How Do Technical Skills Aafect Information Technology Managers

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Bristol Institute for Technology

How do technical skills affect

information technology managers?

Author: James Allen

[email protected]

Year 2009-2010

Submission 2010-04

Supervisor: Dr Robert Stephens

Module number: UFIE8F-60-M - Dissertation (Information Technology)

Number of words: 15,427
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Contents

Page

Contents ..................................................................................................................................... 2

Table of figures .......................................................................................................................... 4

Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 5

Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 6

Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 7

Aims and objectives ............................................................................................................... 7

Research Questions............................................................................................................ 8

Audience ................................................................................................................................ 8

Chapter 1: Literature review ...................................................................................................... 9

Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 9

Management ...................................................................................................................... 9

IT Management ................................................................................................................ 10

Why do managers need IT skills? ..................................................................................... 12

Why managers dont need technical skills....................................................................... 14

Leadership ........................................................................................................................ 15

IT Engineer Characteristics ............................................................................................... 21

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 22

Chapter 2: Research methodology .......................................................................................... 25

Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 25

Methodology .................................................................................................................... 25

Ethics ................................................................................................................................ 28

Triangulation .................................................................................................................... 29

Chapter 3: Research implementation ...................................................................................... 31

Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 31

Research stages ................................................................................................................ 31


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Questionnaire .................................................................................................................. 32

Section 1. IT managers ..................................................................................................... 33

Section 2. Leadership ...................................................................................................... 35

Section 3. Engineers ......................................................................................................... 36

Concerns .......................................................................................................................... 37

Chapter 4: Research analysis ................................................................................................... 38

Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 38

Initial findings ................................................................................................................... 38

Technical knowledge ........................................................................................................ 39

Leadership Findings .......................................................................................................... 42

Engineers findings ............................................................................................................ 43

Feedback and comments made on questionnaire............................................................... 45

Semi-structured interviews .............................................................................................. 46

Chapter 5: Research findings ................................................................................................... 50

Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 50

How do managers technical skills benefit their role? ..................................................... 50

Do technical engineers prefer to work under technical managers or non-technical

managers? ........................................................................................................................ 52

Should non-technical IT managers be involved with the technical aspects of

organisational strategy?................................................................................................... 53

Do managers who have technical skills benefit technical engineers? ............................. 54

Chapter 6: Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 55

Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 55

Technical knowledge ........................................................................................................ 55

Engineers .......................................................................................................................... 55

Managers ......................................................................................................................... 56

Organisations ................................................................................................................... 57

References ............................................................................................................................... 60


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Table of figures

Figure 1 Three critical knowledge/Skill areas for IT (taken from (McKeen and Smith 2003)). 11

Figure 2 How to fulfill the drives that motivate employees .................................................... 20

Figure 3 Skills Matrix ................................................................................................................ 24

Figure 4 Balanced research design method. ............................................................................ 27

Figure 5 Orginisational banding. .............................................................................................. 28

Figure 6 Research triangulation ............................................................................................... 29

Figure 7 Research stages .......................................................................................................... 31

Figure 8 Technical understanding of a managers domain is necessary when managing IT ... 39

Figure 9 Section 1. IT managers, question 1 score table ......................................................... 39

Figure 10 Section 1. IT managers, question 2 score table ....................................................... 40




Figure 14 Section 2. Leadership, question 1 score table ......................................................... 42

Figure 15 Section 2. Leadership, question 3 score table ......................................................... 42

Figure 16 Section 3. Engineers, question 1 score table ........................................................... 43

Figure 17 Section 3. Engineers, question 2 score table ........................................................... 44

Figure 18 Map of Capabilities and Skills (taken from (Feeny & Willcocks 1998)). ................... 58

Appendices

Appendix 1: Questionnaire Profiling.65


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Abstract

Information technology has a key role to play in nearly all organisations. The efficiency and

effectiveness of the technical engineers and managers are a driving factor in the modern IT

department. The increasing demand of IT has made the management and provision more

complex and far reaching. In order to manage the IT based systems, it is important to have

the appropriate management and leadership skills to help define the organisational goals

and provide a means to manage the system for improved business performance.

This research employs a triangulation approach to identify key aspects of the technical IT

manager. The data sets include:

1. The literature research of management, management of Information technology,

leadership, motivation and engineers characteristics.

2. A questionnaire to technical engineers and managers of multiple organisations.

3. Semi-structured interviews with engineers.

The conclusion reveals that managers of technical engineers need a balanced skill set to be

able to achieve optimum productivity from their reports. Managers require leadership

qualities, management skills and an overall technical understanding of their environment.

Mangers require an overall technical understanding of their environment to enable an open

communication link between themselves, senior management and their team. An open

communication link is crucial for establishing good relations and trust between co-workers.

Trust is a crucial element of information flow, when technical complexity is being filtered out

through management hierarchies. Inadequate filtering of technical information can be

damaging when agreeing to project plans or organisational strategy.

The managers technical understanding of their environment also enables recognition of

achievement for motivational purposes. Motivation is a key in encouraging the creative and

inventive characteristics of the engineer.


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Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to thank those who made this thesis possible. This includes all of the people

who responded to my questionnaire, offered information and took part in interviews. I

would also like to thank my supervisor, Dr Robert Stephens and Dr Peter Rawlings for their

help and support. Lastly, I would like to make a special reference to my parents who

supported me during the dissertation.


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Introduction

The purpose of the research carried out in this dissertation will be to try and identify the

effects that technical skills have on IT managers. The research can be placed into four

corners of observation. These four corners are:

1. IT managers technical skills will erode due to managerial commitments. How does

this matter?

2. The IT skills shortage (Heath 2008) in previous years has meant that non-

technical and low technical managers have been given the responsibility of

managing technical teams.

3. The emergence of IT service management, where the technical engineers are left to

make the decisions.

4. A report by Cordero in 2004 states that administration and people skills are more

important when managing technical engineers.

Aims and objectives

The research carried out for this dissertation will investigate how technical skills affect IT

managers. It will cover the types of skills that IT managers should have, whether technical

skills are essential and what impact they have. A potential hypothesis could be that, the lack

of technical skills in IT managers can lead to a lack of confidence in managers from engineers

and poor technical strategic decisions. There have been many debates (McAlearney 2008,

Cordero 2004 and Issac 2009 (Issac 2009) around the subject as to whether technical skills

are needed by IT managers. This dissertation will intend to find out why.

The dissertation will investigate existing research, literature and perform research in large

and small IT organisations to try and gauge the affects of technical skills in IT management.

The organisational research will be carried out through the use of questionnaires and semi-

structured interviews.


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Research Questions

This list of questions will be the main topics of the research.

1. How do managers technical skills benefit their role?

2. Do technical engineers prefer to work under technical managers or non-technical

managers?

