A week in the life…

What goes on in the typical week of an identity management consultant? Here’s a sample of my workweek:

• Most days start right after breakfast at my home office, and consist of coffee and Twitter. I have a solid list of IAM sources that are streaming new information every minute, and I use the caffeine-loading time to get caught up on news and events.
• I usually have one primary client, and for the last few months I’ve been working with a large health organization to implement an identity provisioning solution. This project is highly tailored to the client’s clinical and administrative needs, and must meet the needs of multiple stakeholders. My job, as a project manager and integrator, goes beyond PM — I need to develop business architectures, review/develop requirements and communicate to three different project teams.
• I tend to have one or two other projects on the go that I need to personally be involved in. Whether it is overseeing another Code consultant’s delivery or kicking off a new strategy project, I like the variety and interaction that comes from these smaller assignments.
• Lunch usually equals surfing: news, politics, Oilers hockey.
• I’d try to post monthly to this blog and manage my Canadiam LinkedIn Group at least once each week. Social media is important but easy to get too involved with for little return (IMO).
• Business development is important to a boutique firm like Code Technology. Saturday mornings are a good time to check online RFPs and write proposals.
• I keep a reading folder going in Dropbox. With the Dropbox client installed on all my devices (Mac, Android phone and iPad) I can easily read an analysis or whitepaper whenever I have an extra few minutes. Currently I have several Gartner and Kuppinger Cole IAM papers downloaded and ready to review.

So that is about it. Even though my work is specialized, variety is the key to serving clients, continued learning and growing my business.

Mike

Author: code

Mike Waddingham is senior Information Technology management consultant with over 30 years of industry experience. He is the owner of Code Technology Corp. View all posts by code