The first afternoon session I attended focused on developing the skills needed to be an effective IT manager in higher education. Dwight Fischer, the CIO of Plymouth State University, shared some of his experience in managing IT at his institution.
Meeting management skills are vital. Managers must convene and attend a wide variety of meetings, and it’s important to know how to get the most from them. Watch the clock, stick to an agenda and keep things moving. Work to ensure balanced participation by all participants. Provide appropriate documentation both before and after the meeting. Make sure decisions made at meetings are followed through in action.
Effective communication is also critical. Write clearly and succinctly, translating complex jargon to plain talk. Speak and present with a focus on communicating the most important information. Be an active listener, and respond to others to make sure they feel their ideas are valued.
Managing IT means managing people. So you need to assign priorities, delegate tasks, manage conflict, and build teams. IT managers are a lot like coaches, trying to bring out the best in their staff members.
Performance evaluations should be regular and ongoing, and should not be dreaded, but seen as opportunities. Focus not just on what is done, but how it’s done. Talk to your staff about not only what they are doing now, but what they could be doing in the future. See performance evaluations as opportunities for growth.
Know the styles and needs of those whom you report to. Try to deliver them solutions, not problems. Your leaders have enough problems to deal with, and you will go farther if you are perceived as a solution provider rather than a problem creator.
Project management is a big part of an IT manager’s role. Managing change can be hard, but project management skills can help you get things done. Higher education has been slower to adopt project management techniques than has other industries, but it’s becoming increasing important.
Operations management is, in some ways, the opposite of project management. While project management is about managing change, operations management is about managing stability…keeping things reliable, available and working continuously.
Fiscal management is also a big part of the IT manager’s job. Money is power. You need to know where your money is coming from, where it’s going, and how much is moving. Learn the fundamentals of your finance system, and how to keep the business office happy.
How are decisions made in your institution? The IT manager must understand the culture of the decision making environment at their institution. What layers of decision making are involved? Are decisions made by consensus? What committees and other units are involved?
Managing is hard work. It can also be stressful. You need to be able to manage conflict. You need to deal with people who leave, and people whom you need to ask to leave.
Take advantage of the Educause Institutes, including the management institute, leadership institute, and learning technology institute. Getting accepted to the competitive Frye Institute can be very valuable. Attend and participate in technology conferences, like NERCOMP.
Whew! This presenter tried to cover a lot of ground in a short time. While he offered some good ideas, I think he might have considered taking his own advice, and focus more on what is most important. He had some of the most “text heavy” slides I’ve seen so far at this conference. Most of the time, the slides were not left up long enough to be of much support. After the presentation, one person requested that a slide be returned to; he did go back, but still didn’t leave it up for very long. Still, it was obvious that the presenter has a passion for this topic.
During the Q & A, Dwight mentioned the value of “management by walking around.” While e-mail is important, many people spend way too much time with e-mail correspondence. A good manager gets out and about, mingling with staff, faculty and students. Dwight tries to regularly “walk the campus” at least every week, if not two or three times a week.
An excellent book that Dwight recommends is “Leading Geeks,” by Paul Glen. Dwight also maintains a blog about managing IT at http://dcfischer.blogs.plymouth.edu/.