Network engineers should learnproject management skillssuch as
budgeting and scheduling as they come under pressure to deliver
advanced networks for businesses, said attendees at the Cisco
Networkers 2008 event this week.
Network design experts are increasingly required to build
networks that underpin a business's ability to offer new services
to customers and employees. For example, hotels now need to offer
network services such as Wi-Fi connectivity to attract customers
and stay competitive.
Professionals need to demonstrate strong planning skills to
ensure the networks they built matched business goals if they
wanted to be seen as competent by management, delegates at the
conference said.
Martin Godfrey, network and telephony manager at the University
of Plymouth, is in the process of extending a converged data, voice
and video network for 30,000 students and staff.
He said that forecasting the amount of bandwidth the business
will use as new applications such as video lectures are deployed on
the network is now a key skill for network engineers.
"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," he said.
Godfrey said network managers needed to be able to draft budget
proposals so, for example, if the business wanted to introduce
video conferencing - which would need more bandwidth - it would
allocate funds more willingly and with a better understanding of
why money needed to be spent.
Raymond Mohr, director of IT at Balfour Beatty Rail in Germany,
said that network managers should learn project planning skills. If
they can demonstrate this kind of planning to the business, then
they will be able to get higher salaries and more senior
positions.
"You need skills that are beyond your own little box. Nowadays,
it is not only about
monitoring networks and
TCP/IP." Network managers also needed to master contingency
planning if there are delays to projects or if the business needs a
network deployed at short notice, he said.
Tony Wood, senior network analyst at the British Medical
Association, which has 135,000 users on its network, said that
larger network projects at the
BMA often have a dedicated project manager assigned, But he
recommended network professionals take up project management
training as a way of becoming more valuable in an organisation.
"It is easier to teach an IT expert project management skills
than it is to teach a project manager a lifetime of technical
experience. Learning project management skills like
Prince 2 can make the network manager valuable to the
company."
Gerry Martin, IT manager for Irish Hotelier Tifco, which manages
Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotels in Ireland, said network
experts should also learn how to produce business cases to start
projects where the network can create new revenue streams for the
business.
Martin created a network service that allowed guests to make
cheap call from their mobiles while they were staying at the hotel.
This encouraged guests who might have been hesitant to use hotel
phones because of high charges to make calls cheaply through the
hotel network.
"Being able to express how a network service can bring in new
revenue will put the IT guy on the map as managers ask what more
they can do with IP networks," he said.
"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."
Fred Weiller, director of certifications and training at Cisco
said the role of the network manager has traditionally involved
troubleshooting, operating and maintaining the network but that
this is changing.
He said a business-savvy network manager should be able to ask
the right questions such as how will my network design scale up if
the business requirements change? What is the return on investment
for the business by investing in network hardware and software?
"There is real demand for the network manager who can understand
the business requirements and translate those requirements into a
network design and delivery plan," he said.