3. Should non-technical IT managers be involved with the technical aspects of

organisational strategy?

4. Do managers who have technical skills benefit technical engineers?

Audience

The dissertations audience will be for technical and non-technical people who are looking to,

or have moved into IT management. most managers in technical organizations start the

same way we didas technical people. (Rothman and Esther 2005) .

The report will benefit organisations that are recruiting for a role which interacts with

information technology and whether that role will benefit from technical knowledge.


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Chapter 1: Literature review

Introduction

The literature review reports on IT management and the technical engineer within an

organisational environment. The literature has been researched to provide theory, evidence

and opinions of the effects of technical skills on IT mangers.

Management

Management is a process by which organizational goals are achieved through the use of

resources (people, money, energy, materials, space, time) (Efraim et al. 2004). The first

step in understanding the managers responsibility is to provide a framework for a

managers role. The framework will be baseline from which the importance of technical skills

can be aligned.

Management skills can be broken down into several key skills which count towards the

productively and success of the manager in their domain. An example of these key skills are

taken from (Rothman & Esther 2005)

Learn about your staff as people.

Work with other managers as a team.

Develop shared goals.

Explain the goals.

Define what success means.

Tackle the highest-priority work.

Help people work together effectively.

Create an environment of trust.

A less refined list of the managers functions were listed by Stewart (1999) as being planning,

organizing, motivating, and controlling. Stewart goes on to mention Mintzberg (1973) who

defines three classifications for the role First, there is the interpersonal aspects of the job.

Second, there is the manager's role in receiving and disseminating information (Stewart

1999). The second role being the most important when considering the technical skills of the

manager. He described the second function as being the nerve center for information

(Mintzberg 1973). Ironically Stewart goes on to say that Mintzberg (1973) was writing


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before information technology became so pervasive.. The last of the three functions that

Mintzberg defined was the decision-making aspects of the job. (Stewart 1999).

The functions will vary greatly in effectiveness given the size of an organisation and the level

at which the manager is operating. It is possible to define each level of the management

structure as a refined version of targets and goals that the lower management level is tasked

with achieving. In theory each level of management becomes a breakdown of the goals set

at the higher level.

Rothman describes a list of skills, which in theory can enable you to manage any nature of

management role. Each of the key skills listed above could be individually enhanced by

technical skills. An example of this would be that to tackle the highest-priority work, may

involve technical understanding in being able to schedule the most critical work. If a

manager cannot understand the technical complexity, then it may not be possible to create

deadlines on work completion. Poor delegation and decision making (McManus and

Wood-Harper 2008) is listed as being one of managements failings in project management.

IT Management

The following statement is regarding a mangers engagement within an organisation

Managers are basically reactive, adapting organizations to the forces that confront them.

The focus of managerial actions therefore is on gathering correct information about relevant

contingent factors, interpreting it, and evaluating the consequences of responses to

different external demands for organizational success (Pinsonneault andKraemer 1993)

Pinsonneaults and Kraemers (1993) definition provides a view on how an IT manager

interacts within their environment. A manager is an interactive role, which interfaces with

other managers and their reports. Each action that the manager takes will have an impact on

both parties. In the case of a company director, ultimately the two interfaces would be the

organisation and their reports. Rapid environmental shifts are causing fundamental

transformations that have a dramatic impact on the managers job(Daft 2002). Dafts book

on management gives a more modern view on management and has noted the shift from

the manger becoming a multifunction role and not just about managing people. This is a

crucial point when considering the skills required in modern management roles.


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Pinsonneaults and Kraemers (1993) statement can be applied to an IT manager in that they

are required to gather the correct information with regards to business knowledge,

leadership and technical knowledge.

Figure 1 Three critical knowledge/Skill areas for IT (taken from (McKeen and Smith 2003)).

(Gagnon and Toulouse 1996) describe how managerial behavior typology is generally

accepted as being that of the entrepreneurs versus that of the administrator. If you had to

pick one of the most successful entrepreneurs alive then you may choose Bill Gates

Entrepreneurs, like Bill Gates, are in the gemstone category and highly valued (Bolton

and Thompson 2004) . It is possible to argue that Bill Gates success could be based on his

entrepreneurial skills and technical understanding, he had an early interest in software and

began programming computers at the age of thirteen. (Bellis 1997). The fact that Bill Gates

started as a technical engineer and then moved on to start Microsoft ranked 31 in the

Forbes 2000 list in 2005, shows how technical understanding can have an impact on

individuals output. It can also be said that Bill Gates is not able to understand all of the

major technical competitive challenges that Microsoft has had to confront Could it be that

Bill Gates was holding the company back? I think the answer is yes. (Elgan 2009).

The IT department has evolved from being a facility to a central place in the organisation

(McKeen & Smith 2003) . The IT managers position has a greater importance depending on

the organisations reliance on IT. Employees at medium and large sized organisation will use

email, internet access, human resources systems and document storage on a daily basis. If

they do not have access to these systems then the organisation will grind to a halt.
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Why do managers need IT skills?

The key skills of an manager as quoted by (Rothman & Esther 2005) do not include the

business skills required at each level of a corporate structure. An example of this would be

that a Human Resource manager would have Human Resource skills or a finance director

would have financial skills and experience. When looking at job descriptions from

jobserve.com (March 2009), the business skills that are considered to be a requirement for

an IT manager would be:

Historic knowledge/experience of how the industry has evolved: This would benefit

the manager in having knowledge of the lessons learnt and how to gain competitive

advantage.

Technical knowledge : This would enable the manager to understand current and

future complexities in the technical infrastructure

Industry standards: Having knowledge of standards such as the Data Protection Act,

Information technology infrastructure library (ITIL) or even the Payment Card

Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

There is however an argument that technical knowledge is not required when managing IT.

IT has grown (Daveri 2001) at such a fast rate that managers from other disciplines are being

allowed to manage IT. There is evidence that the lack of technical skills at the management

and director level is having an effect on large UK companies.

A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers has found that while almost all large UK companies

acknowledge that IT is strategically important to the future success of their business, more

than two-thirds (68 per cent) of the heads of internal audit surveyed believe their boards do

not understand the IT risks they face.(Amble 2007)

There is belief that technical skills are vital component in the IT managersrole. IT

managers often need to have a strong focus on the future in order to anticipate and guide

their organisations transformation with technology(McKeen & Smith 2003). Technical skills

can give an insight into a future vision which other non-technical people may not see or

understand. This may create an animosity in business relationships resulting in high risk

strategic failures. It would be ideal if all levels of management had a basic understanding of


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the impact of implementing IT systems, but this is not reality. Given this reality, is it

therefore the role of the technology leader or manager to teach, champion and manage the

technology?

