The accelerating rate of digitization across all economic sectors and the continuous development and adoption of advanced data management capabilities are driving an historic demand for business professionals with information technology project management (ITPM) expertise.
IT project managers’ complex responsibilities include directing, monitoring and adjusting projects across their lifecycles to ensure completion on time and within budget. The stages of a project life cycle include:
- Initiating the project, understanding business needs and setting budgets and timelines
- Designing prototypes and models of potential solutions
- Choosing the potential solution that best meets time, budget and completion goals
- Developing the project, choosing the project team, assigning tasks and establishing report channels
- Implementing the solution
- Following up to support business goals and strategies
Despite the well-defined ITPM life cycle and the critical role IT projects play in a business’s success —
investment in project management should grow by $6.6 trillion — the performance statistics are grim:
- Seventy percent of all projects fail
- Projects waste 10% of every dollar spent
- Three out of four companies fear their IT projects will fail
Now, as businesses wrestle with ongoing supply chain complications and economic uncertainty while trying to improve IT project outcomes, ITPM professionals find themselves in a sellers’ market. Hiring in the healthcare sector, for instance, is “booming” as project leaders burnout from increasingly heavy workloads, according to PMI’s 2022 Jobs Report.
“There’s a huge demand for experienced, skillful project managers,” the professional development organization states. “Companies need to be creative about hiring and retaining them” or see a “revolving door of project professionals who might leave because they have found something better.”
What Are ITPM Career Opportunities?
A Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Information Technology (IT) Project Management program, such as the one offered online by the University of Illinois Springfield, equips business professionals with insights and expertise for careers in high-demand fields such as the following roles and their average annual salaries:
Information Security Analyst ($147,562 (including bonuses)): Identify, initiate and develop enterprise-wide solutions to protect systems and data from being compromised by human error, hardware malfunction, software vulnerabilities and organizational security policy violations.
Analytics Expert ($124,415): Facilitate communication between technical and business teams to avoid misunderstandings and debate over design, engineering, competing priorities and resource allocations. “Any correction to early red flags can dramatically move the odds of success in your favor,” according to InsightOut.
Database Administrator ($132,169): Provide oversight for database development, lead user acceptance and quality assurance and supervise enterprise project management platforms to maintain data integrity and user compliance with internal protocols.
Business Analyst ($101,736): Bridge the knowledge gap between business stakeholders and tech teams by “interpreting business requirements into understandable development tasks to match a final software product with the expected business value,” AltexSoft describes.
Cybersecurity Officer ($152,299): Focus on protecting systems and data from cyberattacks, performing threat assessments and incident detection and developing response protocols for breaches and disaster recovery. The role is increasingly critical as businesses migrate technology into the cloud.
How an Advanced Degree Can Progress Your Career
The University of Illinois Springfield’s MBA in IT Project Management online program prepares graduates for high-demand lucrative careers through a curriculum that encourages students to:
- Explore project management in an organizational context
- Analyze the stages of project lifecycles
- Evaluate the Information Security role in change management
Courses such as Information Technology Management or Project and Change Management equip graduates with knowledge of management styles, technology systems and project integration practices. The program prepares graduates to lead by enriching advanced IT and project management expertise and developing crucial business leadership, finance, accounting and marketing skills.
Learn more about the University of Illinois Springfield’s online Master of Business Administration in Information Technology Project Management program.
