| April 2006 |
| By Beverly Provost |
As I moved up the ranks from programmer analyst, to senior and then to manager, I was aspiring to the days when I could be the Director.
Want to know what being the Director is really like? Yes there are many perks and privileges, but with each one there is also a challenge.
The Privilege: Decision Making –Yes you get to make the important decisions about what technologies to use, architecture decisions, software and hardware decisions. And yes, it is a good feeling to be able to make the call. Of course, with the privilege comes the responsibility.
The Challenge: You also get to shoulder any problems that arise from your decisions. If a vendor lets you down, you better get involved and escalate your concerns with their management to recover as quickly as possible. Throwing your weight around and negotiating with your vendor is required on some days to keep your shop running, but it can also be exhausting and draining.
The Privilege: Participating in the management team meetings with the business department heads. It is rewarding to participate in the decision making of running the business and to have input into the strategic planning. It is nice to know what is going on and to have advance notice of future plans, so you can prepare your department to support the business changes.
The Challenge: In these meetings you get to be a part of all the politics between the groups which can appear to be selfish and even immature at times. Also inevitably all the other departments need something from IT and you don’t have enough resources to meet all their wishes and whims in their preferred timeframes. So diplomacy and tact are an important skill that is critical to helping you balance your budgetary constraints with your customer service ratings. Negotiating with the business about priorities is critical and can help them to feel in control about what the IT resources are working on. Careful phrasing allows you to reset expectations about IT’s delivery without leaving the business feeling like you are not supportive. After a 3 to 4 hour meeting of negotiations with the business and careful phrasing of your responses, you will likely feel a bit drained.
The Privilege: You have a great team of sharp, energetic, quick witted IT professionals to direct to support the business systems. This is the most rewarding part of the job. There is nothing better than working with a sharp team of IT professionals. The strong analytical skills, the biting sense of humor, and the ability to talk about a variety of topics with your varied employees is by far the best part of the job.
The Challenge: Most days are good but there are those occasional days when you have to deal with personnel issues, people not getting along, not meeting their deadlines, morale issues, and asking people to work the weekend for the third week in a row is probably my least favorite part of the job. And occasionally you do have to fire someone, which leaves you feeling pretty crappy at the end of the day and definitely drained.
The Privilege: The compensation level is a plus, especially if it includes bonuses and stock options.
The Challenge: While these are the problems most people want to have they still must be mentioned - finding new ways to minimize your tax burden, paying estimated quarterly taxes, and keeping a reasonable balance between your personal and professional life. When you run the department and there is a problem in the middle of the night, you get the call. When it is budgeting time, you get to work late to finish. When there are political issues going on, you lie awake at night strategizing. When your team is working the weekend, you get to work the weekend. And while each person in your department experiences these things at one point or another, you get the cumulative effect of everyone’s experiences and at the end of the day, it can leave you drained.
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