Bristol Institute for Technology

How do technical skills affect information technology managers?

Author: James Allen

J_allen_@hotmail.com
Year 2009-2010 Submission 2010-04 Supervisor: Dr Robert Stephens
Module number: UFIE8F-60-M - Dissertation (Information Technology) Number of words: 15,427

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

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

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 11 Section 1. IT managers, question 3 score table ....................................................... 40 Figure 12 Section 1. IT managers, question 4 score table ....................................................... 41 Figure 13 Section 1. IT managers, question 5 score table ....................................................... 41 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

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.

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.

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 nontechnical 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 semistructured interviews.

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.

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

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 and Kraemer 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 managers role. 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 technology development 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 an understanding of all technology genres, whether it is email systems, databases,

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programming languages or directory services. There are new technologies being invented (e.g. Server/personal computer virtualisation or cloud computing) which will spread the technological understanding even thinner amongst IT managers. As ITs growth expands the technical skills and understanding for the IT manager becomes impossible. A new type of IT service management has emerged in which technical engineers are managed by non-technical and low technical managers. The technical engineers are providing a service to another organisation. The service allows the technical engineer to make all of the technical decisions within the organisation in which they are providing the service. The engineers manager is only responsible for the management of the customers relationship and expectations. This creates an environment where the engineer is responsible for technical advice and strategy. The engineer is however interfacing with other technical engineers at the customers organisation. This creates a stepping stone from which the technical decisions are grounded. The engineers employed at the customers site will most likely have their own goals and strategy to adhere to. The natural progression from the engineer to the manager has in effect signed the fate of the individuals technical understanding. The individuals technical skills will slowly start to degrade as they spend less time dealing technical issues. They will need to gain people skills and learn how to relate to their colleagues in a managerial capacity and with a reduced technical capacity. theres lots of emphasis on technical training, there isnt much attention paid to training managers in technical organizations.(Rothman & Esther 2005). Managers dont generally receive anywhere near the level of education and training that is needed to significantly improve productivity in their work areas.(Hinkle 2009) A Technical IT manager could be placed into a stressful role and regret, that they can no longer tackle technical issues head on. The manager can in some circumstances be a danger, as they may still wish to get involved with technical issues. This can create a risk, as they are no longer an expert in that area and it may also upset the technical engineers. The technical engineers will not trust a manager who does not trust their own expertise or makes configuration changes, when they do not fully understand the technical complexity. Leadership

Leadership skills can exist and benefit all levels of an organisation. The study of leadership has changed dramatically in recent years and a vast amount of literature is currently available. Technical leadership has a prominent position in the work place due to the many

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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 create excellence. 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 culture which 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 a fair 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 could quickly 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 like http://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

SQL Server DNS DHCP Server 2003 Active directory Citrix VMware

Employee1 Employee2 Employee3 Employee4 Employee5 2 0 5 2 3 2 4 2 4 2 3 4 2 4 3 3 4 3 4 3 4 4 3 4 4 2 3 3 2 1 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.

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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. These perceptions 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 unstructured 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 evidence for 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 Government funded organisation Government run organisation Financial organisation IT services provider Other potential candidates Approximate total

5 10 3 2 3 10 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 Small Medium Large Very large Ethics

Number of employees 1-100 100-500 500-1000 1500+

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 knowledge questionnaire

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Literature review

Analyse by comparison

Semi-structured Interviews

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.

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

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. Figure 11 Section 1. IT managers, question 3 score table

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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Figure 12 Section 1. IT managers, question 4 score table

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. Figure 13 Section 1. IT managers, question 5 score table

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 of grounded 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 of engineers 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 and also at the end. There were several comments made. This section highlights the most important comments with regards to the research questions.

The following comment was made from a manager within a technology based organisation.

The most suitable engineer is promoted to the team manager role who is responsible for technical infrastructure. The reason why the engineer is suitable because they are technically aware and often the only people who can lead a team which needs to achieve technically complex projects on time, budget and quality. (Anon Respondent 2)

This provides evidence around the need for technical skills within a manager. The technical understanding that is required to complete projects is due to the engineers awareness and leadership qualities. The respondent has highlighted the fact that there is no other logical

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source from where the manager can be sourced from within the organisation. This would in theory, limit the choice with regards to management and leadership candidates.

