I am often asked to talk about the Career path of various IT Careers due to my unique experience in both IT and Employment Support Work. This blog covers a bit about the IT Technical Project Manager Field.
This blog offers one story (there are thousands of different types of Technical IT Projects to be implemented for all levels of experience). This story offers a glimpse into one high level Technical Project Integration story. This enabled this Government Contractor to reference what was running where, what was it’s configuration and who owned it. Leveraging the IT Service Asset and Configuration Management process and leveraging Tools from Microsoft and ServiceNow.
This story is a good Technical Project because of its high value, complexity and use of technology to gain serious business advantage.Using data from Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager to produce a schedule for regular integration with ServiceNow Configuration Management Database.
IT/Technical Project Management Career Outlook:
Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates management jobs on a growth path of about 6% by 2024, statistically in the USA this would equate to 505,000 new project managers by 2027.
- Management jobs seemed to have the highest wage of overall US Salaries.
- The Median Annual Salary for US Management jobs are approximately $100,000.
- Salary.com finds average US Project Management Manager salary is $138,719 depending on region and experience, and the range is between $123,485 and $155,285.
- Average Project Manager entry-level education is a bachelor’s degree, however with good technical implementation experience there are career paths with a high school diploma.
Career Connections
Connect to other Project Managers or hire them by posting jobs in the Jobs N Careers – Facebook or LinkedIn.
Here is an Implementation Story of a Technical Project that implemented an integration between two systems, ServiceNow CMDB and Microsoft SCCM.
KEY SKILLS OF A TECHNICAL PROJECT MANAGER:
The key difference between a Project Manager and a Technical Project Manager is familiarity with IT Industry domain processes, and/or Technical Subject matter expertise. The project manager aim is to deliver a successful project. A project manager may leverage resources of a Business Analyst or a Technical Project Manager, to manage certain technical aspects key to the projects success.
Success takes planning, testing, and good execution. Analysis of failed projects found that the bulk of IT Project failures are due to either process mistakes (45%) or people mistakes (43%).
- Technical Project Management to align people, processes, strategies and make sure stakeholders understand the deliverables, goals, and key elements underpinning requirements
- Experience leading change, guiding solutions, and developing approaches to technology solutions, documentation, and engagement
- Excellent time, resource management and organizational skills
- Experience technical implementations in a high-level collaborative environment and promoting a teamwork mentality and technical alignment
- Analytical, Business Managerial , problem solving and process improvement experience
- Ability to predict challenges, identify risks, and proactively mitigate solutions.
PROJECT STORY: Microsoft SCCM to ServiceNow CMDB
Objective: Bureau of Labor Services reported that 31% of enterprises suddenly started working from home with the COVID Pandemic at hand. Beyond the traditional management communications of companies are struggling with articulating impact and current state of system information configuration, and management due to lack of clear reference to what is running, where its running, and who owns it. This is simple data that is used over and over to impacts costs, support, governance, and enterprise change management. Changes reflected in Microsoft endpoint System Configuration were not getting updated in ServiceNow CMDB, and this lack of current, credible, up to date configuration data was impacting too many key Enteprise business workflows.
This project was a one way direction import of the data from Microsoft SCCM integration into the ServiceNow’s Configuration Management Database (CMDB).
Keep records between System Record data from SCCM and ServiceNow CMDB is a driving business demand for service governance, delivery, life cycle asset and service management, and many other business functions.
TECHNICAL PROJECT RESOURCE REFERENCES FOR THIS PROJECT:
- Work with Teams to determine People (Stakeholder Groups) Most influenced, benefited, or impacted by this initiative:
- IT Operations Mananagers
- Asset Managers
- IT Product Managers
- IT Service Managers
- ServiceDesk
- ITSM Process Owners
2. Work with Process Groups Most influenced, benefited, or impacted by this initiative:
- ITIL Processes
- Asset Management
- Configuration Management
- Change Management
- Incident Management
- IT Operations Management
- Problem Management
- Service Management
3. Work with Stakeholder Groups to identify Subject Matter Experts for managing the Tool and Integration Requirements from a technical and business perspective. Its important to have the right mix of stakeholders to get a complete view of the project and plan for success.
Consider the full range of the system or the people who use it.
- What is the expected product/service/result of the project?
- What does your vision of “success” look like for the project and its key deliverables?
- What evidence are you seeking to demonstrate success and completeness of the key deliverables?
- Are there any risks everyone should be aware of?
- What challenges project budget, time, and performance constraints
Technical System Considerations
- Data Import and Exchange
- Dependencies
- Integration Commons for CMDB
- CMDB CI Class Models store app
- ITOM Discovery License plugin (com.snc.itom.discovery.license)
- JDBC (com.snc.integration.jdbc)
- ITOM Licensing plugin (com.snc.itom.license). see Request Discovery.
- Compatible with SCCM 2019
- Windows MID Server required access to SCCM environment
Business Considerations
- Business Data Use Cases
- Business Process Related Dependencies
Best Practices Reference Resources for Technical Program Managers:
CIO Magazine More than 50% of IT projects fail. Technical Business Analysts and Technical Project Managers can make a difference in success by leveraging experience and communicating well in planning for success.
- Adaptive software development (ASD)
- Agile modeling
- Agile unified process (AUP)
- Dynamic systems development method (DSDM)
- Extreme programming (XP)
- Feature-driven development (FDD)
- HDI
- Implementing Service & Support Management Processes
- ITIL- Information Technology Infrastructure Library (Axelos)
- itSMF
- Kanban
- Lean software development
- Lean startup
- PMI- Project Management Institute
- PRINCE2 – Projects In Controlled Environments (Axelos)
- Rapid application development (RAD)
- Scaled Agile Framework – SAFe
- Scrum
- ServiceNow User Community
- Systems Development Life Cycle
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