Re: The demise of the Oracle professional?

dba_222_at_yahoo.com (Roger Redford) writes:

> Of course. Go ahead.
>
> My feeling on IT management is that you MUST have three things:
>
> 1)
> Technical skill!!!!! Absolutely. Not debatable. How can you
> manage that which you don't understand? Could a generalist manager
> put up a nuclear power plant? No. You must understand what's
> involved.
>
> 2) People skills
>
> 3) Management skills.
>
> From someone who has both a management, and a computer degree.
>
>

I agree 100%. Unfortunately, all too often I have found the following quote I saw on an e-mail sig way too ture

"IT consists of two types of people - those who don't manage what they understand and those who manage what they don't understand."

Personally, I think this situation has arisen simply because those with technical skills have been so badly needed at the ground level that few have managed to rise to levels of management and those who are already in management pre-date the technology. With time, it can be expected that more managers will have the technical skills necessary to make the right technical decisions - of course, this ignores the "economic rationalism" which has seen many technically proficient managers pushed aside for bean counter managers who appear to only view things in the short term (e.g. create great short term profits and move on before the long term costs bite!).

Tim Received on Sun Jun 16 2002 - 01:04:10 CDT