficiently.
That's why every job posting I've seen for a managerial position says "must have X years of managerial experience to apply." They all have that requirement. There is no way into the field unless you lie. It's an acid test. If you can look the interviewer in the face and say "I have 4 years of managerial experience" without breaking eye contact, you are worthy of the job.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
My thought is that, much like me in my earlier years, your "bouncing around" will only serve to dissuade potential employers from hiring you as a manger. I did the same thing and until I committed "long-term" (3 to 5 years) to a few employers did anyone take me seriously for management. Most management types I discussed this with made it clear that this portrayed a sense of non-commitment and that I would simply bail out if I faced any real challenges.
Also, in retrospect, what was going on between my ears had a major impact on my appeal as a management candidate. It wasn't until I stopped openly criticizing the poor decision-making that often happens at the management level that I was hired in. Keeping my mouth shut until I was in a position to be considered an "equal" and my opinion was actually perceived to carry some value made all the difference. Also, not playing the blame game and carefully wording my criticisms helped.
Finally...communication, communication, communication. As an IT Manager I spend most of my day keeping everyone up-to-date with projects, releases, upgrades, etc. Keeping the channels open and taking the initiative to do so, but not overburdening everyone with miniutae is a critical management skill that is overlooked by many.
At least in the company I now work for, being honest is highly regarded and I generally receive respect for voicing my opinion, even when it's critical. It's just that I voice it differently now so it is better received.
As an acomplished IT manager http://www.linkedin.com/in/zachmiller I can tell you that you may want to pause before entering.
There are parts to management that are really great. Growing people and building projects and budgets is fun.
But you have to be willing to relinquish the technology and trust your fate to others.
You have to be willing to work wiht the business and understand them and leave the technology.
Can you do that?
Or as Pogo said (assuming you remember that comic) "We have met the enemy and it is us".
I enjoy the work but it sure can be frustrating to point things out, come back 6 months later and nothing has changed, in fact it's worse.
A: Sin in this world. Your reward is waiting in the next.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I'm not trying to offend you, but a couple of things made me really curious about your post.
First of all, you have been moving around all over the place inside of the realm. Too much. It seems like you haven't found a subject area that you are actually comfortable with. Most people tend to find something that they "like the most" and do it really well, get better at it, and ultimately master it. You haven't done this, yet. That's a problem.
The first thing I would recommend you do is to choose an area of IT that you enjoy... and master it.
Then, once you have mastered a part of the landscape... you are ready to ask yourself if you want to _manage_ that landscape and the people within it. *That* is a very difficult question not to be taken lightly. I don't think you are anywhere near ready to answer that question. I manage software developers for a living... and let me tell you... its an extremely difficult fucking job. It can be *very* rewarding when done well, but it is HARD.
If you do make the jump early, you are going to fail. Make no mistake about it. Take your time.
OK. had a hard programming day. Some undocumented code.... so I had a few glasses of fine red wine and I got honest...
....... oh well, those wild young times....
:)
Small company: dream on, sometimes at the age of 85 you can get manager, when the owner/manager gets tired of the crappy part and dumps it on someone.
Big company: lick ass, or be best friends with management.
Other company: probably going to an other place is the best, where you enter as manager.
HP: definitely the second option. I spent a year there, as the best tech at middleware / ITO (not modest but true), getting promise after promise, finally a promotion with the promise of "HR will tell you how much extra you get for a 3week/month on-page DTS job." After I told them to go to hell, they promoted the only guy in the group who actually stood hanging out with the managers. Managers meaning two assholes promoting each other and a small group of friends. They surrounded themselves with people without experience who need the job like no one else, and lied about technically everything from job interview till you quit upset and mad.
When the ITO manager of HP Costa Rica (Herrera Heiser) is proud of not being able to set his home wireless network up, then you know it is time to run, and the only people who will get promoted are the ones who he plays poker with.
Huhh,... was I too honest? Oh well, after 10+ jobs in It from all the areas you can imagine I only got fired once, and left by for the better every other time. Hey even that one place I was about to quit (you know you have to quit when yout knowledgeless colleague talks to you disrespectful in front of a client playing boss (talking shit), and you grab him by the neck)
Anyway, just get a small management job somewhere, usually waiting takes forever. Just my experience, but reading your post you kinda did everything and have an overview of things. If you are a man of detail and precision, being a boss will drive you nuts anyway.... been there, done that. Now I prefer to be a freelancer and also work on my retirement biz
1. Extol the virtues of cost savings through outsourcing.
2. Use lots of fluff phrases like "this strategy provides great lift" or "Downsizing maximizes the condensed synergy"
3. Take credit for what you both did not do and do not understand.
4. Engage in character assassination to make yourself stand apart from the herd.
5. Kiss plenty O' Ass
6. Hire people smarter than you are but meeker socially.
7. Network for that next position when you irrevocably damage your current organization
9. Repeat as necessary.
10. Retire with more way money than the guys with the solutions you used to cherry pick.
It bugs me that so many people say being able to handle a crisis situation as a key to getting a management job. Of course, it's true, but the statement just reflects the short-sighted view that many "managers" have. A really effective employee / manager will work to prevent a crisis from occurring rather than fixing it when it does. Unfortunately, as they say, the squeaky wheel and all...
