The IT manager's survival guide - Rob Aalders

Accessible, refreshingly candid, but above all helpful, this pragmatic guide addresses a real need by dealing with the problems that face the new IT manager. By providing a number of practical recommendations and approaches including how to make the transition from technical professional to manager and dealing with people, to giving advice and guidance on organization structure, architecture and planning approaches, this book covers a whole raft of issues essential to managing an IT unit.
If you have chosen to move from the safe haven of technology to the unpredictable world of management, this book could make the difference between success and failure.
"The IT Manager's Survival Guide is well named. Aimed at the techie becoming an IT Manager it covers the many alligators of IT management - from legacy systems to managing vendors - in easy chunks with checklists. It also provides the new manager with help to get ahead of the game by including articles from experts on what is wrong with IT management and a set of short reviews of management theorists from Strassman to Mayo.
I recommend this book for those who would like to buck the trend - the average tenure of an IT Manager is about 900 days - and run an IT outfit appreciated by customers and staff."
Gill Ringland, Fellow of the British Computer Society and Member of the BCS Management Forum. Author of Scenario Planning: Managing for the Future.

ROB AALDERS has held senior strategic and line management positions in a variety of companies in Europe, Australia and Asia during 25 years in the IT industry. His strength lies in his ability to devise strategic plans for organizations and to define how they should be implemented.

Aalders has carried out assignments for multinational and governmental agencies including Australia Post, QANTAS, the National Rail Corporation and the Hong Kong Transport Department. He has gained line management experience, mostly in the transportation sector, which gives a business focus and practical orientation to his strategic studies.

PETER HIND of IDC works as a freelance analyst for the local IT industry. He runs InTEP executive forums for IDC in Australia and New Zealand and complements the resulting anecdotal research by conducting IDC's annual 'Forecast for Management' survey of around 8000 IS executives. A regular columnist for CIO magazine on both sides of the Tasman, he is passionate about taking the focus in IT off the technology and onto the better exploitation of information. Hind previously worked in sales and marketing with NCR Australia, Sigma Data and Unisys Australia.