Ways to Succeed and Become a Senior Executive
There are countless ways to develop your career, but you can best succeed in an IT organization by continuing to find ways to add business value that makes you too desirable to lose
As companies emerge from the recession, IT managers need to rethink their careers, especially as businesses recast IT's role more as growing the business than running the operations. The old approaches to career growth won't work. Instead, IT managers -- and those who aspire to be managers -- should focus on seven key skills for the new era.
Although no single set of skills can bulletproof your career in this decade and beyond, the foremost of these seven is the ability to continuously learn and possess a broad range of valuable tech and leadership capabilities, according to IT experts at www.ejobdescription.com.
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It's all about having business value
There are countless ways to develop your career, but you can best succeed in an IT organization by continuing to find ways to add business value that makes you too desirable to lose. But you need to do the work: Attaining this bulletproof status requires a commitment on your part to embrace continuous learning -- adding new skills, of both the hard and soft varieties -- that continually up your game and improve your standing in the organization.
The essential survival skills for IT managers seeking to reinforce their position or springboard to greater responsibility include:.
- Balance specialization and cross-functional expertise
If you become adept at disciplines such as global sourcing, enterprise architecture, or virtualization, you may find that your technical skills make you more valuable to a large organization -- for a while. But at some point, you may also hit a wall in your career. What makes you strong as an individual contributor in the tech space doesn't necessarily prepare you for a leadership role.
- Become a risk arbiter
Odds are they didn't teach you about risk assessment in any schools that you went to. But as you seek higher positions of authority and responsibility in your organization, you'll need to have this skill. If your superiors respect your risk awareness and mitigation abilities, they'll view you more positively as senior management material. If your organization is risk-tolerant, being a proponent of cutting-edge technologies may add business value. But there's a strong chance that in the lean years your organization has become more risk-averse. So rather than position yourself as cutting-edge or conservative, you should offer the business management choices organized by degrees of risk and complexity, particularly with new tech investments.
- Build strong working relationships and network (inside and outside of your company)
Can you build strong working relationships with customers, coworkers, and suppliers? If not, you need to learn to do so. In politics, the quality of charisma -- or likability, if you prefer -- is a valuable trait. But in dealing with coworkers, it's even more important to be respected. The trouble is, IT managers -- just like everyone else -- tend to be more concerned about whether they're liked than whether they're building a strong working relationship. An IT manager should be able to level with a business "customer" by asking questions such as "What are you trying to accomplish and am I in the way?" You can build tremendous credibility in an organization by showing that you can listen. It's a necessary step to achieving your ends.
- Embrace analytic solutions
From operational metrics to supply chain data, from syndicated data to data from manufacturing systems, the science of analytics is becoming more pertinent to IT. Executive management looks for IT managers who can create and understand data dashboards. Mastering business analytics not only establishes your technical creditability, it closely aligns you with business partners, making it one of the most effective career survival techniques for IT managers.
- Focus on enterprise architecture
Getting all the disparate pieces of IT to fit together smoothly is like solving a Rubik's Cube blindfolded. IT managers with the skills to deal outside of your domain to understand dependencies, to be able to communicate with business type of people. For such IT managers, enterprise architecture is the next level of structure from business and IT strategy. But there isn't much of a talent pool companies can go to -- so somebody who is capable of broad thinking abut architecture is a gold mine right now.
- Develop a big picture perspective and move from project management to program management
Managing a project is a tactical skill set that is a proven starting point for IT managers. But as skills go, it's also an easily replaceable commodity. The real skill is to use your project management capabilities to lead to a more strategic role in an organization: program management. Being a great project manager is a great way to star. From there you can get involved in program management. But program management requires much stronger business skills than IT managers often have, especially in building business cases vital to obtaining funding and executive buy-in. He cites two examples of such missing business skills: understanding net present value (NPV) and internal rates of return (IRR). Program management provides IT managers an opportunity to become a trusted advisor to business units, and that's a key skill for anyone wanting to prove his or her strategic value. As you rise in your organization, recognize that what you manage also changes. You can be a top-notch engineer, but as you get to a director level you have to be able to manage teams. It goes beyond project management to team leadership and how do you set the direction, motivate, and delegate.
- Actively communicate
In large organizations, it's not unheard of for a CIO to work with a writer to convey ideas to various stakeholders such as employees or customers. Some CIOs even hire writers to tweet or blog for them. But what if you're not yet a CIO? Are communication skills essential career survival skills? Absolutely.
