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?"
Emphasis on that last line. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Don't horde knowledge (Score:5, Insightful)
IT Manager (Score:3, Insightful)
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
The job market isn't a ladder. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Manage the meat, not the tools (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Questions... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:generally... (Score:4, Insightful)
It sounds like you've moved around a lot in the past few years. If you (the OP) were applying to my company, I'd wonder if you were in a hurry to get somewhere. True, you might tell me you're in a rush to get to the position I'm hiring for, but how would I know that's true?
From what I read and the way it sounded, my first thought was that this is a person who is in a hurry to get somewhere. He's not patient and seems to think he can move up the ladder quickly. In my experience such people are always trying to get up another rung and always thinking they'll be happy at the next level, yet never doing but so well at the current job because of such an anxiety over getting the next job.
A history of jumping around, to me, indicates a person has trouble following through and lets me know that if I hire him, I'll be replacing him fairly soon. He may say he wants an IT management job, but if that seven years started right after college, then this is not someone who knows what it's like to stay in a job long enough to be frustrated -- or how to manage someone in such a situation.
consulting is best (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
I'm a manager .. Not all fun (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
I think the more important question is (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's How I Did It... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why the hell would you want to do that? (Score:2, Insightful)
I have a coworker. He's a business analyst now. He's been a bigshot. 18h work a day, no private live. Sure he had a chauffeur, the nicest apartments in European Capitals.
He dropped all of it, sure he just make percentages of what he used to make. He's happier.... Guess what counts more.
Of course, you might be a completely different case. Perhaps you enjoy that kind of life
Re:The job market isn't a ladder. (Score:5, Insightful)
Each of these roles is a career path in itself. Well, not tech support, but seven years in any one of the others takes the average CS grad to somewhere around an intermediate level of professional competence.
We've all had our encounters with incompetent IT managers, so I won't even go into the variety of forms that incompetence can take. But it is a challenging position, and in my view, absolutely requires senior technical ability. You cannot lead unless you know where you're going, and few technical people will support your initiative unless they agree with your reasoning.
It's great to acquire broad work experience in each of these areas. I've made a point of doing that myself, and I have no regrets. But it takes considerably more than dabbling for a couple of years at one of these areas before you can begin to talk about it intelligently, let alone lead others.
If there's one thing that characterizes junior technical people, it's that they think they know what they're doing when in fact they have barely a clue. Those kind make the worst managers. I've managed large staffs myself, and found through experience that it's invariably the most junior, least expert, people that give the most grief.
You're 25 years old... (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:Why the hell would you want to do that? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: How do I become an IT/IS manager? (Score:2, Insightful)
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?
Re:Questions... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's face it, corporate culture is generally abusive toward IT workers, although most IT workers I've known have at least genuinely tried to do a good job in as much as they knew how to. My experience has been that 100% of the time, the #1 hurdle to getting important things done has been upper management interfering to demand priority service to the IT tasks they perceive as being most important (fix the VP's printer so he can stop sharing a printer with his secretary right now or you're fired!) rather than the tasks that the IT professionals think are important (installing a backup system, removing the 12 viruses from the database server that has the only un-backed-up copy of the vital corporate data). When I have, as a manager, been able to get upper management to (at least temporarily) stop interfering with my staff's work, those were the times when things actually got done.
Re:You're 25 years old... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've had perfectly brilliant IT managers that were my age (30) and I've had functionally incapable 45+ year old "IT" managers.
A good IT manager will take roadblocks away so IT staff can get work done. I don't care if they're 60 or 20, as long as they "work".
Re:You're 25 years old... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll be 36 this year and I'm finally a "junior" IT director at a marketing firm, but I did get a break. But I've been working a long time and realize I still have quite a bit to learn before I could ever replace my boss.
Re:Questions... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Questions... (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically, you need to be able to solve business problems with IT solutions, explain the issues and solutions to other management, maintain a solid budget, manage internal projects and work with IT people. I'm sure that in tech support you learned the business, but that was another company. Learn the business of your current company or the one where you want the management job. Talk to non-technical people and learn to appreciate the fact that IT exists to support business. The business is your customer to learn to talk to them and treat them as such. Project Management experience is a perfect stepping stone from the technical role to the management role. I used it 5 years ago to make my transition and it worked like magic. Find a good consulting job and over time you will learn the variety of personal and management skills needed to make the transition too.
A word of caution. If you are on this site, you probably keep up with new technology. Business hates new technology as the answer to everything, although it is often applicable. Being inventive and finding ways to leverage technology that you already own to solve a business problem is the #1 way to demonstrate your ability to be a good IT manager.
