back to article How to get ahead in IT: Swap the geek speak for the spreadsheet

Increasingly, we're told, IT types who "understand" their organisation's business can help their business and get ahead. But what does “understanding” the business actually mean? Why does it matter and how does an ambitious IT professional get the mix of skills needed to attain that understanding and also hit the fast track? …

  1. NoneSuch Silver badge

    There's truth in this article. Talking about "the bottom line" and understanding profit loss on a balance sheet got me noticed (and promoted) a few times.

    1. Robert E A Harvey

      Its odd

      it's odd, but back in the 70s there were a whole class of 'business analysts' who did understand what the company made and how that produced a profit. They worked for the 'mainframe department' and wrote specs for the coders and job stacks for the operators. Some did accountancy, some did manufacturing, then learned data stuff. And we had amazing things like parametric CAD and parts list compilers and stock consolidation and sawtooth stock control and batching. None of which feature in excel.

      1. Mark 65

        Re: Its odd

        That's the problem though, companies are reaping that which they have sewn. Cuts to training budgets and an us/them attitude propagated by both sides has helped create the situation. Still, keeps me in contracts.

        1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

          Re: Its odd

          More'n just that. Companies want you to devote you life to them. Bleed their colours, think always with the company's interests in mind. They promise you everything from stock options to raises, from a seat at the table of decisions to little things, like being allowed to put a fish tank in the office.

          But everything they say is a fucking lie. What they want is the most possible work out of you, with absolute devotion for the least amount of money. And when you're burnt out, and you can give no more, they discard you.

          The problem is that businesses have an entitlement issue. They expect absolute devotion from their employees whilst offering nothing in return. The only way they retain staff is to keep them so busy they can't realistically go forth and look for a better job.

          That's not "us" versus "them", because they never even consider "us". We simply don't occur to them. Not on that level. Not even on a level enough to keep promises.

          And then you leave, do something else, build you own office and get the goddamned fish tank.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This.

    "However technically proficient they may be, not all IT experts find self-promotion and the articulation of their own strengths particularly easy. Unless people master such skills, though, career progression could suffer"

    “Throughout their careers, IT pros focus on building up their technical competencies and getting to grips with the latest skills and ways of working - the likes of Agile and Java for example are skills employers constantly request,. But soft skills including communication, presentation and project management often get neglected."

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This.

      >not all IT experts find self-promotion and the articulation of their own strengths particularly easy. Unless people master such skills, though, career progression could suffer"

      ie. keep those interview skills sharp as that is usually the easiest way to get a decent promotion/wage bump in white collar slave shop land. Unless you get lucky mid career and find a rare gem of a company.

  3. Hollerith 1

    I have straddled that gap

    I came into the IT world from a marketing/comms direction, and I have been the 'translator' in company meetings, explaining what the business managers wanted to the IT guys and what the IT guys were saying to the business people. Sometimes the gap was frighteningly wild. IT wanted a beautiful, logical, locked-down structure, business wanted a fluid, turn-on-a-dime, creative and more risky approach. Both were, in their own spheres, right, but to get them to a place where each got most of what they wanted and gave up the minimum took years -- years -- off my life.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good article...but.....

    One of the things I notice these days is that at the upper 'business' bits of the company I work for, there is a recognition that basically, they are a technology company now. They dont sell software or hardware, but technology is now totally integral to making their business a success. Technologists are moving from the basement to the top floors, *and* the 'business' guys are now embracing the fact that technology is enabling and increasingly driving their business. Business is not dictating to technology anymore, it's often the other way around.

    Point being, we need to meet in the middle. We (techies) need to be more business aware, and 'they' wont survive unless they get down with their geeky side. We are no longer a 'cost' or a service. 'The business' are not our clients, they are our equal partners.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Good article...but.....

      " 'The business' are not our clients, they are our equal partners."

      Wow, man, you're like there already.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "You might have to ditch the laptop and brush up on the dreaded 'soft skills'"

    That was the caption. But the picture said "Become a large busted red head able to operate a laptop".

    I escaped IT without doing that and wearing a normal suit, but on balance, had I thought of that as a career enhancement strategy I'm sure I'd have enjoyed it.

    1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: "You might have to ditch the laptop and brush up on the dreaded 'soft skills'"

      To be fair, "a large busted red head able to operate a laptop" is welcome anywhere and everywhere.

