Customer Reviews

IT Manager's Handbook: Getting Your New Job Done (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is written only for the very basic beginner in IT. If you have been around an IT department for any length of time, you will find it difficult to pick up any new management thoughts in this book. For example, the entire topic of ERP systems is covered in 2 pages.

I am an IT Manager with over twenty years of experience. I believe that the authors do a great job in covering all of the necessary topics, yet even a seasoned manager can pick up some new stuff in here. I have not previously seen a book written for new IT Managers. I highly recommend it. The transition from a technical role to management is often difficult - this is well documented. This book will make that change easier. I plan on making it required reading for my direct reports who are new managers.

Technology can change all it wants but the fundamentals of being a good IT Manager have changed very little. This book hits all the major areas of focus from staffing and budgeting to infrastructure and disaster recovery.

The section entitled "Certification: How Do I Know Its Worth" applied 10 years ago, and still applies today. Right on the money and a good brief for an IT Manager building a team. Also, small but extremently important policy issues like email and security are included.

I do think that the book included slightly heavy doses of technical information such as a full page table of different memory technologies as well as an entire section entitled "How Do I Configure a Server". These would service a Network Administrator or Engineer just fine but an IT Manager ? Not so much. Don't let this detract you from the overall picture though. Too much information is certainly better than not enough.

I have to be honest, I didn't read this cover to cover. But for someone who has spent time as an IT Manager in the past and one who is looking at doing it again, I was able to re-establish concepts and draw on new tools that, no doubt, provided benefits.

This book is a real godsend for all of us who have tried to prepare our talented people for their next career step. All the things you need to know about being an IM manager in one place and organized in a way that makes for easy reading for those being exposed to management concepts for the first time. It's also a handy guide for brushing up on those things you don't do often enough to master, like hire or write capitals, but need to know when they come up.

I plan to buy these for all my managers and those high potential people that aspire to be one.

Frank J. Saviello

Director, Information Management

I am a Systems Administrator by trade and have been given the reins ofa 12 person tech staff including Network, Systems and DatabaseAdministrators and Web Developers in an ASP for Telecom. I need helpwith the management aspect of this job, not help choosing my laptopcomputer or the classic pitches that we geeks are used to giving tonon technical people about backups and network security (ie: How muchdowntime can you afford ?)

This book might be aimed to another kindof person than I. It might be aimed at a manager that is new to IT,but this book is very light on content for a person who is seasoned inIT but new to management.

I walked out of the book store with"Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams" and"Creating High Performance Software DeleopmentTeams"... Even though we are do not do development it seemed toapply. I enjoyed my last Amazon purchase, "The Mythical ManMonth", very much.

This book does not even explain what a manager is supposed to do. Every single topic in this book is covered so quickly and with so little detail that the book is contains little more than common sense.

This was a basic read, for thse already into the methodology explained throught the book. Would be a useful tool for someone just starting out. I would recommend expanding on the disaster recovery portion, and possibly adding a section on managing in the non-profit arena.

This is something for a new manager with little experience in not only systems administration but supervision. This book may give a clue to someone who has just stepped into such a position but provides little depth and direction. Unfortunately, there isn't any one book out there as management is a very complex role that encompasses many disciplines, any one of which would be a volume in itself. I was very dissappointed and I find the other reviews misleading.

This book is full of practical examples. It is useful to people who have in-depth programming knowledge but no idea how to do a budget or interview job candidates. I found this book specially timely, given that my team is composed of several technical professionals who are now considering a move into management. The information in the book is well layed out and quite accessible.