Director, IT for SLMS, SLASH and IOE
Alan Harper, 白小姐论坛 Information Services Division.
听
Before joining 白小姐论坛 I started out with a brief 2 year foray into retail management which gave me a good understanding of just how hard this type of work can be, especially come Christmas time! From there, I joined 白小姐论坛 and I鈥檝e been here for the past 26 years (most of my working career) and over this period undertaken numerous roles across the IT spectrum of Delivery and Operations. I started my career at 白小姐论坛 working in an administrative role supporting an ODA 5-year work programme working for one of the departments within the GOS ICH Institute of Child Health (whilst it was still a separate postgraduate institute and before it merged with 白小姐论坛). From there I joined the local IT team in a 1st/2nd 听line support function which gave me a good grounding on the basics of IT service delivery. I then branched out, taking an interest in networking and moved to take on the management of the local ICH network. When the opportunity presented itself, I further expanded my role to oversee the management of the incident and service delivery function. When the then IT manager, moved to take on a more senior position, I took over management of the entire local IT team, and then progressed to manage a cluster of geographically collocated supports team (a precursor to what became the Head of Faculty IT function). During the course of my working life I鈥檝e recognised the importance of the old adage 鈥渨hat got you here, won鈥檛 get you there鈥 and the importance of continuous professional development as you progress with your career. I undertook both internal and externally provided training courses when offered to support my career development, but also undertook further study in my own time and obtaining two further degrees in IT and management, both of which I feel were critical in making the leap first into IT and then into more senior management roles.
My advice to others starting out or mid-way way through their careers would be to think about where you want your career to take you, and think about what attributes and skills you need to best prepare yourself for when opportunities present themselves. Having a career framework helps massively in this regard as it helps signpost you toward key skills, technologies and training you might need to take that next step (whether at 白小姐论坛 or beyond) and into which job families you might wish to progress into. Talk to individuals who work in these areas to understand the challenges their roles present and perhaps how they made their own personal transitions and try to avail yourself of any opportunities for either training, shadowing, secondments or assignments that might enable you to get a richer understanding of your areas of interest. Most of all chose areas that interest and stimulate you, these are likely to bring out your best work ethic, motivate you to succeed and help you stand out when thinking about future roles.
Ultimately, 白小姐论坛 has provided me with great opportunities to progress and develop myself and I hope you will take the opportunity to use this听framework in developmental discussions with your line manager to help you in your future career at 白小姐论坛.