  6. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

    This depends on the line of business

    "The evolution shouldn’t come as a surprise: the IT department is increasingly being seen as a profit rather than a cost centre with IT budgets commonly split between keeping the lights on and spend on innovation and revenue-generating projects."

    It's a profit center only if your company is in the business of producing IT products or services. Otherwise it's a tool your company uses to perform their revenue generating functions. Yes, your IT systems can provide the latter organizations with a strategic advantage over your competition. In much the same way as an auto repair shop can excell by having higher quality and/or more capable tools.

    "Project Manager"

    Not the most important job in the IT process. Unless IT products/services are yor companies line of business. Its the process owning manager that makes the cost/benefit decisions on which tools to invest in and when to upgrade or replace those tools. These decisions need to be made with the support and operating costs of the legacy systems in mind. Which is where contributions from the operations (admins) as well as development (project) sides of the house need to be balanced against the user's cost/benefits.

    All too often, IT systems are seen as projects that, when done, provide the project manager their little gold star, promotion and material for their CV. And once the system is delivered, its cost to the company go largely unnoticed. Untion the users or admins scream about it being crap. The smart company has someone in charge of the work process that can call for a new system to be built, even if the old one is stil functional. If that new system can produce a savings/benefit to justify the work done. On the other hand, the process owner might reccommend sticking with a clipboard and pencil on the shop floor if the shiny tablet/IT tool doesn't add value to the bottom line. The latter decision doesn't look as good on an IT manager's CV, but its a valid choice.

  7. The Vociferous Time Waster
    FAIL

    Wow

    three articles on buoyant job markets with canned opinions from job salesmen. Maybe by the 5th article it might actually be true

    1. Cipher

      Re: Wow

      Seems somebody is selling something here...

      I call BS on the basic premise. Until the suits wanna get down and start configuring stuff, patching and updating stuff, they are just suits. And the techies will always be needed regardless of this business/social skills bullshit...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Wow

        "And the techies will always be needed regardless of this business/social skills bullshit..."

        That's what the seed planters said. And the weavers. And the needle makers. And the printers. And the telephone operators. And the computer operators (remember them?). Etc

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Wow

          Only those that were satisfied to remain just weavers, needle makers.... Whenever you have mastered a problem domain, it's already past time to look around for something new. Or it is in my case. I don't mind being called in on the weird or to kibbitz with the new people, but challenges (puzzles) are what got me in engineering in the first place. It's definitely what got me to really know the business side of things. Far less surprises that way. Getting nailed by 20,000 VDC is surprising enough, the other kinds I could do without so as to keep my eye on the survival oriented stuff.

      2. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        Re: Wow

        "the techies will always be needed regardless of this business/social skills bullshit"

        Why? What do you do that can't be automated?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Wow

          More importantly "Why? What can you do that cannot be outsourced or greatly commoditised?"

          The point is it is all about perceived value add. That's why a dipshit pissing around with Excel and Access in the front office used to get paid more than most of the guys in centralised IT. It was the perception of their value add rather than the reality that they were making an unsupportable fucking mess that some poor bastard would lose years of their life cleaning up at a later date.

          Now I hasten to add that not all such people are useless shits, but in my time cleaning up after them there has been far more than is healthy for an economy to sustain.

          The art of what I need to do is make it look like something magical is being achieved (the perception bit) whilst you are really just cleaning up code that should never have seen the light of day (that which is perceived as perfect because it produces an answer). Tell them you're refactoring unsupportable code and, whilst the main IT people will thank you, your paymasters will consider you the useless turd reinventing the wheel and your career will come to a sudden end. It's all about perception.

          1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

            Re: Wow

            "The art of what I need to do is make it look like something magical is being achieved (the perception bit) "

            This is fucking exhausting. It's a full time job in and of itself. If you're an introvert by nature, well...you'll end up burnt out. Sad, but true.

    2. Robert E A Harvey

      Re: Job salesmen

      i've had more recruitment approaches in the last 5 weeks than in the previous 5 years.

      And, oddly, they are more relevant, realistic, and attractive.

      I suspect that the economy has gone to a place where the parasites cause less damage than usual?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Start with your company's public filings

    Such as the SEC filings in the USA. Look for items like what the company considers as their most significant strengths and potential problem areas. Also look at who they consider their major competitors and which markets management thinks are growing or shrinking.

    Also look at the company's profit margins each quarter. For example, if it is 5% pre-tax, that means someone else has to sell $100,000 in order for IT to spend $5,000. Conversely, a $10,000 IT annual cost savings translates to an effective increase in top-line sales of $200,000. Spending money to save money can use this technique to justify the project.