A manager of a large technology based organisation stated that he was never a fan of people coming in without technical skills/ background. Most struggled and moved on to sales areas etc quite quickly. (Anon respondent 11). In a technology based organisation there is an increased requirement for technical creativity and understanding. This managers experience was that those who lacked technical knowledge moved into other areas where it was not as essential. He also stated that From my own experience, it has definitely helped by having some level of technical knowledge/ background.(Anon respondent 12).

management should to a degree be technically aware to be able to empower the staff to be innovative, productive and efficient but he or she does not have to be technically very skilled as the team as a whole should carry that skill (anon respondent 3)

The need for team building and skills distribution has been identified in the comment. The manager needs to understand their technical challenges and team capabilities. This will enable the team to be more productive than taking each engineer on an individual basis.

My manager never understood the technical complexity and could never understand why some jobs took longer than others and when achievements had been made. (Anon respondent 12) The evidence from this respondent supports the need for technical knowledge in its use in communication, motivation and understanding.

Semi-structured interviews

The semi-structured interviews are designed to add further evidence or clean up anomalies from the results from the questionnaire. The questionnaire did not produce any anomalies within the research topic. The interviews would be based around the topic area. There were 3 semi-structured interviews conducted. They were all with engineers of which 2 were from technology and the third was from a retail organisation.

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The semi-structured interviews were based on the 9 questions below. The analysis of the responses follows each question. 1. How do you think that technical skills help or hinder an IT manager? The overall response to this question was that it improved understanding and communication between the manager and their team. technical understanding allows managers to communicate with engineers in their own language. (anon1)

2. How do technical skills benefit of hinder a manager in areas other than management? There were several areas mentioned by the interviewees. They included strategic decisions, awareness and technical awareness. They believed that technical skills help to improve relations with other members of the organisation. In one response it was evident that a lack of technical skills may have led to a manager being unable to handle negotiations between departments If he was always rushing back to us to ask us things, then I think they would walk all over him. (anon3).

3. Does technical knowledge at higher levels of management affect the way in which organisational goals are achieved?

This question provoked a variety of results. The results point to a lack of communication or understanding between the technical engineers and higher levels of management I dont think senior management actually know what we are doing. (anon2). This lack of understanding between higher levels of management is predictable due to the lack of coexistence. This is a role for the manager in bridging the management levels to their team. If the manager has several layers which are above him Decisions are taken at a higher level and the work is streamed down to the lower levels. (anon1), then this information can be lost or filtered out. A lack of information, It is sometimes difficult to see the organisational goals at the local level (anon1) or the wrong type of information can damage motivation and understanding for the engineer. The engineer Anon3 was told users dont like (Anon3), but not was not told the good.

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The ability to establish open communication and trust between management is essential Ideally the manager should try to foster an environment of trust allowing decisions to be taken as close to the issue as possible. (anon1).

4. Do you think that managerial technical knowledge is more important in different organisation types? There is a respect for technical understanding within technology based organisations I work in a technology based organisation and technical knowledge is viewed very highly (anon1). The overall opinion was that information technology will be as important regardless of organisation.

5. Do you think that leadership skills are important for IT managers?

The need for leadership skills was identified from all the interviewees. They agreed that the manager needs to be able to lead the team control the team and get everybody working (anon3) and filter the information that came from management into achievable goals If you have a manger that acted like an engineer all the time, then the targets that the organisation are try to achieve would be lost (anon1).

6. Would you prefer to work to work with technical or non-technical managers? The need for a technical manager was evident I dont think that we could have a nontechnical manager. I think we would be spending all of our time explaining things (anon2). There was also the need for a manager who did not interfere with technical problems I dont need someone to tell me how to fix technical problems. (anon3). The balance would appear to be a manager with an overall understanding of technology.

7. Should non-technical IT managers be involved with the technical aspects of organisational strategy? If the managers have a technical understanding then they are able of making technical strategic decisions. The need to involve the engineers was highlighted If they have not consulted us about it, then no.(anon2). 8. Are technical engineers creative people or are they just part of the work force?

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There was no clear answer as to whether the engineers believed themselves to be creative. There was a belief towards invention, mending and creativity. 9. Do you think senior management has made mistakes with regards to technical decisions? The evidence in response to this question can be related to two theories. The first being a breakdown in the information and communication flow between management structures. The evidence points toward a loss of technical understanding between management implementing systems that on paper to appear like they will solve problems. (anon1). The second view could be the result of unknown complexity during the implementation of new systems Once you understand the technical complexities you can understand the potential pitfalls. (anon1). The lack of technical understanding within management who make decisions was identified Managers just make decisions based on what is put in front of them. (anon3)

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Chapter 5: Research findings

Introduction
The evidence gathered from the research analysis can now be applied to the initial research questions. This chapter addresses each research question individually against the research from the literature review, questionnaire and the semi-structured interviews How do managers technical skills benefit their role?