(McKeen & Smith 2003) make many strong points towards the need for technical

knowledge. They believe that understanding the big picture of IT can take a long time. They

also state that IT management can revolve around hardware and vendors. IT hardware can

be complex and very expensive, which would be confusing for non-technical managers to

understand. An engineer may have to build a configuration of components which need to be

signed off for approval, but a non-technical manager will not be able to check them for their

correctness. The sign off for high cost expenditure will usually be authorised by an IT

directors sign-off. The director is more likely to have a lesser understanding of what they

are signing off than the IT manager.

(Humphrey 1997) believes that the cost of technical blindness can be severe with regards

to maintaining competitive advantage. The adoption of new technologies at the right time is

essential and only engineers who have a keen interest and understanding will identify these

opportunities. A study by (Nambisan and Wilemon 2004) into information technology

management education has discovered that Large-scale collaboration in technologydevelopment has become a strategic necessity in many industries. and the nature of

technology deployment have also changed important questions are being raised about the

role of technology in facilitating businesses . The increased requirement for technical

competitive advantage and increased productivity has expanded the IT managers role away

from just people management. The IT manager must now see opportunity and be creative.

This level of vision may require technical understanding, unless the engineers are making

strategic recommendations.

(Gagnon & Toulouse 1996) explain how technical understanding influences many aspects of

the organisation. They state that the behavior of managers is one of the most important

factors in the successful adoption of new technologies. (Liker et al. 1999) makes the

connection between the management of IT and how the understanding of technical change

has affected many key areas of organisations. The importance of technical understanding is

fundamental in being able to steer an organisation through technical change.


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A critical area within an organisation is its IT security the information security of an

organisation has important economic consequences, for which management will be held

accountable (Mattford and Whitman 2008) . A large proportion of an organisations assets

are held within its data repositories and this information needs to be kept securely and

backed up. It is therefore vital that organisations who value their data are securely

managed. The level of managed security is in many cases down to the engineers who are

responsible for the systems and ultimately their managers. It has become apparent that

some organisations have not been as effective in protecting themselves as they could have

been Almost 85 per cent of large US enterprises admit to having suffered an IT security

incident over the past 12 months (Jaques 2006). The responsibility for the understanding of

technical and issues can be as far reaching as the organisations chairman IT security failure

causes UK Revenue & Customs (HMRC) chairman to resign(Krigsman 2008)

Even though there is evidence to support the need for technical knowledge, many

organisations do not see it as essential for IT managers or directors. Before taking up his

previous role as head of IT at Imperial Tobacco Group, trained accountant Boss was working

in risk management at Coopers and Lybrand. (Ferguson 2009)

Why managers dont need technical skills

The study carried out by Cordero in 2004 on 2172 technical engineers provide evidence that

technical skills within managers can in some ways cloud or create bias as to the outcome of

the role it appears a more important qualification for supervisors to possess management

skills (people and administrative) than to possess technical skills. (Cordero et al. 2004).

Corderos research suggests that if the IT manager adopts more administative and people

skills, the engineers become more motivated and stimulated. Cordero adds further to his

theory by stating that administrative and people skills are useful to help subordinates

create task boundaries that facilitate accomplishing organizational goals. (Cordero, Farris,

& DiTomaso 2004)

The idea that the technical IT manager is one who could be dangerous has surfaced in many

discussions (McAlearney 2008) . Ultimately a manager cannot have enough time to manage

all requirements of the role and have a full technical understanding of all technologies. In a

modern infrastructure its impossible for even the most technical engineers to have anunderstanding of all technology genres, whether it is email systems, databases,
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types of challenges faced within IT. These challenges can range from the day to day running

of an operational environment to the recovery of a data centre after a disaster.

The fight between staff retention and training versus profits is a classic area within which

managers may find themselves. The use of effective and valued organisational goals can

empower managers to achieve progression in its staff and increased profits or productivity.

A leader does not only have responsibility to their people and the organisations profits, but

in also making it a better place Good leaders identify what is important to them personally

and to the organizations they serve(Ware et al. 2004)

Leadership can only be achieved if you have the ability to attract followers and lead them

towards beliefs or goals.forging a compelling organizational purpose is a close corporate

equivalent to soul-searching (Montgomery et al. 2008). The ability to attract followers

comes through the individuals ability to perform in the following areas:

Trust - To gain trust you must lead by example and not give false promises. The leader

should lead by example and be hard working. Honesty in political business environments can

be difficult, but will ultimately gain respect.

Motivation A motivated leader can enable and influence a group of people to achieve goals

through the leadership process. Followers must believe that you are heading towards a

better place that will help others and themselves. This can be extended further with the

technical individual as there characteristics could be focused around building and creating

(see IT engineer characteristics). If you can make your followers believe that they can

achieve something of great consequence, then they will drive with great intentions.

Communication Being able to communicate your strategy, reasoning and beliefs is crucial.

If you cannot get your point across successfully, then nobody will understand the way in

which it was intended. This can damage all areas of leadership.

Guidance Leaders must know what should be prioritised and how it should be approached,

this is why they are leaders. A leader must be able to understand problems and then relay

the steps to be taken in order to achieve the most effective result. They must be able to

analyses a situation and understand what each outcome will lead to and how this may affect

each step of any process.


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Caring Each individual needs to feel valued and appreciated. This can be as simple as

knowing everyones names, which may not be a simple task when you have hundreds of

staff. In busy organisations, the hardest and most productive workers can sometimes be

overlooked. This can be due to the proactive career socialites or by even the troublesome

employee attracting the managers attention. Identifying everyones contribution and

understanding why projects and goals have been achieved, shows a respectful, caring and

appreciative understanding.

Charismatic Charisma can come naturally and is not always present in good leaders.

Charisma can create some of the best leaders, leading to other leadership skills being

considered lesser. A charismatic leader can create an air of unmovable belief. By using

symbolism, metaphor, storytelling and other techniques it is possible to gain followers who

can achieve, what would have seemed to be been impossible. A charismatic leader is less

likely to send out mass impersonal emails. A leader with charisma can meet an individual for

the first time and change their way of thinking with a few well constructed questions and

responses.

Leadership within IT

A technical leader must be able to drive their team to achieve a solution or createexcellence. Leaders must enable their followers to take the final steps which may not have

been possible without their influence. Engineers need to be encouraged and able to

envisage the future benefits of determination and reluctance to give in. The technical

leaders most important role is to set goals and drive unswervingly to meet them

(Humphrey 1997). The technical environment and landscape is continually changing. A

manager needs to be able to keep their team or organisation in a reactive and responsive

state, to be able to face the challenge of continual change.

Leadership exists at all levels within an IT department. Information technology involves the

creation and maintenance of IT systems. IT systems and infrastructures often contain many

different levels of design architecture. Each level of technical understanding will be assigned

to individuals who will manage or maintain that area. At this point they become leaders of

that area. The technical areas can be anything from a directory system to a large database.