Re:Emphasis on that last line. (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking as a former IT Manager who left the job to start own business.
Inflated titles (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:IT Manager (Score:3, Insightful)
There are always exceptions, but it boils down to this: if a company is looking to hire a manager from the outside, then it is because they are growing quickly, don't have the talent internally (a fallacy, generally, but one that companies sometimes buy into), or are looking for someone to "solve their problems" because they aren't good at managing themselves.
In ALL of these scenarios, they'll be looking for someone who can hit the ground running. That means they want you to already have experience as a manager.
So, you hit the same issue you had straight out of college: "Everyone wants at least 2 years of experience, but you can't get the 2 years of experience because nobody will hire you."
While you're at your company trying to move up, be not only vocal about your interests, but seek responsibility and do a darn good job with it.
And, of course, seek not to become the irreplaceable cog; cross-training/mentoring is not only a way of avoiding that but also a way of demonstrating skill at developing others... another key component of being a good manager.
Easy to answer that (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Management? (Score:4, Insightful)
She asked me what my motivations were as far as management. She realized that I was much more valuable to the company in a staff level position down in the trenches. I told her that I wanted to make more money and she said something to me that I later found to be true.
Just because someone is in a position of management, does not mean that they make more than the people that work for them. Any manager can manage employees, projects, and other managers, but it took a high level of competence to run their intricate network. There were a couple of people who were in Staff level positions making more than their manager. The IT managers responsibility had very little to do with IT (it probably could have been done with someone that just had a business background). It was a project management position.
The main goal beyond project management was to shield individual IT personnel from other managers and from end users. (mostly from upper management) The philosophy was we succeed as a team and fail as a team. When a server crashed that did not have a backup, upper management did not find out specifically who was responsible for that mistake, it was the mistake of the department.
Re:Questions... (Score:3, Insightful)
Title follows Responsibility (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Apply for it (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Emphasis on that last line. (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, I speak from experience.
Re:Questions... (Score:5, Insightful)
He had soft skills.
No really. Most IT guys seem to think that technical excellence is what you need to become a manager. It is not. You need these soft skills that aren't taught in tech programs. If you are a really good system administrator then they keep you a system administrator because they need really good system administrators. If you are a pretty good system administrator and you can coach others then you are someone that they can afford to lose as a system administrator transition to a manager.
Personally, I have no desire to go into management.
Re:Emphasis on that last line. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Questions... (Score:3, Insightful)
You wanna bet ? There are many in management who see their tech people as techies and will NEVER see them as anything BUT a techie. You can give honest constructive criticism and feedback but you'll get labeled "abrasive".
And even if you are able to start pursuing the management track, you'll get asked left and right, Are you sure that this is what you want to do ? You've always been a technical kinda guy and I just don't see you happy in that manager role.
I'm at a point in my career where it seems that the only way for me to advance is to either leave my company (where I've been for 10 years) OR change careers altogether. My company doesn't really have any clues about advancing people in IT. And sadly, I have a feeling that most companies have no clue about advancing people in IT positions either.
Re:Questions... (Score:3, Insightful)
The best IT-managers I have worked with were of the "genius"-type.
Genius as in: they are capable of taking over the job of every single team member at any time
and do it better or at least as good as the guy who is doing it now. They are not only (chief-)architecting
the system they're responsible for but literally laying out the class hierarchies, writing down the
interfaces and database schemas for us fellow "code-monkeys" to fill in.
Given the amount of "sustained failure" that I have witnessed in companies where
the manager-position was decoupled from the architect-position I'll give you a few
simple questions to chew on:
- How do you earn any respect from your fellow programmers when most time is spent
with *them* explaining the problem to *you* instead of *you* explaining the
solution to *them*?
- How do you split up tasks at the appropiate joints and assign the subtasks
to the right team-members according to invidual skill level without
understanding each and every problem thoroughly?
- How do you know what things are "easy" or "hard" in programming without
having done them yourself?
- How do you give *any* kind of time estimates to your superiors when
you have, at best, a remote (second hand) idea of how long it *might* take?
No, really. If you're in the position to hire an IT-manager then better don't be cheap.
Get the expirienced guy, the one who has actual completed projects to show, the one who
asks for twice of what you're willing to pay and means it.
As a rule of thumb: Get the guy who asks the most questions before giving
even the roughest estimate of how long it will take or how much it may cost.
He's likely also the one with the longest answer to any questions about
"and how exactly will feature X work technically, when finished?".