A Tale Of Two Roles - Decison To Make

[Skittle]

I have been with the same company for a while and have a choice to make regarding an IT department restructure.

1) Stick supporting legecy applications with four people reporting to me ( three will be new to the company ) and do much the same as I have been doing for many years pretty successfully but with the burden of high stress and sleepless nights to satisfy mad managers who have no concept of the complexities of their requirements. The skill set is wide but routed in a wide range of technical skills to a low level of depth.

2) Move into BI/Data Warehousing/ETL/report writer and have nobody report to me. This could be a duller role in the long term
but hopefully no stress from people below and less from people above. The skill set is more transferable between companies and be deeper technically.


I'm interested to hear other peoples opinion on the good and bad points.



Dazed and confused.

Remember.. 'Depression is just anger without enthusiasum'.

 

[toddl]

Likely depends on what you want to do.

I'd go with option 2, but wouldn't consider it dull at all. I'm currently in the BI field. If you truly get into BI, it can be really rewarding in terms of learning about the company, understanding business processes and meeting with executives.

Theres wide variety of roles, while your ETL could be very technical, your BI/Report Writer could be very business oriented.

I don't know if I'd agree that its more transferable, doing BI in healthcare is a lot different than BI in retail, etc. Some folks will say data is data, but if your focus is on the business process it's a whole new ballgame when switching industrys/companies.

 

[FredWagner]

You describe the choice as between continued high stress and sleepless nights doing the same thing, and getting training and experience on a new toolset. The new toolset, and your new role, might make a lot of the demands on the old tools and roles disappear. The 4-person job in the old tools and roles might disappear, or at least be reduced, because of the work by the person using the new tools. I'd choose to be the person with the new tools. You'll probably still be a resource for the team you're leaving, but the problems they ask for help on may be opportunities for you to use the new tools to your advantage.

Fred Wagner

 

[Skittle]

Thanks for the respones. I'm still thinking it over ( i's going to be a long week ).

Option 1
There is certainly a risk that the legacy systems on the old role might get replaced one day by another system supported higher up in the organisation. This has been tried twice and failed twice.
Next time it might work and I'm left without a role and I will be a 'legacy system architect' that has done little hands on coding for quite a while.

On the plus sside, it's a very central role to the organisation add with that comes great interaction and control. I've just realized it's quite difficult to let the reins go on 15 odd years of built up status and being in the centre of things. My boss wants me to take this role and thinks I'll be happier in it.

Option 2
I think the BI might be a bit dull in terms of building some of the reports but the Data Warehousing/Cubes/ETL and Data Mining
would be potentially very rewarding. Argueably this role could get ditched as well if/when the legacy system gets replaced but it does have the advantage of tranferable skills to other companies. My boss thinks I'll get bored with this and I would get frustrated with decisons the new person who would take the architect role would make.


If I'm honest I can see positives and minus points in both cases.

Option 2 is more of an unknown as I have only read up and attended a couple of courses on the subject. Option 1 I basically already do, it's just the scope will increase and I lose the opportunity to do BI which I have see as my next area to work in when/if the legacy system goes.

No role is perfect of course. To be honest I want to do both. LOL!

Both is not an option however. Just to much volume of work.
Decisons...decisons...




Dazed and confused.

Remember.. 'Depression is just anger without enthusiasum'.

 

[mrdenny]

Personally if I had to move into a BI role I'd blow my brains out. But that's why I have friends in the BI space that I can send that work off to and do other stuff that I find more interesting.

My general rule is that if the work appears boring, then I probably won't be very good at it so I skip that work.

Denny
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