The individual is then responsible for that system and how it is designed, upgraded,

managed and integrated with existing or new systems. The technical engineer would in

most cases fit into the Expert role within the levels of leadership Consciousness many


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accountants,software engineers and consultants operate from the expert action logic

(Rooke and Torbert 2005). Experts are interested in the unique skills that will enable them to

stand out from a group. However, they still define themselves as being part of the team and

work collaboratively.

Organisation culture

The manager and employees will adopt some of the characteristics of the organisations

culture. Each organisation will have its own type of culture that will impact the approach to

work. The type of culture can affect a managers ability to create an environment which is

needed to achieve the organisations goals. Schein (2004) defined three types of culturewhich exist within organisations.

1. Coercive organizations, in which the individual is essentially captive for physical or

economic reasons and must, therefore, obey whatever rules are imposed by the

authorities.

2. Utilitarian organizations, in which the individual provides afair days work for a fair

days pay and therefore abides by whatever rules are essential; however, the group

often develops countercultural norms and rules to protect itself.

3. Normative organizations, in which the individual contributes his or her commitment

because the goals of the organization are basically the same as the individuals goals

(Schein 2004)

The culture will have an impact on how the manager can achieve goals. Each of the three

types of culture presents its own set of circumstances. The coercive culture is one in which

motivation is very difficult to achieve. Employees are there to serve a purpose and would

leave the organisation if given a better alternative. They are there to perform a task and do

not see any benefit to themselves in completing their objectives.

The utilitarian organisation would be the most likely type of environment which an engineer

would be based. These organisations use typical management incentives and techniques to

motivate their employees (See Motivation page 19).


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The normative organisation could be argued as being the ideal organisation for the engineer.

In this environment the engineer is creating for their own goals. However these goals are

also the organisations goals. This removes the need for motivational techniques as the

engineers motivation is being driven by their own desire to create. The challenges that they

face are not designated by a manager, they are their own challenges.

Managers and employees who have been working for an organisation for many years will

have grown accustom to their environment and work schedule. The attention and priorities

that managers pay to certain areas will over time become the organisations culture.

Employees will react in ways which will suit them to the best advantage, while also achieving

their targets. The culture will affect the manner in which the manager attempts to

manipulate their environment for the organisations benefit. The manger must be able to

plan and foresee the implications of making changes to processes or employees. If the

manager is not careful they can lose faith, morale and trust from employees. Ultimately they

can damage their own reputation.

Motivation

Motivation is a vital ingredient when forming a productive working environment Once

motivated, they would be devoted to their job and the company's retention rate would

improve (Mak and Sockel 1999). Motivation can be gained through a mangers leadership

skills and challenges assigned to employees. It can be re-enforced by creating an

environment from which it can be tracked and enhanced. The environment can include

reward systems, job definitions and equality. Employees that are creative and have an

involvement with achievements are not just concerned with receiving money. They need to

have their accomplishments acknowledge, People need others to take an interest in what

they are doing and to give credit when a job is well done. (Belbin 2000).

The table on the next page matches each driver with a corresponding action from which the

benefits of motivated staff can be achieved.


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Figure 2 How to fulfill the drives that motivate employees

Source: Harvard Business review July- August 2008

The motivational system works by identifying four key concepts which help drive motivation.

Each driver has its own level of which actions are associated. The first being the reward

system, this brings about performance recognition. Top performers need to be noticed and

rewarded or achievements and hard work will be pointless. The culture lever is trying to

creating an environment from which team working is encouraged. A team that is working

collectively will in most scenarios be more effective than a team in which each member is

trying to compete with their co-worker. The job design is for focusing both the employee

and the organisation in identifying what they should be trying to achieve. The role should be

clearly defined so that both parties can identify, when targets have been reached and the

performance level of the employee. The stage and possibly the most important is the defend

driver. The employee must be able to understand and trust the decisions made with regard

to their own performance. There may be a time where the employee feels that they are due

a reward for achieving their targets. However there may also be other employees that have

worked and achieved their own targets. This is where the employee needs to understand

other aspects of the businesses processes or goals. Organisations do not budget for all


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employees receiving a pay rise or bonus, so people can lose out regardless of their

performance.

IT Engineer Characteristics

The characteristics of the engineer need to be investigated for several reasons. These

reasons are that IT engineers start the same way we didas technical people. (Rothman &

Esther 2005) and technical professionals are not only an R&D organization's greatest asset

but its most expensive investment as well(Badawy 2009).

A primary function of the IT manager, who has technical engineers as direct reports will be

to manage them. If the manager cannot understand the technical engineer, then they couldquickly lose control of their team. The manager must be able to understand the engineers

capabilities and motivational drivers. For an engineer who advances to management, the

change can be a confusing one. The focus for the new manager has moved away from

himself and onto their team.

The theory that technicians are not interested in cost, viewed as wanting to make things

happen and to create for themselves and not for organisations (Humphrey 1997) adds

valuable insight . This view has to be considered when assigning the engineers tasks and

goals. The engineer needs to feel they are improving their skills in areas that will be unique.

The engineer needs to feel invaluable and empowered.

(Rothman & Esther 2005) makes observations which provide a well established view as to

the current and historic state of IT management. These opinions add further dimensions

when comparing them to the characteristics of engineers. (Humphrey 1997) believes that

The complexity of professional performance comes from the inherent complexity of the

professionals themselves. This would suggest that an IT managers people skills need to be

greater than their technical skills, in-line with the technicians skill level. Humphreys

Managing Technical People covers the many aspects of the engineer and how to achieve in

different circumstances. (Humphrey 1997) applies similar baseline skills to (Rothman &

Esther 2005) in large technical environments. He concentrates on ideas like motivation,

respect, leadership and goals. (Humphrey 1997) believes that the engineer is seeking to

create their own monuments. He also believes that the best engineers dont work for a

company, a university or a laboratory, they work for themselves.


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The belief that engineers are anti-social (Lewin 1983) or are not recognised for

interpersonal skills (Feeny and Willcocks 1998), may impact the managers ability to lead.

This could have adverse effect on the managers integration within their environment.

Feeny and Willcocks go on to say that People tolerate technicians awkwardness and

tactlessness because they are confident of their ability to make things work, but how can a

manager be confident of their ability when they may not be able to understand and trust

their decisions?

Conclusion

One way of increasing the connectively between management and technical staff is through

organisation visibility. This is the level of understanding that the work force has of their

value within the organisation. Improving the employees understanding can be achieved

through the use of tools such as Key performance indicators (KPIs). The KPIs can be related

to a project, which is directly linked to an organisational goal. This creates a transparency

through the organisations hierarchy. The employee is able to see above their level of

responsibility and the effect that their work is having on the organisation. Visibility can

escalate an engineers commitment and motivation towards a job, as they have an

understanding of its importance. Establishing belief from a leadership perspective is crucial

in showing your followers the way in which they can make a difference.