I actually worked for a guy who was praised constantly by his managers, all the way up the chain, because of his expeditious handling of customer "issues". Completely overlooked was that the issues were unnecessary to begin with; had he been running the group in a sane way doing sane engineering, there wouldn't have been a crisis to manage and would therefore have not been noticed by his superiors.
How can we as honest employees avoid this conflict of interest and still get noticed?
JMHO. But this is a very difficult market all around. When you apply for a managerial job, you are going to be asked: 1) How many people did you supervise? 2) What size budgets did you manage?
Of course, you can always exagerate, to some extent. But, the very worst thing you can do is get caught lying, or even exagerating. Saying you were the CIO of a three person company with $42K in total revenue, will make you look silly.
In this market, unless you have stellar credentials, including extensive experience in management, working your way is about the only way.
> I've been an IT manager at several companies and I find that a degree is unnecessary; good management skills are necessary.
Maybe. But people who have paid their dues going to college may feel insulted to be led by a high-school graduate. And these days, they are asking for bachelor degrees for $16/hr PC-Techs and web-designers. If you have 20 years experience, and the people you manage are fresh out of college you may get away with that - maybe.
If I were hiring an IT manager, I doubt I would consider somebody without a four-year degree, at least. In today's market, an ad on craigslist would get me 400 qualified managers who have degrees.
Furthermore, $200/hr consultants are only making the problem worse. Brooks is an entire generation or more ahead of his time. I can't recommend MMM highly enough!
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
You forgot the [insert favourite swear word] who takes your ideas for improvement and sells them to management as his without ever giving you credit. By strange coincidence, he's also the one who usually ends up having strangely forceful accidents after being made blind drunk at office parties. Where as your averge guy will just fall over, this guy somehow can never recollect how he got himself bruised and two black eyes after passing out.
You *may* not want to become that person.
Now, seriously, in my experience you need to stand up for yourself to get anywhere but NEVER do this without a plan B. You need to be prepared to walk away if it doesn't go your way, and you must assess first if what you're asking for is reasonable. Now, a HR tip: never threaten without being prepared to act as promised. They smell that. HR tip #2: it's about money. Show the savings of you in that position and it becomes hard for them to defend NOT saving.. HR tip #3: if you're starting to think about leaving, you have already left mentally, your backside is simply a bit slower in following.
Upward Mobility?
Perception counts more than reality. IT workers are seen as idiot savants who you tolerate until you can replace them with even lower paid offshore labor. IT workers are the dogs you kick around. I see ads for IT workers where they ask for college, and experience, for jobs that pay less than menial labor jobs.
Management are seen as creative leaders. Managers have insight, managers are loyal, and responsible. IT workers are more like janitors. Managers have careers, programmers and admins have jobs - often temporary jobs.
Managers work 9 to 5 at best. They don't get called at 3 am to come in and work another 5 hours for free. Managers get offices, promotions, bonuses, and other perks. Managers don't have to spend all of their free time learning another language, or some other technology.
Practically any managerial experience is transferable to practically any other managerial job. If an IT worker has experience with an unpopular product, that experience counts for nothing. And in IT, it's all about the products. Looks at ads for an tech jobs: long lists of products (I have seen over 30 listed for some jobs). And IT workers have to have 5 years experience with each product listed - and it has to be exact - Solaris experience typically will not get you job in an AIX shop. In IT, it seems like practically every job ad you will ever find has at least one product that you don't have experience with, i.e. websphere, weblogic, j2ee, tivoli, citrix, voip, openview, veritas, oracle, java, perl, php, ldap, etc.
Management is just a better career path. Do you see many MBA jobs being offshored?
Why do you need to wait until you are 30 years old to be an IT manager? I am 25 years old and an IT manager at a company of about 170 employees and I have definitely have a love / hate relationship with the job but I never have come home wishing I didn't jump at the opportunity. I have a staff of 6 people and I got into this position because the CEO (we didn't have a CIO at the time) recognized that I had the ability to take the position and he gave me the opportunity so I always work my hardest to prove his decision a good one each day.