See also Getting Promoted
Internet and IT HandiGuide - provides you the tools you need
The job descriptions contained within the Internet and Information Technology Position Descriptions HandiGuide® are all in a standard format and are available as in PDF and WORD .docx formats. All of the job descriptions were reviewed and updated to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley and the ISO 27000 security standard. The latest version of the HandiGuide was completed in 2010 and is over 650 pages in length. The Internet and IT Position Descriptions HandiGuide includes sample organization charts, a job progression matrix, and the 243 Job descriptions. The book also addresses Fair Labor Standards, Sexual Harassment, the ADA, and is in a new easier to read format.
Each job description meets ADA standards and the position description is delivered in electronic format - WORD (2003 and 2007) which is edit able and PDF which is printed. Also included are tools to help you expand, evaluate and define your enterprise's unique additional requirements. Those tools include:
- Job Evaluation Questionnaire
- Position Description Questionnaire
- Job Progression Matrix (Job Family Classifications)
- Best Practices - Resume Screening
- Best Practices - Phone Screening
- Hiring Guide
The 231 positions include all of the technical, administrative, support functions within the IT group. Mouse over each group below to see a full list of the jobs included within each group.
A SPECIAL BONUS for those of you who purchase both the HandiGuide and the WORD files - if you provide us with up to five (5) completed Position Description Questionnaires within 30 days of purchase, we will create 5 position descriptions for you and provide you with 24 months of free update service for the HandiGuide and all job descriptions that we update and create.
You can purchase this book as a PDF Book, Word Book or as individual word files for each Job Description which makes for easier modification. We have also combined the both book formats with the individual word files for each job descriptions to give you the best of both worlds.
Job Descriptions - MS WORD format
261 Internet and IT Job Descriptions as individual files in WORD .docx formats. Long file names have been used to make customization easier.
Includes positions from CIO, CSO, and CTO to Wireless and Metrics Mangers. All of the positions in the book have been created to reflect the technology world of 2013.HandiGuide & Job Descriptions - pdf format
The Internet and IT Position Descriptions comes in PDF format The PDF book is over 750 pages in length and contains 261 Job Descriptions in addition to a Job Progression Matrix Template, Job Evaluation Questionnaire, and Position Description Questionnaire.
Includes positions from CIO, CSO and CTO to Wireless and Metrics Mangers. All of the positions in the book have been created to reflect the technology world of 2013.HandiGuide & Job Descriptions - pdf & MS WORD formats
The Internet and IT Position Descriptions comes in PDF format and WORD files. The PDF book is over 750 pages in length and contains 261 Job Descriptions in addition to a Job Progression Matrix Template, Job Evaluation Questionnaire, and Position Description Questionnaire. There is one word file for each job description (WORD .docx format). Long file names have been used to make customization easier.
Includes positions from CIO, CSO and CTO to Wireless and Metrics Mangers. All of the positions in the book have been created to reflect the technology world of 2013.
BONUS ---- If you provide us with up to five (5) completed Position Description Questionnaires within 30 days of purchase, we will create the 5 position descriptions for you and provide you with 24 months of free update service for the HandiGuide and all job descriptions that we update and create.Update Service & Custom Job Descriptions
This service will provide you with updates to each of the products listed below for a period of 12 months from the date of the purchase of the service. In addition, you are entitled to 3 custom job descriptions. You will have to complete the Position Description Questionnaire (which we will provide to you via email upon your request). It typically will take 5 working days to provide you with the completed job description.
The 239 position include all of the functions within the IT group. They include:
- Chief Information Officer (CIO)
- Chief Information Officer (CIO) - Small Enterprise
- Chief Security Officer (CSO)
- Chief Compliance Officer (CCO)
- Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
- Director Electronic Commerce
- Directory Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
- Director Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance
- Manager Data Security/Special Project Supervisor
- Disaster Recovery Coordinator
- Internet/Intranet Administrator
- Manager Metrics
- Metrics Measurement Analyst
- Manager Wireless Systems
- Webmaster
- PCI-DSS Coordinator
- Programmer
- Project Manager
- Object Programmer
- Unix System Administrator
- Windows System Administrator
The 239 positions include all of the technical, administrative, support functions within the IT group. Mouse over each group below to see a full list of the jobs included within each group.
A SPECIAL BONUS for those of you who purchase both the HandiGuide and the WORD files - if you provide us with up to five (5) completed Position Description Questionnaires within 30 days of purchase, we will create 5 position descriptions for you and provide you with 24 months of free update service for the HandiGuide and all job descriptions that we update and create.
For more information on Project Managers click here
Internet
and IT
Position Descriptions HandiGuide®
261 Job Descriptions and Organization Charts