Organisational visibility can also have a negative impact on staff morale. In some

circumstances they may be able to see their work as being worthless or impossible. This can

be compounded by the long-term goals or politics that can surround projects.

The PKIs must be realistic and staff must be allowed to contribute to the decision-making

(Likierman 1993). Allowing technical staff to have an input could be crucial in enhancing

their sense of creativity, ownership and responsibility. This can be the best way in which to

bring the technicians desire to create and build into alignment with the organisations

ambitions. The KPIs would need to be regularly revised and updated. They need to

accurately reflect the current status of projects and achievements, or their effectiveness will

be severely hindered due to lack of interest and importance.

A key aspect within a functional department is awareness. This is the managements and

staffs approach to keeping up to date with technology, market changes and competition.


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IBM conducted a survey on 163 programmers from several different laboratories to find out

how they kept up to date with the latest technologies. The results are (taken from

(Humphrey 1997) )

1. Seventy-two percent read trade magazines, but less than 19% read technical

journals on a regular basis.

2. Forty-two percent had attended company-sponsored symposia, workshops, or

seminars, but only 8% had been to external professional conferences.

3. Seventy-one percent spent five hours or less per month of personal or job time in keeping

informed of the latest technical events in their fields.

4. Eighty-seven percent had never published any external (to IBM) paper.

This survey provides evidence that both technicians and managers share risks, with regards

to them losing touch with their technical skills. Technical engineers in the majority of cases

are not looking outside of their environment to see what is emerging. The majority of

organisations do not appear to have any structured process that ensures that managers and

staff are keeping their technical skills at an optimum level. The rate of technological

advancement over the last 10 years has meant that experts who have not gained the latest

skills e.g. Oracle database administrators or Microsoft .net programmers will be redundant.

The hardware and software vendors have realised that they need skilled people to make

their products successful in the business world. Companies like Microsoft, Oracle, VMware

and many others have all created their own certifications (e.g. MCITP: Enterprise

Administrator, VMware VCP and Oracle certificate program) which are a qualifications for

their products. These certifications are valued differently depending on the vendor. They are

often not an employment requisite for smaller businesses and junior roles. The certifications

do not provide the experience or understanding of how to lever the products in an effort to

achieve organisations goals or targets. Knowledge of the products integration or design

faults are gained through hands on experience.

If you want an organisation like Microsoft or Oracle to audit your environment, then you will

need considerable funds. You are not guaranteed any improvement to your existing

infrastructure and recommendations are based on best practice.

The large software and hardware vendors spend millions (Zibreg 2008) on advertising and

promoting their products and packages, but these promotions are often well in advance of a


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large organisations intended rollout or upgrade strategy. This can have the impact of

employers not sending staff at the time of a products release due to existing commitments.

Managers can help keep their staff aware, by promoting the attendance of technical

meetings and through training. The engineers should be allowed to read technical forums

and technical news sites likehttp://www.theregister.co.uk/ . This can only be achieved

where resources are not stretched due to reactive commitments. Sustaining a cutting edge

technical environment relies on a proactive approach to the work environment. This is not

the common nature of a demanding business environment. Keeping track of your teams

skills and their abilities is vital in the managers assessment of how well they can perform

during peak times, business continuity and disaster recovery. The information will enable the

manager to distribute work to those who can accomplish the tasks in the most appropriate

manner. A manager needs to keep track of this information in large teams. Tools like a skills

matrix in figure 4 can be used to track a teams skill set.

Figure 3 Skills Matrix

Employee1 Employee2 Employee3 Employee4 Employee5

SQL Server 2 0 5 2 3DNS 2 4 2 4 2

DHCP 3 4 2 4 3

Server 2003 3 4 3 4 3

Active directory 4 4 3 4 4

Citrix 2 3 3 2 1

VMware 0 2 1 4 4

Skill level scoring: 5 = Expert and 0 = No experience

The skills matrix is used to identify three areas within the team. The three areas are skills

shortage, employee capability and work assignment. The matrix is able to identify which

employees are more capable and skilled. This can help the manager to identify less skilled

staff and which areas they should train in. This helps the manager to create a balanced team

that should be able to cope if members leave or are off sick. The manager is also able to

choose candidates for assigning work based on their capability and the works importance.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/http://www.theregister.co.uk/http://www.theregister.co.uk/http://www.theregister.co.uk/


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Chapter 2: Research methodology

Introduction

This chapter investigates the type of research methodology that will be appropriate for the

research topic. It covers the appropriate type of data sourcing and the pool from which it

can be sourced. The ethics of the questionnaire are listed, along with the method used to

achieve research triangulation.

Methodology

The research questions that are being asked are based on opinions and experiences

perceived through human consciousness. It would be possible to measure the environment

using quantitative methodologies through measuring performance, project costs, critical

success factors and competitive edge or alignment. However each of these areas can each

add further complexity and can be impacted greatly by external factors (e.g. Project funding

reallocation or grouping) which would not lead to a controlled experiment (Rugg and Petre

2007). The only way to acutely test the advantages of a manager with technical skills would

be to have two identical teams working on identical projects. You could then measure the

effects of having a technical manger on one team or project and not the other.

Human perception will provide a more in-depth and accessible way in which to gain

knowledge of the environment. It enables a complete scope of not only the technical factors

and achievements, but also the human and people skills. A core factor within perception is

the meaning or interpretation which the individual has gained through experience. The

meaning of that each individual hold can be gained through a variety of perceptions. Theseperceptions that will affect this research may have been gained through the following:

Social interaction within and outside of the organisation: This could be through

disgruntled staff that have been in an organisation for several years and been

unsuccessful in career advancement.

Organisational values: These could be valuing people and ensuring that everyone is

able to see a structured career framework or the ability to work part-time.


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Previous work environments: Comparing the positive and negative of different

organisations.

Organisational role: A managers view will be different than employees.

By using a deductive process to test the research questions it will be possible to create the

foundation for potential theories or hypotheses. The type of research that will be used to

gain theories on the research questions will be questionnaires, semi-structured and un-

structured interviews. The questionnaires will allow the respondent to take time to think

about their answers, as opposed to an interview where they are under pressure to answer

the questions. The extra time allowed should give the respondent time to think about

circumstances where the factors being asked have had an impact on a situation. For

example, when an engineer was faced with a problem and the manager was able to give

technical guidance leading to a solution.

The follow up semi-structured interviews can probe into particular areas of interest which

may have been discovered during the questionnaire results analysis. If a particular

respondents opinion is opposing a trend within the questionnaires, it will be useful to find

out why. Detailed opinions providing further evidence can also be obtained for as evidencefor research discoveries.