Technical skills will benefit a manager by enabling them to translate organisational goals into technical objectives. The managers ability to communicate the technical environment was the highest scoring response in question 1, which was designed to test the most favourable attributes of an IT manager. When dealing with decisions in a management capability, making uninformed decisions can be very damaging. A manager, who does not understand the consequences of making the correct technical decision, can hinder the achievement of organisational goals. The skill in understanding a technical roadmap or technical complexity is beneficial, when focusing on the long-term strategic goals of the organisation. The manager needs to have an overall understanding of the technical roadmap and a desire to encourage their engineers to reach the businesses goals. There is a requirement for management to create a guidelines and targets which define the business objectives. The targets need to be acknowledged and rewarded when they have been achieved. However, the majority of reward systems in organisations are produced by human resource systems and do not identify creativity and problem resolution. There will be a loss of recognition from the manager if they cannot identify, when an engineer has overcome an extremely difficult problem or created a technological advancement. technical understanding allows managers to communicate with engineers in their own language. (anon1). The manager must be able to identify these achievements to award them with recognition, which is part of the motivation process. If the engineers work is not recognised, then there is no reason for the engineer to go the extra steps toward providing a system that does more than the minimum requirements.

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Technical skills will enable a more enhanced communication link with the engineer. The cross over between understanding what the technical engineer is trying to convince management to consider, is in some ways part of the organisations strategy. The manager must be able to understand the overall picture or they wont be able to comprehend what the engineer is trying to convey .Open communication is crucial in forming relationships and a desired culture value (Ware 2004). The managers technical skills will affect the team and the management structure that the manager resides in. The managers ability to communicate technically with their team and colleagues will improve relationships. Communication is contributory to the movement of information within organisations. Information and communication are key aspects of the decision making process. If they are lacking, trust cannot be established and the relationship can be damaged. Organisations which provide out sourced technology or technical support have a lesser requirement for a managers technical understanding. The reason for this is because the requirement to produce an organisations IT strategy maybe be removed. This results in the technical manager being responsible for the customers satisfaction and not necessarily in the technical decisions made by the engineer. It can be argued that ultimately the decisions made by the engineer are what affect the customers satisfaction. It is however in the engineers interest to make sure that they are aligned with the customers requirements. The manager must be able to correlate the organisational goals with a technical roadmap. Motivating engineers towards the challenges that will help achieve organisational goals is key concept, which should never be out of the managers sight. Creating a motivational environment requires handwork, determination and an interest from the managers perspective. If he was always rushing back to us to ask us things, then I think they would walk all over him. (anon3) A manager must show their employees that they are hardworking and involved with the environment and its challenges. Through the study of organisations behaviour and its team beliefs, it is possible to ascertain the level of their effectiveness. The cohesion of managers within their teams can be greatly improved though an understanding of the engineers characteristics. Decision makers like the project manager who wants to finish a project on time or the senior manager/director who is concerned with productivity and profit/turnover, need to be able to interface at a level where they can get direct answers. These answers must be in non-

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technical explanations to technically complex problems. The manger must have technical knowledge to be able to relay the problems and answer questions in direct and understandable terms. If they are unable to do this, then there is risk to trust and belief. The practices of the manager have been highlighted in a study conducted by the Harbridge House in Boston, Massachusetts. 6,500 managers in more than 100 companies were questioned as to how important it was that managers employed management behaviours. The top two results from a study of these answers were making clear-cut decisions when needed and getting to the heart of the problems rather than dealing with less important issues.. These practices are near impossible for a manager to do if they are faced with limited technical understanding.

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

The evidence from the questionnaires, interviews and feedback prove that engineer would prefer a technical manager. The highest scoring question within the questionnaire was that IT mangers should have a wide understanding of technical issues. This enables them to understand the complexity and impact of technical challenges.. The many different management styles that could be interlaced with the technical skills, can introduce doubt. There is also opinion that technicians prefer a manager that can manage and lead as opposed to being a technical guru. There does not appear to be a requirement for the manager to have in-depth technical understanding. It is clear that there are benefits to team working for both the manager and the engineer with regards to technical competence. The results show that the manager must be able to understand their environment from a technical perspective and communicate this understanding to others. The managers knowledge of the environment is not essential for the engineer in a mentor capacity, but more as understanding of the planning and strategic needs for the infrastructure. The engineer has a creative role and the need for innovation and creativity from the manager is not important, as it could have an obstructive impact The organisations goals are as vital to the engineer, as they are to the manager. The managers ability to understand what the organisations goals mean in technical terms is important to the engineer. Motivating the engineers towards the technical challenges that will help achieve organisational goals is not directly important to the engineer. However, the

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engineer could produce an outstanding piece of work as instructed by their manager. If the system does not help to achieve the organisations goals, the engineer may become delusionary. The engineer needs to have a manager who can remove the obstacles like administration and organisational politics, so that they are free to perform their technical engineering. Should non-technical IT managers be involved with the technical aspects of organisational strategy?