In terms of the technical details and hours, I definitely don't get my hands dirty as much as I used to and I do spend a whole heck of a lot of time in meetings each day. But I also get to see the business side of the organization which is a whole different animal than you will ever see as a sys admin. To me this is just as interesting as the technical details of how IT works and you can't experience this without giving management a shot. It's also easy for non-managers to say that as soon as you take the leap you lose your technical abilities, but I will let you know that I can still write C# code as well as anyone else in my department or setup a EMC SAN as needed. Do I do these things every day? No, but I do generally get to make the decision to buy all this cool new technology and am usually the first one to get to try it out when it comes in.
My hours actually have not changed since becoming a manager, I still work 10 or 11 hour days on average and have to come in on the weekends occasionally to make sure some critical updates happen correctly to our core systems. If you are used to working your butt off then management is not going to be much more of a stretch for you in terms of time commitment. You will have documents to write, procedures to come up with and performance reviews to conduct but that is all part of the game.
Overall the worst thing that can happen is that you decide it not for you and you move away from the management track and back down into the trenches which is a perfectly valid decision and one that any director or VP should respect. I would not go asking for a management position if you have not been at the company for a while though as I do think your work should speak for itself when a senior manager is ready to make the decision to promote someone from within the organization. However, if the the opportunity presents itself and you are interested in the business of IT then I would go for it and see what happens.
From one who's been there:
Do you really want a job where
If I had it to do over, I'd probably have been a ski bum.
Remove 1/2 of brain? :)
...richie - It is a good day to code.
You say your current company is hiring an IT Manager. You should go ask why they didn't pick you. What could you have done/changed to be considered? I'm certain that when they decided they needed an IT manager they asked the question, "do we have anyone we could promote into this role?" At worst, you'll get on their radar, at best, you might get an interview.
When I was younger, I often heard the phrase, "I'm not doing the work until you pay me for it." And even more often observed the work ethic that phrase describes. As I grew older, I got tired of getting the shaft and started trying to make things better for myself, my team, my department, my company. This led to me doing the work of a lead with the title of an individual contributor. That experience helped me get a job as a lead. Then I started doing the work of a manager...
I used pursue the mission of making my boss look good. That helped for a while, until I ran into some backstabbing bosses. Lesson learned: know the terrain of your political landscape and chose your allies carefully.
People often say that a manager's most important job is... but I find that it is often more complicated than that. Management is about building a business, making it profitable, protecting future revenues. Whether you are the CEO or a line-worker, you have the same mission; the question tends to be, what are the best practices to achieve this at your company, today?
* Building a good team, mentoring, hiring, retaining key staff. Making it enjoyable for people to work at your company. These are critical.
* Managing upward, communicating and adjusting expectations, negotiating achievable goals and reasonable budgets for your team. These are critical.
* Collaborating with peers/departments, helping them build the business, knowing when and how to pitch in and sacrifice (your time or your staff) for team-wins. Knowing when to say "no" so your staff doesn't get abused saving everyone else's ass. All critical.
* Staying focused, setting priorities and getting your tasks done. This means you cannot randomize yourself, you must have short-term goals and hit them. You cannot randomize your team, you must set short-term goals and then allow your staff to hit them. PLANNING, however you best perform that, is essential to choosing goals that you can defend until completion (most of the time).
These practices apply no matter what level you are at in your company. And people who tend to follow them more often than not are regarded favorably. You may know a few. Those are the first people in line for promotions up the technical ladder or, should they show interest, promotions into management.
Be the person you want to be, enjoy your job, everything else follows.
These opinions guaranteed or your money back.
Because most people who don't know jack about the real world of IT - like the parent poster - have nothing but contempt for real technology workers.
If you are not going to go into management, at least get out of IT. The parent post was probably written by a 12 year old troll, but it epitomizes the PHB attitude towards technology workers.
If you want a job, be it management, support, development, or pole dancing. The best way to get it is to ask for it. Talk to the folks in charge about upcoming opportunities. Let them know you're interested in becoming a manager. If there aren't any upcoming opportunities apply for a management position elsewhere. You don't ask you don't get.
Within his first day there, I found that he did not know simple commands like "ls" or "grep." But he kept his job. I'm the one who got fired, it was one of the first things he did.
Of course you got fired. You figured out he lied on his resume and interview, and he somehow figured out that you knew. Of course you had to go.
I also forgot another requirement to corporate management positions - naked ambition. The kind that would make Machiavelli blush. And a near total moral bankruptcy. For a fat six figure salary, the guy would probably run you off the road over a cliff if he had to. And sleep like a baby afterwards.
How many of you out there can tell stories where managers prove they're above the law?