The respondents will be a mix of technical managers, non-technical mangers and technical

engineers. The importance of involving the mangers and team members is crucial for

capturing all view points. The recognition of the team dynamic has been identified

teamwork is foremost among the matters that will demand attention from management in

future years(Belbin 2000) and it is effective teams and not specific individuals which are

necessary for the continual growth, development and day-to-day management of an

organization (Sommerville and Dalziel 1998). Having a cross section of respondents will

enable a more balanced approach to potential opposing opinions, from the different groups.

The respondents will compose of technical engineers that have experienced both types of

managers. The managers and technical staff will be identifiable through ought the research

analysis and can be grouped or isolated for research analysis.


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Figure 4 Balanced research design method.

The sampling will be done using a stratified technique (Blaxter et al. 2006). Each of the

organisations being used in the research has many departments. Individuals will be picked

from within those groups. The groups are contained within the different organisations

should generate different results.

The research will involve different types of organisations (e.g. Government, IT services and

Financial). The organisations identity will be kept anonymous, but profiled so that any trends

can be identified.

The pool of candidates to receive the questionnaire is as follows:

IT hardware/service provider 5

Government funded organisation 10

Government run organisation 3

Financial organisation 2

IT services provider 3

Other potential candidates 10

Approximate total 33

The organisations being used during the study add a wide variety of circumstances. The

variety is important because it enables the research to cover a wider spectrum of

environments from which to gather evidence. The IT based organisations will have

procedures and routines that could be enforced throughout the organisation. The

government funded organisations may have bespoke procedures and routines which they

will have created at a local level. The organisation sizes will vary in size and will be grouped

in the following bands:


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Figure 5 Orginisational banding.

Organisational band Number of employees

Small 1-100

Medium 100-500Large 500-1000

Very large 1500+

Ethics

The ethics with regards to the questionnaire and interview data are that:

All data will be kept securely in-line with the data protection act 1998.

The answers and reasons given will be viewed as the interviewees opinion and will be

anonymous.

The interviewees employer will be kept anonymous.

The profile of the interviewees organisation will be used for research purposes and will not

be used to identify your employer.

The data will be kept securely and anonymous, as it may provide negative or controversial

information which the respondent may not wish others to see. Allowing the respondent to

have anonymity gives them the assurance that they can express their opinion. The

organisations anonymity provides another level of assurance to the respondents identity, as

it could be revealed through the companys identification.

The questionnaire will allow for qualitative research through the use of ranked point scoring

and semi-structured questions. This list of questions will be the main topics of the research:

How do managers technical skills benefit their role?

Do technical engineers prefer to work under technical managers or non-technical managers?

Should non-technical IT managers be involved with the technical aspects of organisational

strategy?

Do managers who have technical skills benefit technical engineers?

Each of the above topics will have a subset of questions attempting to gain insight into the

questions being asked. Each question will have four alternatives from which the respondent


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will divide 9 points. They will be asked to give a higher number of points to the alternative

which is most similar to their opinion. It is important to give a ranking method of scoring so

that the results are easy to analyse. The respondents are likely to a have a strong and

detailed opinion on the subject area which would not provide a level from which to gauge

their response. They will then have the option to comment on their scoring, allowing them

to express their views in detail.

Triangulation

The main source of data for the dissertation is the questionnaire. The questionnaire alone

cannot be judged as an unbiased and general a consensus from the entire business

community. The data collected from the questionnaire may not be conclusive and a

triangulation of data and information will provide structured evidence. The research within

this dissertation will involve methodological triangulation which is the use of a

combination of methods such as case studies, interviews and surveys. (Gray 2004) .

Figure 6 Research triangulation

Technical knowledgequestionnaire

Semi-structured

InterviewsLiterature review

Analy

seby

comparison

Analyse by comparison

Ana

lysebycomparison

Figure 6 depicts the triangulation of the three data sources that will be used. The data

sources are uniquely sourced and will create unbiased research material from which a

conclusion can be drawn. The data sources will be pitted against each other in an effort to


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create a structured response to the research questions. The data sources are the literature

review, technical knowledge questionnaire and semi-structured interviews.


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Chapter 3: Research implementation

Introduction

This chapter contains the methodologies and stages that will be used in gathering the data

to be used for research purposes. The chapter includes the stages that will be used to

perform the research, the questionnaire deign and concerns surrounding the methods

Research stages

The research will be carried out over five separate stages. Each stage has been identified in

figure 7 and explained in the following text.

Figure 7 Research stages


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Stage 1: Stage one will involve the initial draft question being taken by one or two

candidates to check for understanding, design (easy of input/use) and any other

observations/suggestions

Stage 2: Stage two involves contacting each candidate and sending out the

questionnaire form. A reminder to all candidates to complete their questionnaire

will be sent out after 3 weeks. On receipt of the results, they will be input into a

spreadsheet for analysis.

Stage 3: This will involve the analysis of the data to try and identify trends or

patterns within the collected data.

Stage 4: After analysis has been completed, those areas which may require further

investigation will be identified and the individuals associated will be contacted for

interview purpose. Data collected for interview will then be analysed.

Stage 5: The final findings of the report will be written up and submitted for review.

Questionnaire

The questionnaire is divided into four sections. The first section is a group of pull down

selection boxes which are asking the respondent about their characteristics (e.g. gender,

manager, age and organisation type). There is also likert question included in section 1. The

likert scale asks whether, and how strongly, they agree or disagree, using one of a number

of positions on a five-point scale (Brace 2008). The question is asking the respondent if they

agree that technical understanding of a managers domain is necessary when managing IT.

This is a core question to the potential hypotheses that IT managers need technical

awareness. It will be possible to further test this belief against their answers given to the

further sections.

These questions have been aligned with the advice given Box 6.19 Hints on wording

questions (Blaxter, Huges, & Tight 2006). Each of the questions will be linked in the analysis

stage. An example of this could be deduced from the looking at question 1. B and question 2.

A. The two statements should in theory be in some way aligned. This is because a manager

that has good technical understanding would in theory get involved with technical issues.


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Sections 1-3 uses the same method as Belbins Team Role Self-Perception Inventory (SPI).

Belbins team SPI uses the individuals beliefs to explore the characteristics of the

organisations employee.

Section 1. IT managers

Section 1 is focusing on the primary area of research. The questions are based around the

managers technical skills and understanding versus administrative and people skills.

Question 1.

A: IT managers need IT skills because they are then able to able to communicate the

technical environment effectively.

B: IT managers need IT skills because they need to be able to understand the challenges

their staff face.

C: IT managers need IT skills to be able to be innovative and understand the technical risks

D: IT managers need IT skills so that they can be a mentor to their staff.

Question 1 tests which characteristics of an IT manager are more highly regarded. This is

important as it asking the respondent to give their opinion as to which key management

skills are more important in managing IT. The respondent has the option of choosing

communication, understanding, innovation and mentoring.