All organisations need an understanding of technology at any level, which will affect the direction of combined IT and business strategy. It is possible to concede that the requirement from every level of management to have an overall understanding of IT is gaining momentum and that IT strategy is at the core of many organisations. The level of technical competence will reduce in the majority of organisations at each level of management. This can result in the organisations goals and achievements being filtered through the levels of management. Each level having to flesh out the goals and target into realistic terms for that level. The technical managers will have to use their existing resources or put forward project plans to make the goals achievable. In many cases, this results in a technical project which then has to go back up through the management levels for approval. The technical designs will in most cases be in-comprehensible to the management board. This means that the decisions being made by the board that will not be based on understanding but on trust. When the management board is agreeing to project funding that may run into millions of pounds, it is done on a trust basis. Trust is viewed by Ware (2004) as being a crucial element within leadership. The difference in this environment is that the leaders trust the engineers, which ultimately leads to the engineers leading the managers.

It is possible to concede that the decision on whether to implement system y and system x is left in the hands of the IT engineer. The requirement for managers to have an overall understating of technology will help guide and motivate the engineers. Engineers need to understand the business goals so that they are not just creating or implementing system x for themselves. If management cannot trust their engineers, then the IT department may be creating systems which provide little benefit to the end user.

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Do managers who have technical skills benefit technical engineers?

Technical people have the ability to analyse technical complexities and seek out potential problems, managers should be encouraging them to investigate and create within their environment. The second highest scoring result in the questionnaire was IT managers should be motivating and technically competent. This is essential in information technology based organisations where technical innovation is an important factor in the organisations success. Government and financial organisations are more likely to require grounded and trustworthy systems. In these types of organisation it is important for the engineer to have greater understanding of the existing systems and their integration with future projects. Managing technical staff requires insight into the type of people technicians or engineers are. Understanding the technical challenges that technical people face does not necessarily provide any benefit in managing the individual, but it does benefit the relationship I dont think that we could have a non-technical manager. I think we would be spending all of our time explaining things (anon2).

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Chapter 6: Conclusion
Introduction

This chapter draws a conclusion from the research findings in the literature review, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews.

Technical knowledge

The evidence from the questionnaires, interviews and feedback prove that engineers would prefer a manager with an overall technical understanding. In the majority of cases the manager should not be involved with fixing or interfering with technical issues. If the manager understands the characteristics of their engineers and their environment, they will be able to create an environment from which the optimum output and creativity can be established. This is aided by the use of management, leadership and technical understanding. Technical people have the ability to analyse technical complexities and seek out potential problems. Managers should be encouraging them to investigate and create within their environment. This is important in information technology based organisations where technical innovation has an impact on the organisations ability to react and innovate. Government and financial organisations are more likely to require engineers who understand their local environment. These types of organisation require grounded and trustworthy systems.

Engineers

The engineers are the wheels of many organisations that rely on IT to achieve their goals. Engineers have to be viewed with a high degree of aptitude. The technician is by definition a skilled, valued and costly worker. As a resource they need to be managed effectively. If the engineers were to walk out or cause malicious damage, it would cause catastrophic problems.

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The most creative environment for a technical engineer is one in which they are able to achieve goals which have been translated into technical objectives. The engineer should be able to work without interruption. It is unproductive and costly to have engineers spending their time doing work, which is not related to their specialism. Engineers are not necessarily leaders or managers, but their understanding of their environment is what will gain them the chance to become a manager. The engineers who become managers will find that their technical skills will erode as their time needs to be redirected to management task. The engineer will need to establish or enhance leadership and management skills to be able to drive the team. Creating a motivational environment requires hard work, determination and an active interest from the manager. Technical engineers should not be viewed as part of the work force but as a lever for innovation. They require an environment from which they can be creative, which then enables productivity. Managers

The managers relationship with their colleagues is important because it will determine how well the organization works in practice. The organisations type and the formal procedures matter because they help to determine the kinds of jobs that people have, how they feel about their work, how easy it is to coordinate people's activities and whether co-operation or conflict are encouraged. The managers environment will be impacted by the organisations culture. The culture of the organisation will affect the managers ability to instigate new strategies or structures. The manager needs understand the history of how the culture has evolved and what has emerged out of it. Once this understanding has been achieved they will be able to form strategies that will not clash or conflict. Technical knowledge aids communication, motivation and understanding. These factors impact trust within relationships. Trust is crucial when advising management on projects and developments which involve complex levels of technical implementation. Management must have established an open information link with their engineers. A level of trust must be established to achieve effective implementation of projects which lead to organisation goals. Managers must bridge the gap between management hierarchies and convey effective strategies to the engineers in technical terms.

