The IT Manager's Survival Guide

Accessible, refreshingly candid, but above all helpful, this pragmatic guide addresses a real need by dealing with the problems that face the new IT manager. By providing a number of practical recommendations and approaches including how to make the transition from technical professional to manager and dealing with people, to giving advice and guidance on organization structure, architecture and planning approaches, this book covers a whole raft of issues essential to managing an IT unit.

If you have chosen to move from the safe haven of technology to the unpredictable world of management, this book could make the difference between success and failure.

Contents

• Becoming a manager.
• Knowing your customer.
• Our greatest asset.
• Developing staff.
• Supporting roles.
• Managing recruiters.
• The rules of engagement.
• Establishing sound corporate governance.
• Establishing service level agreements.
• Dealing with hot spots.
• Tips for quick-wins.
• Living with legacy systems.
• Managing vendors.
• Using consultants.
• Business process re-engineering.
• Benchmarking.
• Help desk management.
• Disaster recovery planning.
• Managing change.
• Outsourcing.
• Give the business intelligence.
• Planning the future.
• Understanding architectures.
• Taking stock of your assets.
• Structuring the IT organization.
• Where to next?.
• Appendix A Yukl's Specific Behaviours for Managing Relations.
• Appendix B Business initiative proposal.
• Appendix C Thorpe's 4 Rs.
• Appendix D1 Jacques' time span.
• Appendix D2 Jaques' complexity measures.
• Appendix E1 Software inventory.
• Appendix E2 Hardware inventory.
• Appendix F Examples of principles.