Question 2.

A: IT managers should help with technical issues and understand the impact that they have.

B: IT managers should promote innovation within the team and encourage the staff to help

them achieve their goals

C: IT managers should provide direction and leadership to help guide their staff and prioritise

goals in stormy times.

D: IT managers should be efficient and hardworking to help stabilise and support the team.

Question 2 intends to ascertain which actions are more highly valued. These actions should

in some way correlate with the scores given for question 1. It focuses on technical

understanding, motivation, leadership and support.


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Question 3.

A: IT managers should have no understanding of technical issues and should be there to

manage the team.

B: IT mangers should have a wide understanding of technical issues. This enables them to

understand the complexity and impact of technical challenges.

C: IT managers should have in-depth technical understanding in specific areas. This enables

them to become a mentor in specific areas and get involved with technical challenges.

D: IT managers should have a full understanding of all technical issues. They can become a

mentor in all areas and provide technical insight on all occasions.

Question 3 is asking for respondent to score what they believe an IT managers level of

technical understanding should be. The different levels have been split by using different

degrees of technical knowledge and how the knowledge would be applied.

Question 4.

A: IT managers should be approachable, likeable, understanding and technically unskilled.

B: IT managers should be strategically thoughtful, business aware and technically unskilled.

C: IT managers should be unforgiving, challenging and technically very skilled.D: IT managers should be hardworking, determined and very technically skilled.

Question 4 is asking the whether the manager should be emotionally intelligent or

technically skilled. This is challenging the belief that engineers need technical skills more

than people or administrative skills. The first two questions are biased towards leadership

and non-technical managers. The last two are based on a very technical manager.

Question 5.

A: IT managers should be encouraging and technically skilled.

B: IT managers should be motivating and technically competent.

C: IT managers should be affectionate and technically competent.

D: IT managers should be caring and technically very skilled.


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Question 5 is asking the respondent to give their opinions on motivation versus technical

competency.

Section 2. Leadership

Section 2 covers leadership within the respondents organisation. The respondents opinion

on leadership is important to gain insight as to whether leadership and organisational values

are influencing the results gained from section 1.

Question 1.

A: The IT leadership in our firm is best characterised as collaborative and visionary.

B: The IT leadership in our firm is best characterised as entrepreneurial and risk-taking.

C: The IT leadership in our firm is best characterised as conceptual and strategic.

D: The IT leadership in our firm is best characterised as stabilising and reliable.

The leadership values in the organisation are important so that an opinion is given as to the

type of values that are present. It is important to gain the respondents opinion, so that the

leadership values can be compared to the organisations type and the engineers view. An

organisations engineers may prefer a different type of manager based on their

environment.

Question 2.

A: The top IT values in an organisation are teamwork, openness and trust.

B: The top IT values in an organisation are freedom, innovation and risk taking.

C: The top IT values in an organisation are competence, achievement and excellence.

D: The top IT values in an organisation are efficiency, hard work and duty.

Question 2 is similar to its approach as question1, except it is asking for the organisations IT

values.


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Section 3. Engineers

The final section is to gather data around the characteristics of engineers. The data gathered

within this section will be used to consider how an engineers characteristics need to be

considered when attempting to lead, motivate and manage.

Question 1.

A: Technical engineers are very sociable.

B: Technical engineers are creative.

C: Technical engineers are best left to their own devices.

D: Technical engineers are the wheels of the organisation.

The set of statements in the question are based on conceived perceptions of technical

engineers. It is important to give both managers and engineers the chance to either enforce

or renounce their beliefs with regards to the perceptions. Each of the perceptions can have

an effect on which management and leadership skills should be applied.

Question 2.

A: Technical engineers create for their own interest.

B: Technical engineers create to achieve organisational goals.

C: Technical engineers create to solve problems.

D: Technical engineers create what they are instructed to do.

The last question is focusing on the engineers creativity. The engineers creative side can be

the difference between a standard and outstanding employee. The engineers creativity can

outweigh other social and professional skills. If an engineer is able to produce results that no

others can, then exceptions can be made in those areas.


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Concerns

There are a few concerns that may affect the research and its outcome given the methods

being used. The concerns consist of the following areas:

Lack of evidence to prove any theory

Lack of input from candidates

Research area being too large

The three areas stated are common concerns that may be faced in many research topics

(Blaxter, Huges, & Tight 2006). The subject area has been refined as to try and cover as much

scope for potential theories. The semi-structured interviews will allow further investigation

into potential evidence and theory.


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Chapter 4: Research analysis

Introduction

This chapter presents the results of the data collected from the questionnaire sent to the IT

engineers and managers of different organisations and the semi-structured interviews.

Once the data had been collected, there was a question of consistency and inconsistency

amongst the people from the different companies. This chapter analyses the data collected

and looks for anomalies and trends from managers, engineers and organisations.

Initial findings

The initial section of the questionnaire contains the questions from which the respondents

profile can be created. The results from the profiling (See appendix 1) show that a fairly

broad response was received from all categories. The responses rate from males was 76%

and 23% female. This is in line with 20.3% of woman who worked in engineering and related

technologies or as technicians in 2007 Survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The balance of mangers was 40% and thus 60% were purely engineers. There were no

managers in the 18-25 age range and an even spread of 13.3% in the 26-35, 36-45 and 46-55

ranges. The average age range of all the respondents was 26-35 proving that the IT sector is

still a young profession and that there could be a lack of managers with many years of

experience within the IT sector.

The average technical focus of the respondents was technical with exactly 50% of the

respondents believing that they had technical knowledge. There were no respondents who

had no technical knowledge and there was an almost equal response from both fairly

technical and very technical engineers.

The organisation size was primary in the 1500+ employees with 73 %. This was predictable

as the smaller non-technology based organisations would not have had a large enough

infrastructure to warrant large IT departments and highly skilled technical engineers. The

respondents were spread across all sectors with technology, government and commercial

being the top three.


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The belief of the respondents was that technical understanding was necessary when

managing IT and a comprehensive 70% agreed to the statement (see figure 8). Only 6%

thought that it wasnt a contributory factor and they were all engineers. No respondents

disagreed or strongly disagreed.

Figure 8 Technical understanding of a managers domain is necessary when managing IT

Technical knowledge

The first section of the scored based responses was around the managers technical skills,

leadership and management skills. The first bank of four questions scored as follows:

Figure 9 Section 1. IT managers, question 1 score table

Response A scored the highest in question 1. This gives an indication towards

communication skills being the most favourable reason for an IT manager to require

technical skills. The requirement for managers to understand the engineers challenges came

second with only a 7% difference. When managers and engineers scores are separated out,

engineers believed that managers needed to understand their challenges by a greater

amount of 4%. The requirement for technical understanding is an important value to

engineers and managers, although the reasons behind the understanding are not known.

