If you’ve spent any time at all in the IT field, you know that there is a lot more than just being skilled with computers needed to be successful in the IT industry. There’s a range of life skills needed that surround your technical competence that will help to make you successful. Author Warren Zabloudil has written a book specifically about developing these skills in yourself. The book is titled Excellence in IT: Achieving Success in an Information Technology Career.
While I don’t get a lot of time to read, when I do make the time it is usually tech related and something that I want to learn. In this case, I’d term this book more personal development than technical skill development. But I’m very glad that I spent the time to read Excellence in IT.
First of all, the book is extremely well written and easy to follow. Just like the principles that Zabloudil explains, the book is well organized and clear. The book is grouped around topics like stress management, understanding end-users, being a good team member, developing your skills and identifying bad habits that are land mines to your career.
I don’t know that I have ever encountered a self-help book that so closely aligned with my personal beliefs. The advice that he shares is much the same as I would share with someone just starting their career in IT. Zabloudil gives great advice in areas like managing stress and workload as an IT worker, which are two areas that can easily overtake the most technically competent individual. And beyond the things I agreed with, I found things that challenged me and my bad habits in my day-to-day job. This book will provoke you to think and hopefully help bring awareness and change to areas to help you succeed.
I’d highly recommend to anyone wanting to polish their skills and excel in a IT career, particularly IT project managers, developers and systems administrators (of course). The book is available on Amazon and is about 150 pages long. It is published by Universal Publishers. Zabloudil is a MCSE and a CNE according to his bio and has over twenty-five years experience as an administrator. He currently works for a Department of Defense think tank.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a copy of the book for review, however, the review is my honest assessment of the book and its contents. In short, I enjoyed the book…
