I had a little discussion with a colleague about whether managers should have more knowledge about what skills are needed in IT or it doesn’t really make any big difference that managers generally don’t know much about it because they don’t have an IT background. What do you think?
We referred to this post @7wpg+19UTCsX1.
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Our Project Managers are dire, and they seem to have developed a mentality that (because they have 'manager' in the title) they are the bosses of the engineers on their projects. We are losing work hand-over-fist, we are not generating any long-term prospects, and the senior management team seems to think that technology simply develops itself by magic. Think of it like the armed forces - if you only ever keep bringing in new 'talented' officers into the HQ, but you you don't just keep bolstering
@1ljy+1a2LNkeS the only two things the PMs now seem to have is acne and no clue.
Project managers should have either IT, business, or operational experience in the relevant industry.
Sadly most have none of them.
I would say it depends on what part of the business you are in - if you're managing teams responsible for IT systems, be that design, implementation or run - then I believe the manager should have a background in IT.
If you don't have that background how can you assist your staff with issues? How can you assess the quality of their work? How can you tell if something is a good idea or not?
On the other hand if they are in other parts of the business - Finance, HR, Facilities etc. - then it's probably not essential.