The manager may wish to know how long a task may take or which tasks may be too

technical for an engineers capability. An engineer may want the manager to have an


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understanding of the technical impact that this work will have on the infrastructure. The

need for mentoring was the lowest of the options that was chosen.

Managers believed that they needed to be more innovative and understand the technical

risks by a 10% difference than engineers. The managers who scored this option maybe

feeling that they do not have a full understanding of the technical architecture and thus feel

unable to be innovative.


Direction, leadership and motivation were the most highly regarded attributes from

question 2. The most interesting result being that IT managers should help with technical

issues which was the scored as having the least importance. Engineers and managers both

believed that they should be helping with technical issues with equal amounts of only 17% of

the points available.


Answer B in question 3 achieved the highest score of all questions within the questionnaire.

This statement is perhaps the most important reason for a manager to have technical skills.

The least popular answer was that IT managers should have no technical skills. This is a

significant result as contributes to the research questions. It was not the lowest scoring

result in the questionnaire, but its low score shows a considerable opinion.


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The choice between technical, business and management skills was tested in question 4. The

unforgiving and challenging statement scored the lowest. This opinion provides evidence as

to the statement that a high level of technical skill is not necessarily preferential to

engineers, when faced with a manager who is unforgiving and challenging.


The second highest scoring question within the questionnaire was choice B from question 5.

It has a 55% share of the marks for the question and is very strong preference for

motivational skills. The motivational skill scores greater than a manager with encouragement

skills and superior technical skills by 22%.


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Leadership Findings

The leadership section of the questionnaire was designed to capture the respondents

organisations leadership type and configuration.

Figure 14 Section 2. Leadership, question 1 score table

Question 1 intended to discover the organisational leadership characteristics within

organisations and whether this impacted on the respondents requirements. The commercial

organisations described their organisations characteristics as being isolated and fire fighting

with an average of 3.8. The Technology and Government based organisations were evenly

scored with the highest rating being that ofgrounded and trustworthy averaging at 3 and

3.6 retrospectively.

The managers believed that leadership in their organisation was unresponsive and out of

touch by allotting it 20% of the marks available for this question. The engineers have scored

their leadership as being isolated and fire fighting with 30%, 28% believed it was grounded

and trustworthy. It appears from these results that the organisations polled in the

questionnaire have different leadership structures and values. Only 17% of engineers

thought that management was out of touch and unresponsive.

Figure 15 Section 2. Leadership, question 3 score table

This result table provides an insight into type of values that employees will need to achieve

so that they can become a valued employee. The results show that being an efficient and

hardworking employee will increase your standing over that of the achievers and innovators.


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Managers and engineers scored the same percentages within 5% for each question. This

means that the work ethics for both are similar.

Engineers findings

The last section of the questionnaire was focused around engineers. The two questions in

the section were geared around the characteristics of the engineer and whether this has an

impact on how managers viewed engineers and how they viewed themselves. The benefits

of understating their views could change the approach in which leadership skills or technical

skills were applicable. The engineers and managers scored this section with similar scores,

which is a strong view point from which to base the analysis. The maximum differential

between the engineers and managers scores was 5%.

Figure 16 Section 3. Engineers, question 1 score table

The leading statement was that engineers are the wheels of the organisation. This statement

is evaluating the importance of the engineer within the organisation. It is highlighting the

importance of the managers ability in lead the team. The implications of the wheel are that

the engineer could bring the organisation success or failure. The engineers responsibility to

provide a platform for the organisations environment can be extremely demanding given the

resources that could be available to the engineer. The mangers role is to balance the correct

level of resources for the engineers while reducing costs and improving productivity. The

managers dilemma is between making the wheels of the organisation turn smoothly and

keeping engineers motivated, or making the engineers work harder by pushing the

infrastructure to its limits and thus reducing expenditure on new systems. This pushes the

requirement for managers technical skills to be at a level where they can understand the

technical risks that they are undertaking.

The creative aspect of the engineer was selected as the second most appropriate response.

The creative attribute being favoured more than the isolated and sociable aspects. The


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creative aspect of the engineer has become vital in todays increasingly complex

heterogeneous infrastructures. If the engineer is not able to create solutions using existing

hardware or software, then systems can be in danger of failing or becoming redundant.

The isolated characteristic of the engineer points toward the engineer wanting to create for

themselves and being left to their own devices. This was brought to the respondents

attention in statement C. The engineers scored this slightly higher than the managers with a

5% difference. This does not provide enough evidence to prove that engineers prefer to be

left to manage themselves, but it cannot be discounted.

The social side of the engineer scored only 18% of the votes. This needs to be considered

due to the impact on team working and integration. It also adds further evidence to

strengthen the argument for statement C. The lack of social skills can be one of the most

challenging aspects of the engineers characteristics that the manager may have to

overcome. A team of highly qualified engineers can have their own individual styles and

techniques for designing or problem solving. If the team is not able to integrate and work

together on a social level then the true capabilities of the team may be impacted. Strong

social skills enable individuals to adopt the social roles needed to manage conflict,

coordinate their work, and otherwise work in a more cooperative and integrated fashion

with others (Morgeson et al. 2005).

Figure 17 Section 3. Engineers, question 2 score table

The final question is very similar to question 1 in its topic, but it is attempting to re-question

the respondents beliefs from alternative creative reasoning. Managers and engineers both

scored the same within 1% of the other. The favoured result being that engineers create to

solve problems, this is the closest match to the words definition One who contrives,

designs, or invents (Simpson 2009). The second placed result ofengineers create to

achieve organisation goals is import when the manager is attempting to translate goals into

tasks. If the manger can enunciate the organisational goals then this will help emphasis the

engineers steer when designing systems or prioritising work. If managers fail to provide

clear direction for the project, if they fail to carefully conceptualize and communicate the


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overall mission, members of the team may make fragmented and disjointed efforts.

(Amble 1983)

There is evidence to suggest that engineers are creating to solve problems rather than what

they are instructed to do. This does not mean that they are not achieving what they are

instructed to, but rather that they are creative during the concept phase. This allows the

engineer the space to be creative within their environment and to not feel overly restricted.

The removal of the need for technical guidance or input by a manager at this phase could in

fact restrict the engineers capability to achieve the best outcome. The requirement for a

managers technical knowledge during the concept stage of a technical challenge can be

detrimental to the creativity of the process. Allowing the engineers creative room is

important, as it allows the engineer a greater scope for the best possible solution.Management control over the design process as well as the conservative (non-risk taking)

reward structures are interpreted as inhibiting creativity by reducing user motivation

(Cooper 2000)

Feedback and comments made on questionnaire

The questionnaire had optional comment areas after each question a

Documents

How Do Technical Skills Aafect Information Technology Managers