The number one question people ask me about TBM is “what is the role like?” This actually is a little more difficult to answer than you’d think. The reason why is that every company is different and the role changes quite a bit as you progress in your career. For the sake of keeping this post at a reasonable length, let’s focus on the career progression and what you could expect at various stages of seniority.
Jr/Analyst/Entry-Level
As you begin your career, you can expect a ton of admin. Frankly a lot of it sucks. But it’s a step that can’t be skipped. You need to get an understanding of how dollars flow in and out of the org at a detailed level. You need to know how to do accruals, set people up on projects, and generally do all the crappy work first. Anyone who parachutes in after this step and tries to be successful ultimately fails? Why? Because they have unrealistic expectations of the amount of change that can be integrated into an org. I understand that unrealistic people generally drive big change, but they also burn out the org. Senior folks must try to understand the amount of admin that goes into TBM decisions. The adage of “don’t spend a dollar to save fifty cents” applies here. If you need three people working constantly doing crappy admin to save the equivalent of one person’s salary in tech, you’ve done it wrong.
Middle Management
This is the layer with the most differences between companies. At this level you’re starting to run an organization of TBM resources. This may be in Finance or Tech (read here) but the goal is the same. Run an accurate budget process and make sure you are keeping oversight of actuals. You’re starting to direct the time of the team and you need to decide what will be of value to the org. You likely have some relationships with senior management but they aren’t peers. Simply put, you are trying to impress.
I found that the best way to do this during this phase of my career was to put something in my objectives that would stand out. My strategy was to save enough spend each year to cover my salary. It’s crisp and non-ambiguous to your manager. I’m not talking about “cost avoid”, I’m talking about dollars that were previously spent in the org that can now be reinvested or pocketed by the company. To do this you actualy have to do a few things well. You have to understand and have transparency in the spend you manage. You have to be smart enough to identify a few opportunities that others haven’t found. You also have to be able to track it well enough that you can demonstrate the results at the end of the year. Be militant about that last step. Just saying that you did it doesn’t count; prove it. Also, be creative, you can bring money into the org as well, even if you’re a cost center. I spent five consecutive years finding IT class actions suits that added up to real money. For example, if there is a LCD monitor suit and you can pull the data and liaise with Legal; that can be real money. Do this enough and people will notice. If enough people notice, you’ll see a considerable bump in pay and you’ll take on more responsibility.
Big Dog / BSD
This role has many titles. Business Manager/COO/CFO of IT. I’m not too hung up on functional titles. In this step of your career, you’ll be in charge of managing the tech spend. Don’t fool yourself with a title; you’ll know when you’re here. If done correctly, you are now the right hand man of the CIO/CFO/CEO. You’ll need to know the org, the applications, the people, the industry and the expectations. Your understanding of those aspects is key to being able to bring executable ideas to the table. Remember, good ideas mean nothing if you can’t execute. On the other hand, pure execution without bold ideas means that you are really middle management. You should now be making “a lot of money”. This will vary by industry and region, but it will be enough that you won’t care about the hassles and the hours. You should also have a highly functioning team underneath you. The type of team that will go with you if you leave for another job. A team that you trust and they trust you right back. Reward them, give them credit, and build their careers. You should be a stand-in for the CIO at board meetings or handle the meetings yourself. You should understand the application flows, even if you’ve never written a line of code in your life (I haven’t). The execution of the budget should be an easy problem compared to generating the ideas to make the goals of the org happen. This is where you want to be.