- Author:
- Shailendra Kadre
Going Corporate: A Geek's Guide shows technology workers how to gain the understanding and skills they need to become effective, promotable managers or sought-after consultants or freelancers. Tech professionals typically dive deeply into small pieces of technologylike lines of code or the design of a circuit. As a result, they may have trouble seeing the bigger picture and how their work supports the organizations goals. But ignoring or dismissing the business or operational aspects of projects and products can lead to career stagnation. In fact, understanding the larger business environmentis essential for those who want a management job, a consulting gig,or who want to start a business one day. Its also essential for those who have been promoted and find themselves flailing for lack of a business education. Going Corporate: A Geek's Guide to the rescue! This book is designed to help readers gain management skills, insight,and practical understanding of essential business and operational topics. Readers will learn to develop project and program management skills, deliver service efficiently and improve processes, implement governance, analyze financial statements, and much more. After reading this book,technology professionals will understand such things as enterprise architecture, IT operations management, strategic and financial managementand how each relates to the others. Detailed case studies help cement the understanding of how an IT organization and its workers succeed in the 21st century. This book: Illustrates how pieces of the business puzzle fit together to form a robust enterprise Preparesreaders to get promoted into management Explains the key management skills and knowledge required for a successful IT career What youll learn Learn the skills and knowledge it takes to be an effectiveproject, program, or mid-level manager, in-demand consultant--oreven a C-level executive Understand how your current job fits into the bigger picture Identify what your organization must do to create customers and make a profit Understand how good governance turns strategy into effective action Appreciate how understanding financescorporate or departmentalcan help unlock business potential Have the toolsnecessary to make good operational decisions Who this book is for Workers in the technology trenches wondering how to improve their career potential, technology professionals aiming for management positions, fresh graduates starting their career in the corporate world, recently promoted managers with gaps in their business education, and students in technical or business programs. This book will also be useful for practicing engineers and managers as a refresher course on operational challenges encountered in the day-to-day life of technology executives.
Index Terms
- Going Corporate: A Geek's Guide
Reviews
Brad D. Reid
How does information technology (IT) project management interface with the broader organizational environment, as well as with the traditional topics of finance, analytics, and the supply chain__?__ This book, rather than being about how to create a corporation or raise venture capital, addresses that question. Project managers and technology professionals will have an improved practical awareness of the answers to that question after studying these timely and uniquely presented materials. The book's writing style is conversational, with easily understood points and examples. Each chapter is broken down into clearly headed topics, and typically contains a representative case study and a summary. The book includes a very good index, so that the reader may rapidly find and digest a section of special interest. The book also offers selected references and items for additional reading, with an emphasis on practice-oriented materials. Eight chapters are devoted to operational issues, and eight chapters are devoted to business issues. An informative appendix, "What Managers Are Discussing," contains a number of interesting questions and answers-for example, "How do you manage communications in an onsite/offshore team__?__" The book simply and meaningfully discusses these questions. A chapter addressing pre-sales and bid management is one of the most useful discussions in Part 1 ("IT Operational Issues"). The case study tracks the bidding cycle for a multimillion-dollar IT outsourcing deal and is very hands on. In Part 2 ("IT Business Issues"), a chapter discusses "strategic thinking and the evolution of information systems." The case study of a foundry walks the reader through the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) process, and the ultimate strategy recommendations. The IT-educated project leader will gain insight into the overall business process and environment by spending some time digesting the concepts that this book presents. This is an excellent introductory overview at the project level. It does not discuss broader issues such as intellectual property or marketing, but will prepare one to be more effective when moving into a project leadership role. Online Computing Reviews Service
Access critical reviews of Computing literature here
Become a reviewer for Computing Reviews.