Looking for guidance. Taking the next step to IT management.

Hi All,

A quick run down.
I have been in the IT industry now for 6 years. I started on helpdesk, moved up to desktop support and then recently a big jump to the position of IT Co-Ordinator (I sort of manage a 3 man IT department but unfortunately am not getting paid the big IT manager wage :P.

I have done some study in that time completing my A+, CNA (Yes CNA!), HDA (Yes HDA :P) MCP (270, 290), CCNA.

The situation is I like working in IT but im really starting to steer away from the technical side. I just dont have the passion or drive i did when i first started for the technical side of IT. In my new role i am very customer facing, spending a lot of time with vendors, managers, clients.etc. More so my role predominately now is project management for the IT department. Basically managers come to me with ideas and i work on solutions for them. This could be from senior management looking to cut spend or from branch management looking into new innovative ways to increase productivity. I must say i absolute love it! It's a great feeling when you do something like roll out a new VOIP system or cut a printer contract by 50k a year.

So with that in mind my goal is to try and further educate myself and hopefully go for that IT manager role i am gunning for. I have been recieving great feedback from management and they recently paid for me to complete my diploma in management which i have now completed. Obviously everything is going right but i want to show more initiative and see if there is more i could be doing.

Which leads me to here. I know a lot of the technical certs available but i am not sure if there are other IT certs that deal more with management, IT project planning and processes.etc. I do know of the ITIL certifications and i did start studying it but was not exactly what I had in mind.
So im really curious to know if there is anything else out there that i could look into?

I am also thinking about a degree but that would consume a lot more time that i currently have. atleast with a cert i can study at my pace.

Thanks in advance

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Comments

Qord

Sounds like a PMP cert and an MBA would be of the most benefit to you right now. Do you have any college under your belt? If not, the PMP would be the quicker of the two.

albanga

Hi Qord,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I have completed a diploma in computer systems which was a 2 year course when i first finished high school. Apart from that i have not completed any university study (im from Australia). The PMP definitely looks interesting but there is a lot involved before you can even sit the test from what i can see. It does however look like something i would be suited towards. I think i will do some more investigation and see if courses are available to help you achieve this certification.

paul78

It sounds like you are on the right trajectory to IT management. Studying for certs or a degree takes time and commitment. Unless you are feeling that you are over your head in terms of having the right skills, my advice is spend the time to learn the vertical business that you are in. The ability to align IT with the business makes the succesfull IT manager. And in my experience, the best place to do that is on-the-job training.

N2IT

Stay put and let the years rack up. At this point experience is your best friend. Also learn as much as you can about the company. Learn the corporate culture and make sure you network with key players. Of course you have to identify those key players.

albanga

Great advice thanks everyone.
And you are all spot on as well, my manager (CFO) called me into his office to say he chatted with the executive team and they are considering me to join the leadership team towards years end. They said the one key thing to focus on is understanding and assisting the business operations. I have actually done a lot more of this in the past 6 months and have recently rolled out a massive project which has been receiving great feedback.

I think i will consider a degree and look further into it. At this stage of my life i just have a lot going on (getting married and want to have kids) so it is just about finding the right balance.

CEHwanabe

PMP exam

UnixGuy

albanga wrote: »

Hi Qord,

... (im from Australia).....

You need to see if MBA is valued in Australia or not. See the C-level managers, do they usually have MBA/high qualifications? See job ads for management-level jobs, what kind of qualifications do they ask for? Things like that depend on the culture and work environment in your country

jdancer

May want to look into[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] the ISACA [/FONT]CGEIT certificate.