Value of adding the ITMLP certification to your IT Manager and IT Director job descriptions

As an IT or Human Resources leader, adding the ITMLP into your IT Manager and IT Director job descriptions help you expand your management bench strength, enhance IT agility, and maximize the value of the approximately 80% of your staff that report to first-line and second-line IT managers and directors.

The move from IT individual contributor to IT Manager is one of the most difficult professional transitions in an IT person’s career. The reason is that this transition requires the person to simultaneously grow in two ways at once.

The first, and more obvious, is they must learn to lead a team, rather than complete a needed task. Assistance on this transition is generally provided via traditional “new manager” training classes, teaching topics such as delegation, time management, difficult conversations, writing performance reviews, and other related topics.

The second competency that soon-to-be, new, and newer IT managers must learn is the “Business of IT”.  This includes a wide variety of topics that span the IT management profession including IT methodologies, internal client service, user experience, vendor management, user/stakeholder influence, cost center management, and other related areas.

The ITMLP, designed to be complementary with traditional new manager training classes, teaches these “Business of IT” topics.

This training is required because, as IT individual contributors, they are a “mile deep” in their chosen technical area, such as programming, data communications, or IT Help Desk, but they tend to only be an “inch wide” in regard to the other areas of IT.  When a person becomes an IT manager, this wider view of IT best practices, and cross-functional related activities is essential to their success as an IT Manager, and the success of the team they lead.

All that said, an ITMLP certification illustrates the person’s willingness to expand their knowledge in the “Business of IT”, thus, enhancing their current job performance, positioning them for promotion, and accelerating their upward professional mobility.