My last job had a manager that would park his car up front when he came in. He'd make a big noise going to his office, tell everyone hello. Especially the guys with 3 letters for job titles. Go to his office and lock the door. Then sneak out a half an hour later through the factory, grab the company car and go home. Reverse the procedure at 4:30 pm to make sure we were still all at our desks before he "left for the day", the motherfucker. And if anyone paged him, he had a pair of brown nosing office lackeys that would page him at home so he could dash back and return a call or make a meeting. And what do you know - those two guys always got their vacation requests approved every single time, extra time off, and other perks the rest of us didn't get. How about that?
I could fill a page with stories about this guy, and that one isn't by FAR the worst. How many of us have similar stories to tell?
Management positions attract these little pathological emperors. I count myself very very very fortunate to be at a company that is luckily devoid of those types. I could get a higher paying job somewhere else, but the ulcers wouldn't be worth it.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
are you willing to give up your soul? You won't be needing that any more...
The Admin and the Engineer
Why IT Sucks: http://blog.billeisenhauer.com/2007/03/04/why-it-sucks/
I've been a programmer/technical analyst in the IS/IT industry for 19 years.
/. Having a lot of experience in the computer industry is as much of a detriment as it is a benefit because everything changes so fast. Trust me.
It seems to me that most people aren't answering your question which is, "how do I become a manager in this field". They're all trying to talk you out of it because you're too young or you don't have the right experience or the right degree or the right training, or you won't like it, even if they do throw you a bone.
Let's address these common misconceptions. First of all, you don't need any more experience than what you already have. You don't need to be older, wiser, more educated, or more experienced. All you need is for a company to give you the opportunity. Only then will you know 1) if you like it and 2) if you're good at it, in that order.
If you want to get a job as an IS/IT manager, you can get it. And quickly. I would suggest that you should be able to get a job within the next month or two if you try hard. But, the catch is that you will have to leave the company you're at first of all.
One thing I've learned is that, to move up fast, you have to change jobs. Why? Just because. This is the way things are. It's always easier for a company to hire people from the outside than to promote from within. If you promote someone from within, then all the people that got passed over are going to p1ss and whine and moan and complain and call in sick and possibly quit. They'll always resent that they got passed over for promotion. Just like you're resenting it now. That's why you have to change companies. And the sooner the better.
I had my company tell me that they wouldn't be surprised if I could get a 50% raise by going to another company, but they couldn't give me more than an x% raise because of some HR policy. So, the lesson here is that you have to change jobs. Why? Because you do. You just have to. Plus, they've already passed you over for a promotion by hiring someone from outside, so go look around. Do it now.
Age - No one cares. No one cares. No one cares and it doesn't matter. Look. I've been programming for 30 years. OK. Think about that. 30 years. You know what it gets me? Nothing. It means my memory is fading and I can't learn the new stuff that the new generation soaks up in their sleep. I was working in Unix, but I used to work in DOS. You think that helps? No. What it means is I can't remember which way the slashes go. DOS slashes go like this \ and UNIX slashes go like this
Degree - You have to have a college degree? In what? Marine Weavology? B.S. Total B.S. OK, true, I have a degree in Mathematics and a minor in Computer Science. So what? Who cares? I've worked for at least three different managers in IT that never had college degrees and you know what? I didn't care. They didn't care. And it didn't matter. If there ever was a field where college degrees were meaningless, IT is that field. You need to know how computers and networks and programs and databases work and outside of that, no one gives a fark what you know. The IT/IS department is all about back-office applications anyway. As long as it runs smoothly, no one cares. No one cares.
Qualifications - Please. Puhleeze. I have worked for people that didn't even come into work. Women that ride motorcycles and don't know a database from a screensaver. I worked for an IT manager that rolled his Toyota 4Runner in downtown Denver and snapped his neck diving into shallow water. I've worked for IT managers that were accused of stealing or misappropriating millions of dollars. You don't need to know anything to be an IT manager except how to schmooze the people that are doing the hiring.
Experience - They say you don't have the right experience. This is B.S. How does anyone ever get experience? At some point, they have to put you in a position where you have no experience in order to gain experience.
Have you considered obtaining a credential such as CISSP or CISM? Whether or not you pass, they give you insight on all aspects on how to manage the IT, and most importantly align to business goals.
Why you want to be the scapegoat whenever a computer incident occurs is beyond me.
Do you what distinguishes good managers from bad managers? entrepreneurship. You need to demonstrate some self-start ability. Of course you need some experience in managing in order to demonstrate such an ability at a level admissible into a hiring interview. The worst way to get it is to ask a company CEO who doesn't know you trust you (ie to risk a few millions) in their organisational chart. The best way is to create your own experience. How? It's easier than it sounds:
Hello, please let me signal this two links with experiences I found useful to browse: http://www.cio.com/topic/1401/Succession_Planning and http://www.cio.com/topic/1501/Executive_Relationship
Kill your current manager with a Bat'Leth or other sharp implement, and take the job by force!
