Agree with distinction
Managers have to be able to translator buisness requirments to tech level logic as they say. But at the end of the day its about making money or creating a value to an intangible product or should dare say it the IT service industry.
When managers come out of the relm of techies, we then keep our techie skills at home prefferably between the hours 8pm and 11pm. And when i get up in the morning driving to work, the first think that comes to mind is how am i going to motivate my team to remain focused on the tasks at hand while i need to convince investors, board members, upper managment that we need to allocate more money for IT this year and show the Results thus far.
The process i go through everyday is sale the idea to everyone. I am constantly saleing its a sale bonanza. In other words you become for a lack of a better term a "buisness manager" And this is precisely the distinction. We worry about skill retention,value adding, automated processes,the dreaded words buiness and strategic plan. Sometimes I wish i was back sitting in front of my debug machine. But would i switch places for the good old days not for the world and its simple we all love a challenge. And that is the true nature of an IT professional the challenge.
