How Do I Become an IT/IS Manager? 371
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?"
Questions... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
generally... (Score:4, Informative)
Why the hell would you want to do that? (Score:4, Informative)
You serious? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Are you already a leader? (Score:2, Informative)
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
For starters, read Weinberg, Hohmann, and Brooks (Score:5, Informative)
- Becoming a Technical Leader [amazon.com] 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 [amazon.com] 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) [amazon.com] 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 [bfwa.com], 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.Re:Run away! Run away! (Score:4, Informative)
The hours suck, the demands are great, and you often feel like you are in a no win situation. There are also perks if you do your job well. Once you've gained trust in an organization as an effective manager who enjoys a good degree of loyalty from his people while also getting results you gain lots of freedom in many subtle and not so subtle ways.
Of course this is just based on my experience and that of a few friends. I know many who've fallen into the PHB trap, and many who have just plain failed. YMMV.
Re:Emphasis on that last line. (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not saying be an ass kisser, I'm saying go after the managerial work when possible so you can be seen as already functioning in many ways as a manager. This makes it much easier to promote you when the time comes, and also allows you to build a case if necessary.
Re:It's not necessarily permanent .. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:And the sterotypical response... (Score:2, Informative)
Even more questions... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:generally... (Score:4, Informative)
True, they might leave a job for any of those reasons, but if they've left a number of jobs, then it comes back to my statement made even earlier: if someone keeps changing jobs frequently, then why should you expect them to work for you very long?
6-9 months is not far out of the ballpark, depending on the type of company. While there are some jobs that one can learn in a shorter time, if it takes a high level of skill, even when a person is "trained" officially, there are still a lot of ares where they may need guidance. No company has infinite resources. If you hire someone, it's going to take time and money to train them. If you're hiring a gas pump attendant you can train in a day and he lasts 6 months, that's not a problem, but if you have to train someone in a technical position and it takes months to train them well, then are you, as a manager with a limited budget, going to want to spend those limited resources on someone that you have every reason to expect won't stay in the job long?
The longer it takes to train someone, the more you've invested in them. I figure an IT manager, for my small company, would take at least 3-4 months before they're completely on their own. If it takes me that long to train someone, I am going to want someone that's likely to stay as long as possible. I don't have the time to do that kind of training every 2 years for one position.
You are talking about what may be a one or two time occurrence. We're talking about patterns. If someone has a pattern of taking jobs working in bad situations, then I don't want them working for me until they've had a therapist who can get them straight on why they seek to fail. If they claim that's what all their past jobs are, then they're likely to find something to piss and moan about in any job and they're just looking for an excuse to explain their unhappiness. The same for them as for the others: let them deal with their problems in therapy and NOT in my workplace.
As for your last statement, there is no place anyone talks about assuming anything -- you just made the assumption there. Nobody got that detailed about the hiring process or how such evaluations were made.
Re:Easy to answer that (Score:2, Informative)
-Tony
Re:Questions... (Score:3, Informative)
IF you have 20 years of IT experience then yes, that's true if you're lucky, work hard, keep your nose clean, and communicate well. It's a hell of a lot easier to gain that position with an MBA. The reason that degree is so valuable and is so highly sought-after is that it means you've been taught good, if not great, management skills.
Re:Questions... (Score:2, Informative)
Good management skills are great, but you need leadership skills also.
Either way, learning more about business and economics would not hurt your position, and would not hurt your chances of getting that position or higher.