IT Management: Essential Principles and Skills

This lecture provides a brief overview of several key areas that you, as an I.T. Manager, must have a sharp focus on including:

• changes
• calmness
• new vs old duties
• resources under your control
• customers
• vendors

Your career in I.T. Management is not for the faint of heart. You will have to be prepared for change as the technology changes. Many technologies only have a 3-5 year shelf life meaning about the time a technology is implemented and adopted throughout an organization, it is time to prepare for upgrades or replacements.

The often thankless role in the data center is explored in this lecture. The successful I.T. Manager will learn how to handle crisis, emergencies, and fire drills with confidence.

This lecture covers how being promoted is both an exciting and challenging time. You have earned the respect of your senior management, it is time to prove their decision was the correct one.

In this lecture we cover how your responsibilities as the I.T. Manager are different than your previous positions were. Identifying your correct responsibilities early on in your new role is important.

Understanding the economics of running an IT Department is very different form helping one of your customers print a document…it is also more critical for your long term success. This lecture introduces 3 key principals you need to understand and use daily.

Whether your staff is comprised of regular employees or contractors and consultants…they are human resources you will manage. This lecture convers your primary responsibility that is missed by most managers.

The 4 key areas all successful IT Managers must ensure they never run out of. Over provisioning as well as under provisioning in these areas are career mistakes to be avoided.

This lecture introduces that you, as an IT Manager, need to understand the true cost of the decisions you make. This lecture expands on the lecture Economic Resources.

The successful manager, whether in I.T. or another department, understands they provide a service for someone. Understanding who your customers are is key to a long career in management.

Are you friends with a vendor? If so, how do you ensure they are living up to their responsibilities in the friendship? This lecture seeks to clarify the relationships and helps you move forward in a professional manner.

This introduction lecture provides a brief overview of the areas many IT managers fail to address until they begin having problems. You will learn about your primary responsibility as well as the areas these responsibilities should be exercised.

This lecture introduces you to your 3 primary responsibilities as an IT manager. It also introduces you to 2 day to day responsibilities.

This lecture introduces you to the 3P's that will either make or break your department. Their relationship to your primary responsibilities is also explored.

This first P, is the most difficult for many new managers to get the hang of it.

This second P, discusses what you customers are receiving from you. A mastery in this area will help ensure longterm success.

This third P, is an area that I've always enjoyed but an area many managers ignore to their peril. Both of their teams and their customers suffer as a result.

This lecture introduces to you the thought that sometimes you have to manage instead of just saying yes all the time.

This lecture goes into more detail of the third P, encourages you to document this P, and discusses the three mandatory's that you must master in this area.

This introduction lecture provides a brief overview of inventories that should be maintained by the IT department and tips for speeding up and completing these inventories.

This lecture introduces the main reasons why it is so important to inventory your staff and their skillset including:

• outages
• staff augmentation
• training
• etc

This lecture introduces an asset inventory as well as when most IT managers realize it was the smartest thing they ever did. Tips for a fast start are included.

Most IT managers think they know which applications they support only to be surprised when they discover new production applications their staff was supporting during an unplanned emergency. This lecture will give you tips and tricks to learn of these hidden applications in an organized fashion.

This lecture introduces one of the hardest to keep up inventories and why is most important.

This lecture discusses what a SAAC sheet it and how it can and should be used in your organization.

This introduction lecture provides an overview of some of the common areas where managers fail. Sometimes through no fault of their own.

CDs and RGEs are introduced as well as avoidance techniques

This lecture introduces you to agreements and contracts you must be familiar with as well as tips on how to stay current and surprise free.

This lecture introduces you to support you must be familiar with as well as tips on how to stay current and surprise free.

This lecture discusses key areas in the IT managers control that must be managed on a service level agreement basis. Whether this is in or out sourced is discussed.

Documented policies and procedures are discussed as well as their importance to a long career. Tips and tricks include how to start documenting if none exist.

This lecture introduces that you, as an IT Manager, need to understand that sometimes you are going to have to watch out for backstabbers and others who only succeed by making other people look bad.

This introduction lecture provides an overview of Audits. Ways that employees bypass controls is discussed along with one of the biggest reason many IT managers fail.

Checking that you staff is doing the right thing does not mean you distrust them. You will learn the reasons why in this lecture.

This lecture introduces the needs for physical security audits and touches on some simple ways many corporations data security is breached.

This lecture introduces the needs for electrical and environmental audits and touches on some ways IT managers can offer redundancy in these areas.

This lecture introduces the needs for controlling the rate of changes in the IT department. The resistance to this process as well as a key benefit are also taught.

Inventory audits can help ensure your IT investment dollars are not lining someone else's pockets.

This lecture covers auditing incidents through a control system and a particular correlation discovered between it and another key IT control process.

This lecture discusses the reasons for having a disaster recovery program as well as similarities between it and a continuation of business / business continuity policy. A key way that this fails is also discussed.

This lecture attempts to conclude the course while also pointing out some of the key take-a-ways from the previous 40+ lectures. It also encourages you to participate in the discussions within the control panel by communicating with the instructor and other students.