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Alwanza.net Soft Skills -> IT Supervisor

Some Tasks and Skills to Consider if you are an IT Supervisor:

This list has been compiled by my own experience plus soliciting feedback from past and current coworkers, family, and friends.  It is not intended to substitute for a job description nor other preparation for being a supervisor, but is intended as a general guideline from the perspective of your Reports.

  1. Differentiate - specify the boundaries of roles, resources, responsibilities between IT groups - in any places where they are ambiguous - either specifically state that they are "shared" or indicate the delineation.  Good fences make good neighbors.  None of the groups want to do this ourselves because we don't want the other group to think we are assuming more authority than we should - so we need a supervisor to do it.

  2. Be aware of when we usually arrive at work, when we leave work, what days we are in the office and what days we are not.  Maintain and/or review the group calendar.

  3. Be aware of what projects we are working on.  Learn what our standard tasks are.

  4. Hold regular meetings to handle any upcoming issues, discover if anything is blocking our progress, facilitate communications between groups, discuss information relating to management's direction and plans.

  5. Advocate for us to upper management:  for the resources we need so that we can do our jobs, and so that we can do them more efficiently and more effectively.  AND ESPECIALLY to avoid the unpleasant situation of unplanned (and avoidable) outages.

  6. Coordinate our vacation time and other planned absences so that our company has coverage for what it needs.

  7. Set policies about information sharing:  should all of us know how to do every aspect of IT tasks?  Are some of us specialists in certain areas?  How and when do the specialists share the information with others?

  8. Make decisions about education/tutorials for reports.

  9. Set priorities for our tasks.  Use a light hand with this because we do a pretty good job of this on our own most of the time.  So, when we request prioritization or when management has set deadlines this is needed.

  10. Communicate your availability to your teams. Attend the meetings you set or notify us in advance if the meetings are cancelled.

  11. Give us as much advance warning as possible for changes in our routines (after hours work, changes in direction from management, relocations, reorganizations, policy changes).

  12. Instruct us to identify potential single points of failure and hardware/software that is approaching end-of-life; so we can have new systems ready before the old systems break.

  13. Check that we have all the standard IT functions covered:  backups and restores, disaster recovery, firewalling and security, resource hardiness and redundancy, logging and notifications.  Ask us to come up with solutions to any shortcomings and help us implement them.

  14. Communicate clearly, make decisions and keep to them - unless you formally acknowledge that you are changing a policy.

  15. Advocate for your own needs.  If there are things you need us to do in order for you to do your job effectively, ask for those things from us and tell us why you need them, and when you expect them.

  16. Manage the company reputation of your groups and your reports.  Present their successes and commendations to upper management and peer groups.  Quickly address any negative feedback about your groups or reports, internally and/or externally depending on the situation.
    This item, thanks to Priscilla Oppenheimer, Independent Contractor (Network Administrator and author of _Top Down Network Design_).