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Organisations

Information Technologys footprint is growing within organisations. The challenge of the exploitation of IT within organisations will continue to grow and spread as new technologies are developed. All organisations across the world are looking to invest in IT to seek competitive advantage or to reduce costs The surge in investment in IT equipment and software is a global phenomenon, but the variation in the contribution of this investment has grown considerably since 1995. (Jorgenson 2007) Technical understanding throughout organisations can only become more important as IT extends its reach. This will create a need for organisations to re-adjust their IT strategy at regular intervals. Technical knowledge from an increased proportion of the workforce will be inherent to the continual change. This change will come through a gradual transition of IT implementation within organisations and increased use of technology within peoples lives. Technology is already integrated in most organisations, this is set to change with increased levels of integration between systems. Technologys integration with existing systems and newly developed systems will bring further complexity, interaction and capabilities to the end user. The end users ability to manipulate these systems will become vital in their productively levels. The need for technical understanding within information systems has been identified by Feeny and Willcocks. They developed a map of capabilities from which technical skills can be identified. The table below (Figure 2) identifies the need for a medium level of technical skills for both IS and IT leadership. The list identifies many IS capabilities that require technical skills. The need for technical knowledge within the capabilities stated has a wide reach throughout the organisation.

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

The figure shows the level of technical skill within a wide spectrum of information system capabilities. Each of the capabilities will have strategies or processes that are improved by the use and understanding of technology. The belief that IT managers need an understanding of technical complexity is apparent in the IS/IT leadership capability. The organisations requirement for technical specialism within each department will grow. It will become more important for each level of management to trust their counterparts from within other departments. The decision making process will need to be transparent and will be based on a trust relationship. The transparency needs to exist from the user requirements, project deliverables and managements expectations. The technical engineers are the only resource who can effectively predict if the technical implications will be achievable. The technical engineers need to be able to feedback their opinion of how a system will interact or impact users. This must then be translated by their manager to other areas of the business. The role of information technology within organisations has become one of the biggest reasons for economic growth within the world. IT has enabled businesses to react in ways that would not be possible without it. This makes IT one of the most important assets within a company, and it can also be its biggest weakness. The loss of IT systems through disasters, hackers or engineering oversights can cause organisations to halt. In many cases the loss of

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communication can be crippling to an organisation. Managers must be able to understand their technical environment, so that they can control it. The need for technical knowledge and ICT within the current business world cannot be ignored by any organisation. Technically empowered organisations are now the norm. The increased use of technology will be one of the contributory factors that will help organisations in growth and creation. The managers within these organisations need to have a technical understanding, so that they can see their organisations capability and potential. Managers who are lacking a technical understanding are missing out on, potentially the largest growth tool that is at their disposal.

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Appendix 1

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Questionnaire Profiling
Number of respondents 30

Male respondents Female respondents

Percentages 23 76.66666667 7 23.33333333

Percentages Managers Non-managers 12 18 40 60

Age Ranges 18-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 56+

1 15 10 4 0

Percentage 3.333333333 50 33.33333333 13.33333333 0

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Technical Focus Not technical Fairly technical Technical Very Technical

Percentage 0 7 15 8 0 23.33333333 50 26.66666667

Organisation size 1-100 100-500 500-1500 1500+

Percentage 0 2 6 22 0 6.666666667 20 73.33333333

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Organisation type Technology Financial Retail Government Educational Commercial

Percentage 9 2 2 10 1 6 30 6.666666667 6.666666667 33.33333333 3.333333333 20

Technical understanding of a managers domain is necessary when managing IT. Percentage Strongly Disagree 0 0 2 21 7 0 0 6.666666667 70 23.33333333

Disagree Neither agree nor disagree

Agree

Strongly agree

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Average score for leadership and technical skill types Average score for questions which contain technical knowledge. Average score for questions which contained motivational skills. Average score for questions which contained mentoring/support. Average score for questions which contained leadership. Average score for questions which contain innovation.

2.327273 3.566667 1.555556 1.85 2.455556

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