Managing in a technical environment isn't easy, especially if your team isn't a profit center, but a cost center. Understanding this difference is simple. Does your team make money or does it suck money in?

Bill Swanson is the chief technical officer (CTO) for Raytheon and he informally published 25 technical management tips that cover everything from the team to projects to costs. These have been called Bill Swanson's 25 Unwritten Rules for Management. You can request a copy of Bill Swanson's 25 Unwritten Rules for Management at the Raytheon site.

I thought it'd be interesting to review each of the tips and put some real world bite into the management tips.

In a five part series of posts, I'll examine the management tips from 1-25. Are they perfect? Nope, but then again, you should be open to angles or insights on technical management all the time.

1. Learn to say, "I don't know." If used when appropriate, it will be often.

• This is a great tip and one most people forget, especially in the technical arena. In our technical interview process, we use this to judge a person's ability to find the right information. And that is the key. Never end a request with I don't know. Go further, admit you don't know, but commit to finding out more and then move to understanding your customer's request in more detail. When you admit you don't know something, but will find out you're doing two things: 1) You're showing your customer that what their asking will require work and 2) You're demonstrating that you understand the priority of the customer's needs.

2. It is easier to get into something than it is to get out of it.

• Boy howdy, this one is so true. One of my major flaws early in my career was over committing to work the customer wanted finished. I'd commit myself or my teams to something we didn't understand fully or knew would be impossible to complete by a certain deadline. I did this because I didn't realize that the ability to admit a weakness can be a positive. These days there are three things I do to avoid this: 1) Understand fully my customer's requirements, 2) Understand fully my customer's time frames and 3) Include my team's key decision makers on the planning process. By doing this you show the customer due diligence and include your team in the planning process.

3. If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.

• Ouch, this management tip hits close to home. Each of us wants to think that what we're doing is perfect and in line with our corporate or business goals. Typically this is all well and good, but a lack of criticism in the technical environment means you are stale and in a continuous loop. As an IT manager your job should never be finished. Whether a profit or cost center, your job is to use the technical tools to further the business. If you aren't trying new things and hearing the feedback, you've failed.

4. Look for what is missing. Many know how to improve what's there, but few can see what isn't there.

• This is a skill that you cannot teach with a book. You need to bring this skill to your team by having them experience and share "ding" moments with the team. We bring this to our team through monitoring sessions with our customers. By having our team better understand the business we can see the holes that we can fill. In the last year we've been able to fill five of those holes bringing significant savings and business improvement to our production floors.

5. Viewgraph rule: When something appears on a viewgraph (an overhead transparency), assume the world knows about it, and deal with it accordingly.

• Who knew Bill Swanson was so old school? I think this shows his experience and depth in the IT management field. But this tip is important for two reasons: 1) Your customers include you in the business development process because you are important to their success. Don't betray this trust and 2) The business management teams will use your IT team to lay blame when things don't work out. In your job your expected to shoulder some of the blame even if your team was stellar in their performance. Deal with the perception when it happens, but never push the responsibility onto someone else.

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