Hi Peter, I've been there and in many ways I'm still there! Just like our technical challenges required us to be constantly learning, so too, do our managerial challenges. The good news for you is that you've already taken the most important step toward getting better which is to realize where you are lacking and making an effort to make conscious improvements.
There are four levels of understanding anything, in this case how to be a leader: 1. Unconsciously Incompetent - you don't know that you don't know how to lead a team 2. Consciously Incompetent - you know that you don't know how to lead a team 3. Consciously Competent - you know how to lead a team but need to closely concentrate on what you're doing to accomplish this 4. Unconsciously Competent - you are such a good leader that it now comes naturally without even thinking about it! It sounds like you're on somewhere between step 2 and 3 and are willing to put in the hard work to get to step 3 and beyond, which is a great place to be. With that out of the way, there are a few things that have helped me dramatically since moving into a management role: - *Project Management - *Earlier in my career I worked for a company who was very strict in their processes and we even obtained our ISO 20000 and CMMI:Level 3 certifications. This helped me a lot as I was forced to learn what is the "certified" way to manage tasks. However, what I found was that much of it overcomplicated things and I really need to adapt what I learned with these hardened processes actually worked and develop this into something that could allow my team to operate at the Unconsciously Competent level. To do this, we started using a Kanban Board (we use http://www.kanbanpad.com which is really helpful and free). Each of my employees has their own task board and larger projects also have their own task board. An employee task board includes 4 columns: - *To-Do* - Work that is in queue but has not been started - *In Progress - *exactly what it says, work that is currently in progress but has not been completed - *Verification - *this is the testing phase for our work which has to be verified as working by myself or our team peers - *Completed - *work that is finished moves into this queue and each Monday is moved to the "Finished" bucket where we can quickly and easily look back on the year in review to determine what was accomplished In addition to project management, there have been a few books in particular that have helped me as a leader: - The Phoenix Project <http://www.amazon.com/The-Phoenix-Project-Helping-Business/dp/0988262592/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389110106&sr=8-1&keywords=phoenix+project>(and The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement<http://www.amazon.com/The-Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0884271951/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389110069&sr=8-1&keywords=the+goal>) - These two books really help you take a step back and look at the big picture. While The Phoenix Project is written specifically for DevOps I think The Goal is the better of the two books but I recommend reading both - The Effective Executive<http://www.amazon.com/The-Effective-Executive-Definitive-Harperbusiness/dp/0060833459/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389110158&sr=8-1&keywords=effective+executive>- Written by Peter Drucker in the 80s this is still widely considered one of the best books any leader can read today. It will teach you to think like a leader, how to manage your time effectively, and how to accomplish all your goals There are a number of other things that have been immensely helpful to me as I've been transitioning from a technical resource to a leader but what I've listed above were the things that really helped me start moving in the right direction. If you have any specific questions, I'll be happy to discuss. Best, Evan On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 10:15 AM, Peter Grace <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello list, > > Well, I've been an IT Director for about half a year now. In this time I > have learned quite a bit more about what it takes to be a manager and the > amount of self discipline it requires to keep all of the pieces on the > chessboard moving safely. > > After 6 months, my self evaluation is I suck at being in charge of an IT > department, and by gosh I want to fix that. I am asking for your opinions > on all manners of self-help: certification ideas, books that have helped > you "grok" how a department should work properly, ways to improve process > management, things of this nature. I want to be the best I can be and I > know that a lot of the people on this list have "been there, done that" and > have lived to tell the tale. I'd love to hear yours. > > I struggle since the place where I work still has a lot of startup > mentality but they're getting to the size where we need to start making it > "enterprisey" to keep things moving smoothly. A lot of the people in the > organization feel like making things more enterprise-like means that > they'll be mired in paperwork and mucky-muck and it's tough to break that > opinion. What are your experiences? > > Thanks in advance, > > Pete > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/ > >
_______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