Don't listen to the "it won't happen or you'll have to sell your soul at least" arguments. The word "management" is a knife through the heart when you're a lowly workman and just want to get stuff done - I'm quite cynical about the people who consider that the most important part of their job title is "manager".
I've been a technician (front-line to back-end, not keyboard-changing-junkie, actually doing real work) since leaving university. Having a degree helped me get my very first computing job because it was in a school and they wanted some paper display of capability but that was it and other places are not as fussy. I don't have MCSE, CCNA or anything like that because I consider them a waste of time. After that, doing a bloody good job got me more work that I could take on. That's as a technician, still.
Went to work at a large establishment, still as a technician, very under-appreciated by everyone but my direct line manager, the IT manager. Wonderful person who showed me ways around the politics without compromising your own integrity (basically, do the job so well and so to-the-book that they can't fault you, you even get to use such tactics against stupid plans). But basically you have to find somewhere where the person directly above you appreciates you (hard enough), shine at your job - that usually means saving money in one way or another, show "management skills" (yuck), which basically means already taking account of what the IT manager would have to think about in each situation and showing that you are capable of their job and understand what THEY need to do in order for you to do the work.
Then, with a little luck (there's always SOME luck in any situation), they'll start elevating you above your colleagues if they recognise that you actually could do their job better than the others around you. You don't have to suck up - I never have. You don't have to take over. You just have to be knowledgeable, trustworthy and work.
And, if you'll good at it and can display it to someone that can appreciate it, you'll then get first-pickings of the Assistant IT Manager etc. jobs that come along and once you're there it's just a matter of waiting for people to retire, mess up or snuff it! (Just kidding if the IT Manager mentioned above reads this - they wanted me to take over from themselves, and still do, but I moved on because the offer wasn't right, which was nothing to do with them but came from "above" them - every month they phone me up and increase the offer just that little bit more to get me back as IT manager).
You can switch between places but each time you switch you will always drop down just a little if you don't increase in job title. So going from tech in a good place to manager in a bad place may let you make the leap to manager in a good place. But managers tend to work on trust and social relations more than paper experience, so staying in one place will get you moving more - there is always a danger of entire-workforce-stagnation at any particular place though but you will recognise that when it happens. But going from tech in a good place to tech in another good place can actually a bit of a backward step.
I was making more money than that in the late 1980s as an engineering technician. That's $12/hour. So anyone given a phony professional job title at, say, McDonald's is exempt?
Tech Public Policy stuff
One of the best managers that I ever worked for had this way of taking it when upper management shit on us and actually making it sound good.
"We've had to streamline the budget, so you'll all have 10% few hours on each of your pet projects. This will give us an opportunity to show everyone what efficient programmers we are."
We'd leave meetings like, "FUCK YEAH, we're going to show those guys!" It took me about six months before I realized what he was doing.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
You must be prepared to move - you also need to asses your worth in the market even if you wish to move up internally. So start looking and see how you get on. Also ask what prospects exist in your company.
Why? In gods' names, why?
I've been in this field for close to 30 years. I've repaired, installed, delivered, networked, trained, purchased, inventoried, sold, consulted, supported, tested, documented, programmed, debugged, designed, architected, lead teams, and, yes, managed. Out of all of those various jobs I would definitely put management near the bottom of my list o' faves (right down there with support and, ew, sales). As long as I'm being managed by somebody who's good at what they do and has enough of a technical brain to understand what *I* do then I'm happy (nay, ecstatic) to have that person deal with the administrivia of management. I like what I do, and I'm good at it. If I'm dealing with HR and PHBs and reviews and interviews and budgets then I'm not designing, algorithming(?), and coding, ergo, I'm not happy.
This is not to day, "don't". Just think about *why* you want to do it in the first place. If you're just in it for the money, then so be it, but that may not be the best reason IMHO. I've had bad managers, good managers, and outstanding managers. The latter were all people who were at least moderate gearheads at some point in their lives, but found they could do the most good with their feet in both worlds. Management is necessary, but does not necessarily have to be evil.
If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.
Knowing what I know about today's computerized HR systems and how you pretty much have to be lucky to even make it past the first cut of candidates, I'd say that it would be better to stay where you are. That said, you should inquire about the position with your current superior, if you really want it. A lot of times, that's all it takes. Management wants to hire somebody with a "go-getter" attitude. If you just sit back and try to be anonymous and hope that somebody up there recognizes your achievements, you're screwed. Trying to get a new job is a lot like sales, execpt in this case you're selling yourself. Before I was promoted to my current position, I more or less started campaigning as soon as my current boss told me that he was looking. I was constantly asking for more and more advanced assignments and completing them as quickly as possible. In general, I was doing everything I could to make sure that management knew that I was the best man for the job. When the time came, I was the only candidate in anybody's mind.
