Network technicians will need to learnproject managerskills if corporate
rollouts of wider and more advanced networks are to be successful,
according to attendees at theCisco Networkers 2008this
week.
IT managers currently involved with deploying wireless local
area networks, combined voice and data and
unified communications said networks had become the focus for
delivering business services and demonstrating budgeting and
scheduling skills were essential to be seen as valuable by
management.
Martin Godfery, network and telephony manager at the University
of Plymouth, is in the process of deploying a converged data, voice
and video network for 30,000 students and 3,000 staff.
He said forecasting the amount of bandwidth the business will
use in five years time, as new applications are deployed on the
network, would be a key skill to learn to ensure right investment
in network hardware was made today.
"Management will give IT a fixed budget to last over a period of
time. But network managers need to be able forecast how introducing
new applications could change bandwidth requirements.
Godfery said managers needed to be able to draft budget
proposals that made this clear, so that if the business case
changed, funds could be allocated. He said that deploying network
services such as wireless was needed to ensure the university
stayed current in attracting students and more applications might
need to be deployed in the future.
Raymond Mohr, director of IT at Balfour Beatty's rail division
in Germany, said that network managers should train in scheduling
work if they are involved in larger and ad-hoc rollouts.
He said he regularly needs to set up reliable wireless networks
for construction and repair teams quickly, so being able to draft
and plan schedules was a skill network managers needed to
master.
"They also need to master contingency planning if there are
delays to projects or if the business needs a network deployed at
short notice. If they can demonstrate this kind of planning to the
business then they will be able to get higher salaries" he
said.
According to Yankee Group, an IT research analyst company,
network design experts are no longer involved in hands-on
configuration, but rather in strategic design and architecture.
Mastering project management and business skills will become
essential as they come under the management spotlight.
"Networks are strategic and the role of a network designer is
becoming much more important," said Yankee Group research analyst
Zeus Kerravala. "People who take on design roles impact the
strategy of their organisations.