TM1 Career

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ahmedamr
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Sep 23, 2020 10:12 am
OLAP Product: Planning Analytics/TM1
Version: 2.0.x
Excel Version: 2016

TM1 Career

Post by ahmedamr »

Hello everyone,

I just started work as a TM1 developer and I have some questions regarding the industry and career path. It is very difficult to find answers through google as TM1 is not very common, so I thought what better way to answer my questions than to communicate with TM1 experts.

Before I start I want to give some background info for my questions.

I am an economics graduate (class 2020) and I was fortunate enough to be offered an opportunity to learn TM1 through a friend of my father who owns the company where I am now interning. I completed all IBM courses required to start working on projects.

The problem is that I am feeling confused. I am told that I am in the Business Intelligence department, but after reading about business intelligence, I realized that TM1 is just a step in the process and I cannot call myself a BI developer because I can develop models in TM1. I know job titles are not important but I feel it provides direction. Many people in linkedin have their job titles as TM1 Developer or TM1 Consultant, does that fall under the umbrella of business intelligence. Also what is the career progression for TM1 (job title wise, please bear with me even if you think it is not important).

Also if I want to progress my career would a CFA help as I have and interest in finance and would like that to be my area of expertise. And what type of postgraduate degrees would be applicable for work in TM1 to advance my knowledge of related areas.

Through some research I devised the following plan, and I would appreciate some feedback:
1. Work a couple of years as a TM1 developer.
2. Pursue a CFA during those couple of years.
3. Obtain a Master's degree in Data Analytics and Intelligence.
4. Work for a few more years until I am around 32 years old.
5. Obtain an MBA.

Sorry if I am all over the place with my thoughts, and thank you for your feedback in advance.
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Martin Ryan
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Re: TM1 Career

Post by Martin Ryan »

No-one else game? Probably about the only TM1 question I can answer any more... I haven't been much involved in TM1 for about five years - which actually probably gives me a bit of perspective on your questions.

I can't really answer your specific questions with equal specificity as so much depends on your own personality and goals but here's a few general observations/comments
  • The future is too murky to have concrete plans beyond about six months. This has never been truer than today with events like covid blowing a lot of assumptions and plans out the window. I think it's great you've got long term plans, but make sure you give yourself room to be flexible to adjust to new opportunities.
  • In my experience, TM1 was (is) a fantastic tool to get wide exposure to a range of business problems and people. In my roles it's been the summary reporting tool pulling information from a lot of business units, so I got to be plugged into a lot of what was going on around the organisation
  • Likewise I've found a basic grounding in finance (in my case an accounting degree) is very useful in just about every facet of my life. Personally I would have found a post grad professional qualification useless as I don't want to be a finance professional. But if you think that's on the cards for you, then go for it.
  • Job titles are about the next job. Imagine going to an interview in six months for a new job. Does your current title pigeon hole you, or give you a good spring board for the next thing. For me, I'd avoid a title that says TM1 (or any tool) in it as it's too narrow - unless you want to be a expert in that space for a while. And I think you have just as much right to call yourself a BI Developer as a Power BI developer or whatever other tool. It's about the function you perform rather than the tool you use.
I think your five point plan is great and just the fact you've put some thought into this is indicative of a capable and bright person who's going to go a long way. My only suggestion to it would be to repeat my first point: treat it as a guide or rough map, not something that you are forcefully bound to and can't adapt to meet whatever the world looks like.

I'm near 40 now and here's a quick run down of my career to give you an idea of what TM1 can lead to
- 2 years in NZ learning Tm1 basics
- 7 years contracting in London and New Zealand using TM1
- My last hard-core use of TM1 changed from a technical role to managing the budgeting and forecasting for the whole company (where my finance knowledge came in handy)
- Introduced QlikView to complement TM1 at the same place (more user friendly for data consumption)
- Few months doing contract Power BI and ArcGIS work
- Two years building a QlikSense development team (10 direct reports)
- Recently added to that the responsibility for Open Data and a business workflow tool (25 indirect reports)

Zero chance I could've seen any of that coming - especially the more recent stuff - when I started work in 2002. I've just found interesting opportunities as I've gone along and also moved more from hard tech skills to soft skills as my confidence has grown.

Good luck!
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ahmedamr
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Sep 23, 2020 10:12 am
OLAP Product: Planning Analytics/TM1
Version: 2.0.x
Excel Version: 2016

Re: TM1 Career

Post by ahmedamr »

Thank you for your reply. It went a long way in untangling the confusion I had. I completely agree with you in that it is hard to make concrete plans. I just try to always have a plan, to have something I am working towards, and I adjust the plan as I go.
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