In general, while it may go against the personalities of many in IT, you need to be assertive and outgoing. You have to make sure that management already knows who you are if you want the job.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
If you believe that you are ready to take on the responsibilities of IT Management, then you have to ask your current organization for the opportunity to be considered for the position. Being ready though, isn't simply a matter of experience. It is also the commitment to growth you've demonstrated through training and certification that you've persued on your own and without being coerced by the organization. Volunteering to take the lead on high profile internal projects or committees, even those that aren't necessarily IT related such as Employment Equity or Health and Safety, will get you noticed as a leader.
Should you not be successful, regardless of the reasoning, it's a sign that it's time for a change. Within the next couple of months, either look for new opportunities to develop the skills you believe were lacking to be taken seriously or look for an appropriate IT Management position in another organization.
If they simply didn't feel that you're the person for the job, then it's a perception issue that you'll likely not overcome. Thank them for their consideration and look upon the experience as an opportunity for growth.
Good luck!
Georges
As I read your post, I thought I wrote it myself until I got to the part about the Toyota in downtown Denver. In my case, the clueless boss was a guy who drove too fast on the highway (it was snowing). He totalled his company car when he rear-ended the car front of him. The other driver was a judge for the state supreme court. Serves him right.
I used to go on a walking meeting with my staff twice a day (weather permitting). So the day after the car incident, it's raining and cold, yet I round up the troops for the walk anyway. My clueless boss was a pain to everyone, so I knew they wanted to hear the story. So I told them this story (which has an interesting background that goes beyond what I can explain here). At the end, one guy says, "You know, we're out here walking in the rain, getting soaked, and we're freezing. BUT THIS WAS WORTH IT!"
I've been in the industry for 25 years. I've been an IT manager before and when the company closed I had to go back to being a sysadmin. I'm almost 40 and it's time for me to get back into Managment. Working in a cube just doesn't cut it and it's worse trying to find work as a sysadmin anymore.
I got into IT to work on computers and technology... to "get my hands dirty" so to speak. I've turned down several offers of management positions. Why? Management is not IT. I hate meetings and counting beans in Excel and schmoozing with other managers. I want to work in IT, not management. On the other hand, if you're really set on becoming a manager without pursuing a business degree, try the reserves. That's why I'm offered position after position: having led 35 Marines in peacetime and combat situations as their platoon sergeant tends to say something about one's leadership skills.
1. sell your soul
:)
2. change your heart for a rock
3. sacrifice a virgin to the BOFH
you really want to? okay then. in exchange for mentioned conditions you'll get unlimited power which you will use to annoy your underlings.
oh, and you _will_ go to hell
So far, I haven't seen anyone really answer this question. Maybe they're just beneath my current threshold.
As someone who's been management and staff and promoted from within, I can give you a solid "it depends". It depends on whether or not your fellow staffers like you and you care that they like you. As a manager/supervisor, you will have to occasionally make unpopular decisions and will not be universally liked. At least, if you make those unpopular decisions well, someone's not going to like it. If you work with people who think they're more qualified or more deserving than you, they will resent you getting promoted over them.
On the other hand, you likely know the business better than someone coming in from the outside. Someone coming in from the outside may be resented just as much as someone promoted from within. And, you may be able to make the transition well and easily.
Naturally, going somewhere else has a certain charm to it, too. You can be the new guy who doesn't know anyone and, therefore, doesn't have anyone to whom you feel loyal or to whom you feel indebted. You may have to spend more time learning the business, but you can also bring a fresh perspective to the new company, so it's not all bad. And, you can still be friends with your old buddies at the last gig. Of course, that assumes that someone is willing to hire you without any management experience to manage others. Good luck with that. My first supervision gig was an internal promotion due to the sale of part of my company. I managed an incompetent who I couldn't fire for various reasons, though he did finally move on, and I hired two guys to replace him and, eventually, me. My next gig more than doubled my management responsibilities, so I had between five and eight unruly children to keep track of while trying to get my own technical work done. From there on, it was easier to get hired on as a manager.
But, everyone makes their own transitions. Right now, I don't manage anyone buy myself and couldn't be happier.
Good luck with your career!
Oh, the trials and tribulations of a network geek! Read about them at: http://www.ryumaou.com/hoffman/netgeek/
I'll tell you how I did it. I moved to a small town. Be willing to work for less money, Work somewhere where they can't afford to pay for an experienced manager.
I commute from a city to a small town an hour away. They can't get decent IT/IS people here because the good people commute or move to the city for more money. Put in your time making less money for a non-profit and/or small town company, and get something good to put on your resume, and then you can be pickier about your employer.
