IT Management Reference Guide

Once we have determined the level and set of skills essential to supporting a particular systems management function, we need to identify potential candidates who have acquired the necessary experience. The first place to look is within your own company. Surprising as it may sound, some firms immediately look outside to fill many IT infrastructure openings rather than pursuing internal staff. Some believe the positions may be too specialized for someone who has not already obtained the skills. Others may feel that the cost and time to retrain is not acceptable.

The fact of the matter is that many companies enjoy unexpected success by redeploying onboard personnel. Potential candidates who are already on board usually are proficient in one or more technologies, but not necessarily in the systems management function being implemented. The more similar the new skill sets are to a person's existing ones, the more likelihood of success. For instance, the discipline being implemented may involve the performance and tuning of servers running a new flavor of UNIX. Onboard system administrators may be very capable in the performance and tuning of a different, but similar, version of Unix and thus could easily transition to the new flavor. Redeploying a database administrator into the role of a systems administrator or as a network analyst may be a more challenging.

Being able to predict which onboard candidates can successfully transition into a new infrastructure role can be an invaluable skill for IT managers facing staffing needs. I developed a rather simple but effective method to help do this while filling staffing requirements at a major motion picture studio. The method evolved from lengthy analyses that I conducted with the human resources department to identify attributes most desirable in a transitioning employee. After sorting through literally dozens of very specific characteristics, we arrived at four basic but very pertinent qualities: attitude, aptitude, applicability, and experience.

While the definition of these traits may seem obvious, it is worth clarifying a few points about each of them. In my opinion, attitude is the most important feature of all in today's environment. It implies that the outlook and demeanor of an individual closely matches the desired culture of the enterprise. Some of the most brilliant IT programmers and analysts have become hampered in their careers because they have poor attitudes.

Exactly what constitutes an acceptable or proper attitude may vary slightly from firm to firm, but there generally are a few traits that are common to most organizations. Among these are:

• Eagerness to learn new skills

• Willingness to follow new procedures

• Dedication to being a team player

This last trait contrasts with that of aptitude, which emphasizes the ability to learn new skills as opposed to simply the desire to do so.

Applicability refers to an individual's ability to put his or her skills and experience to effective use. Employees may have years of experience with certain skill sets, but, if lack of motivation or poor communication skills prevent them from effectively applying the knowledge, it is of little value to an organization.

Experience is normally thought of as the total number of years a person has worked with a particular technology. An old adage refers to distinguishing between someone who has 10 years of actual experience in an area of expertise versus someone who has one year of experience 10 times over. Depth, variety, and currency are three components of experience that should be factored into any assessment of a person's skill level.

• Depth refers to the level of technical complexity a person has mastered with a given product or process. An example of this would be the ability to configure operating systems or modify them with software maintenance releases as opposed to simply installing them.

• Variety describes the number of different platforms or environments an individual may have worked in with a certain technology. For example, one person may have familiarity with a multi-platform storage backup system but only in a single version of UNIX environment. Another individual may have a deeper understanding of the product from having used it in several different platform environments.

• Currency refers to how recent the person's experience is with a given product or technology. IT in general is a rapidly changing industry, and specific technologies within it may become outdated or even obsolete within a few years. A database administrator (DBA), for example, may have extensive familiarity with a particular version of a database management system, but if that experience took place longer than four to five years ago, it may no longer be relevant.

Table 1 summarizes the four key characteristics used to assess an individual's skill potential in transitioning from one infrastructure to another. Additional descriptions are shown for each characteristic to assist in clarifying differences between them.

We can take a more analytical approach to this assessment by applying numerical weights to each of the four key characteristics. These weights may be assigned in terms of their relative importance to the organization in which they are being used. Any magnitude of number can be used, and in general the greater the importance of the attribute the higher the weight. Naturally these weights will vary from company to company. The attribute of an individual is then assessed and given a numerical rating. For example, the rating could be on a 1-to-5 basis with 5 being the best. The weight and rating are then multiplied to compute a score for each attribute. The four

Table 1. Skill Assessment Attributes and Characteristics

computations are then summed for an overall score. This approach is certainly not foolproof. Other factors such as personality, chemistry, and communication skills may override mere numerical scores. But the technique can be useful to narrow down a field of candidates or as additional assessment data.

References

Kern, Harris, and Galup, Stuart D., and Nemiro, Guy, IT Organization: Building a Worldclass Infrastructure, Prentice Hall, 2001

Schiesser, Rich, IT Systems Management, Prentice Hall, 2002