    Oddly, the lower your company's profitability, the better the numbers work in your favor for cost-savings projects. :-)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Start with your company's public filings

      It is also very helpful during the interview process and when combined with the skills sought, might allow you to (gently) nudge it towards highlighting your relevant work experience.

  9. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Coat

    The takeaway fact

    The fresh meat needs to get a little seasoning.

    Or to put it a little differently

    Less Moss, more Jen.

    Yes I don't like HR very much.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Probably requires some education for the suits as well...some companies get it and some don't.

  11. getHandle

    You lost me at...

    Capita. Nuff said.

  12. jaycee331

    Alternatively...

    "However technically proficient they may be, not all IT experts find self-promotion and the articulation of their own strengths particularly easy. Unless people master such skills, though, career progression could suffer"

    OR there are some of us with too much self-pride and integrity to play that game. I'm entirely happy to flat-line where I'm at. I can walk out each day with my head held high knowing I did a quality days work and didn't have to spin lie and play BS bingo to do it. There's more to life than money, especially when further progression means being soaked in the stench of vacuous corporate speak, incompetence, games and politics and having to essentially lie for a living. No ta.

    Why does corporate speak even exist? To enable talentless seniors to create the illusion of competence by talking the talk. Why do politics in the workplace exist? Because mistakes need covering up, poor decision making needs spinning and burying, empire builders need dealing with, and the conflicts of territorial unit targets due to flawed organizational structures. IMHO.

    1. Fatman

      Re: Alternatively...

      Why does corporate speak even exist? To enable talentless seniors to create the illusion of competence by talking the talk. Why do politics in the workplace exist? Because mistakes need covering up, poor decision making needs spinning and burying, empire builders need dealing with, and the conflicts of territorial unit targets due to flawed organizational structures. IMHO.

      IOW - ASS covering

  13. Doctor Tarr

    Interesting Read

    I’ve been through this process almost to the letter and have found it rewarding and challenging but also stressful and frustrating at the same time.

    I started my IT ‘career’ (more a string of jobs with some progression) in support before moving into roles as a developer, business analyst and project manager. All of this was over a period of around seventeen years and often I would be doing all of these at the same time.

    Whichever company I worked for I always had to understand the business and its goals. Many people can just turn up to work and turn the handle for 7.5 hours, but I’ve found this leads to high levels of frustration. Even if you don’t agree with the direction and decisions a business is taking having the knowledge can only benefit you and if it means you are better suited elsewhere then it’s time to get out.

    I decided I wanted to move from a BA/PM role into product development but how could I achieve this when ‘stuck’ in a techie role? The first thing I realised is that it wasn’t going to be given to me and there are some big barriers to break down especially between IT and Commercial. I needed to be known by the existing product managers so simply started to discuss the business with them and what they were working on. I also used my knowledge of our platform (using newspeak now) to suggest new ideas and services that could be offered. This led to the product managers and business development teams asking for my help on proposals, which were mostly technical. It’s very rewarding to win new business based on a proposal that was 80% yours, and there is no better way to get C level (sorry, newspeak again) attention.

    However, I had to fight for eighteen months, constantly putting myself forward, which felt very uncomfortable, and working on many proposals outside of my ‘day’ job before I finally got the opportunity to move into a more commercial role. It can be a very frustrating time when all this effort might come to nothing. I thought hard work and successful bids would get me what I wanted but there are many people who will take that success as their own even if their input was minimal.

    Dropping the technical jargon and sadly replacing it with management bullshit comes with the territory. I don’t mind discussing markets, profitability, margins, cost of business, P&L, ATL & BTL marketing etc… but a part of me dies when I have to discuss, consumer empathy, audience loyalty, the brand narrative, etc….

    I’ve now been in a product management and business development role for three years. There are still some really frustrating times but in my product area I control the strategy. This is very liberating but I’m also responsible for the profitability and will be shown the door if we don’t hit forecast, which brings its own stresses.

    I’d advise anyone in an IT role to read some non-technical business books. Rather than learn some obscure programming language read about project management, product management or marketing. This will provide a better understanding of business in general and make you more valuable to the organisation.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    I have a coffee mug with "There's no place like 127.0.0.1" on one side and "select * from users where clue > 0; 0 rows returned" on the other.

    My career seems to have stalled for some reason.

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