FYI, If you don't have people skills, you'll never be a IT/IS manager.
Maybe you should do project management instead. That way you get to work with tech, but at a higher level where you plan and coordinate without the headaches of having to deal with people working beneath you.
PM, of course, has its own headaches, but I still prefer them to having to manage people.
What I am doing is studying for CAPM (certified associate of program management), the experience-less version of the PMP certification that's increasingly required of project managers. You'll still need formal training in project management, but a few reputable online courses can satisfy that requirement. (e.g., check out http://ed2go.com/ for online courses affiliated with community college professional development programs.)
This means three things:
First, I'm learning a lot more about the business side of things. Correction, about how the business side of things -should- be done. It's not always what I expected.
Second, I'm learning skills that I can apply to my own technical work. We all get into ruts of 'knowing what works' and not feeling like we have the time or opportunity to check out alternatives. This is forcing me to take a fresh look at things.
Finally, it shows you're serious. It's one thing to say you would like to be an IT manager, it's a very different way to show you've taken SMART steps towards it. SMART is a business acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant (or Realistic) and Time-bound -- five critical questions in management. If you can't manage your own attempt at a promotion, why should anyone give you a chance to manage anything else?
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Ask for the IT Manager job and provide some good arguments as to why you deserve it. Never expect the bosses to grant you the job just because they like you or because they want to reward you for some reason. You should always express the interest, make the argument, and get the job. I know a guy who was a Marketing dude, but he ran an engineering department. He had an engineer working for him who had his engineering degree from USC, an MBA from Pepperdine, and 20 years experience. Why did he get the job over the engineer? He asked for it, while the engineer expected it as some sort of reward for his good work. If you don't get it, stay anyway and do a great job, while developing your skills with management courses and seminars. Also during that time, network and look for a company that will take the leap of faith needed to make you a manager. If you still can't find it, look for a company that will provide you with the opportunity you want in the future, and take a lateral move to that company. You shouldn't expect a hiring manager to give you a management job based upon what you CAN do; you can only expect them to look at what you HAVE DONE.
What does management mean? It means more 'Project-centric' things. You are going to answer and research information that is very "close to the bone", or markedly central to the core of the business. Financials, strategies, project minutiae, and other arcane subjects and their underlying details.
I asked myself some questions, as I prepared a career jump checklist; PMP Cert, additional industry certs - one rung up, and emphasis on my project, people, and lab management skills..
- Do I want to put myself in their shoes because I feel I can do a better job, having been in the trenches?
- Do I want to sit in even more meetings? Do I want to be so involved that I'm effectively "raw"?
- Do I want to answer questions based on the Board's directives, or do I want to be the one advising the Board?
- Do I want to take another seat in the noisy, nameless, faceless Corporate Cafeteria, or do I want to eat my brown-bag lunch in Study Hall?
Managers don't 'manage' nearly as much as they are managed, themselves.
I realized that I could accomplish much of the same, with higher pay, and a under a wider variety of circumstances if I focus on heavy-hitting, specialist analysis work, and that a typical Management role is not compatible with my personality type.
It's more appealing to me to work toward a position as Dept. VP or Director. I'd spend a few years working on presentations, write (and publish) detailed papers on projects and ideals, make a name for myself. Move in as a truly experienced professional, perhaps with a Masters or Doctorate in a related field.
If you want to be a manager, don't think that the parent is funny. TPS reports, or other productivity tracking methods, are one thing a manager will have to deal with a lot. Being a manager means dealing with more b'cracy. Most people on /. bitch about the BS managers make them do. This is because it is a small amount of the paperwork that can get shoved off onto them. The truth is, when you are an IT manager, and being compared to other (non-IT) managers, all your work will get turned into cost/benefit analysis. It will not matter how nifty the languages are that run the servers. It will not matter (directly) how clean the code is. It will not really matter (directly) how happy your employees are.
You will be expected to demonstrate that you are delivering a good ROI. This can mean the code is clean, but it is phrased in terms of capital investments to shorten future development. This can mean treating your employees like people, but it is phrased in terms of increasing productivity via low-cost non-monetary inducements.
But, above all, you have to understand that an IT manager deals with business people. He gets requests for capability, and delivers black-boxes. If you want to become an IT manager because you can create cool stuff, you're looking for the wrong reasons.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I will fire any uber educated schmug resenting me.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
A good manager with a track record: priceless.
Credentials? immaterial.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Unpaid overtime?
15 hour work days?
Golf? No, really. Golf?
