ISM Jobs
A student wrote to me: “I want to study Information System Management (ISM) but I do not know what types of job that I could get with a bachelor degree in this field?”
Answer: Information System Management (ISM) degree provides a variety of opportunities for graduates. Depend on the school’s trainings and your specialization, you may get different types of job, but the basic is still the same: Supporting the business by manages the information systems of the company. Most ISM works are focusing on data and information. It approaches issues from the business aspect rather than the technical aspect. There are several career paths and specializations for ISM graduates:
Some ISM graduates start as Test Managers. They are responsible to ensure that proper testing occurs for all changes in the information systems. They plan, organize, review, and assign testers to appropriate testing tasks such as Installation testing; Functional testing; Performance testing; Integration testing; User acceptance testing etc. They are also responsible to support documentation review; compile test results; validate and communicate results of all testing activities to management. After several years, they move up to quality manager position, quality strategist, or testing consultant.
Some ISM graduates work as project managers in an Information Technology (IT) group. They manage IT projects and provide status to senior management. As project manager, they are responsible for planning, analyzing requirements, executing, monitoring and controlling projects. After few years, they move from managing small projects to larger projects then to manager of an IT organization, IT director, and Chief Information Officer (CIO).
Some ISM graduates specialize in project supporting works. They work as Configuration Management specialists where they have overall responsible for any change impacting the project such as manage and control the configuration items that are being introduced into the project etc. Some may work as Software Quality Assurance specialist to conduct project reviews, check for process compliances and ensure quality policies are being enforced etc. After few years, they move up to Configuration manager or Software quality manager.
Some ISM graduates specialize in database management. They are responsible for analyzing data requirement, documenting requirements in the form of data models and creating physical database design specifications. After few years, they move up to Systems Analyst position where they are responsible for analyzing data quality and developing source to target mapping documents. From this position, they continue to move up to Business Intelligence specialist position where they manage a number of system analysts and are responsible for defining functional, analytical reporting and decision-making requirements.
Some ISM graduates specialize in service management. They may start as manager of help desk, service desk, or call center. The center interacts with customers when they have problems with their services. After few years, they move up to Incident Manager Position where they are responsible to receive incidents or issues that cannot be resolved by the service desks. In this position, they investigate, coordinate resolution and recovery actions for assigned incidents. After few more years, they move up to Problem Manager Position. They are responsible for reviewing problem trends and proactively taking actions to identify problems and remove errors for the IT systems.
Some ISM graduates work as Capacity Manager. They are responsible to ensure that adequate IT capacity exists to meet the required levels of service and that IT management are correctly advised on how to cost effectively match capacity and demand. They coordinate implementation and maintenance of supporting activities throughout the IT organization. After few years, they move up to Demand management. This job requires a lot of computing trends analysis understands what customers’ needs; predict and provide services that match those needs. Having experience in demand management will lead to Cloud computing management. This is a hot and relatively new area but has high demand and good potential. Cloud computing requires knowledge of information system management; specialize in storage, virtualization, business-IT strategy alignment, and the concept of software as a service. It is all the skills that you must know when study ISM.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