A good manager will not abuse his subordinates, he will prioritize tasks with the available resources and will negotiate extensions with the people above him for tasks that can't be completed with the available resources. And all this negotiation, no matter what you say, is not done in a fucking golf course. You go to a golf course to socialize, which is important, but it is frankly overrated as an integral part of proper management in the US (because nowhere else, not even in the UK where golf was invented, people actually do any business related activity in a golf course, for bunnies sakes. Stop watching those movies. Not all on them is true.).....
You can only better serve the needs of your bosses, and the organization as a whole, if you are not abusing the people that actually get the work done.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The question you asked was, "Is it best to move on to another company or to stay where you are and try to get ahead there?", so let's ignore all the knee-jerk "all bosses are lobotomized PHBs" responses and assume that you truly want to leverage your experience and talents into a position with increased responsibility, authority, and (one hopes) salary.
The short and generalized answer is, moving on is better than staying put.
The IT worker always suffers under the role of the "man behind the curtain." As in, "Pay no attention to the..." If you're doing your job right, the major problems you're solving are never getting noticed by those who might have been affected by them. You can fight fires all day long every day and no one will know until that one time they smell a little smoke. Even those big projects where you shine and do a great job and bring it in ahead of time and under budget get forgotten the moment the first follow-on issue arises.
Because of this, tooting your own horn at your corrent job probably won't help much. You'll say, "look what I fixed" and hear "but this is broken." You'll say "look what I built" and hear "yes, but what about all this other stuff that needs doing?"
Add to that the inertia of those in positions above you. You didn't say whether they had already hired someone to fill that IT manager position above you. If they did, how long do you think it will be until they move on, or move up, and enable you to take that role?
The moment you're hired, you're pigeonholed into a specific role. Those who see you as just the "lowly IT person" won't be able to see you as a manager, no matter how well you demonstrate your leadership, logistical ability, and business savvy. At best, they might see you as "that awesome IT person" -- and will think of you as irreplaceable in the position you're already in.
Instead, if you move on to someplace else, you have the chance to put your knowledge and experience in the very best light, as you describe them in your résumé and in interviews. ("Spearheaded a project" sounds much better to a prospective hirer than "Sat through numerous interminable meetings before doing it all myself because no one could come to a decision" does to your current boss.) You also get to start with a blank slate with regard to what you might be capable of doing. Every time I've started a new job, I've been hired to do many things that I'd never actually done before.
At my first full-time job I was hired as a programmer and analyst at a university, with plenty of help desk work. Although my influence on decision-making grew somewhat during the time I was there, after several years it was clear that my boss had no inclination to move up or move on. There was nowhere for me to go, so I moved on.
Next, I was hired as a support specialist in a state agency, at a 10% salary boost. I was the team leader for many projects there, but when my boss quit and I had to shoulder most of his responsibilities, rather than promote me into his position they eliminated it. I wound up with all his work and none of his benefits.
I moved on to a privately-owned company and became their senior network admin with another rise in salary. I helped coordinate a major construction project of a new office (and no, I had no prior experience in this) that came in on time and under budget. After that I volunteered for several other big projects that effectively never left the wish-list phase, and wound up doing mostly day-to-day firefighting that never got noticed except in those rare failures. And my manager had been there for years and wasn't going anywhere. So I started looking around again...
One word of caution: when you start looking beyond the walls of your current job, be circumspect and anonymous. At this job, unbeknownst to me, the HR department had a policy of periodically checking the major job boards (Monster.com, etc.) for résumé postings from employees. Those they found were summaril
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."--Feynman
A perfect advice, just doesn't always work. I have met IT (and development) managers who really have read these books and "Death March", etc - guess what? Ask them "why then you do this or that?" The answer is always, it is not relevant to our company and I know better or whatever.. Yes, it is good to be a troubleshooter (I am), lots of work, but sometimes it is not so nice to people working in those companies. Maybe it is just me but it really hurts when thousands of people are let go and I'm not talking a normal business but a software company which should know better or some SixSigma hardware company want to be software also. But that's life and if want to be a manager in that kind of environments be prepared.
Unless your a super-talented programmer, IMO management is the way to go. College CS grads are not as well taught as they should be, and with the increase in talent of overseas programmers, outsourcing will become more prevalent in the future.
Technology Forum
No... the parent poster has worked in IT for probably longer than you've been alive.
I have no problem with IT people, since I am one. But Slashdot does not equal IT... and the two are totally and completely separate. Slashdot is an angsty 12 year old's idea of what adult IT people do. For example... nobody in REAL IT gives two shits about Teh Lunix. It's an irrelevant tech toy, at least for 99% of what IT is about. IT groups which tie their fate to FOSS always regret it later, especially if they end up being exposed to "real" products. For example, the typical Shitslotter will throw love and adoration at OpenSQL, but a real IT person will love MSSQL, because they don't have to deal with the deficiencies of a class project level database.