Just quite where most IT buzzwords emanate from is often as much a mystery as the phrases themselves. One exception, though, is the term 'hybrid manager' - credited to guru Peter Keen in the mid-1980s, even though much of the research into hybrid management has since been carried out by the Oxford Institute of Information Management at Templeton College.

It was a term that received its most precise and most quoted definition from the London Business School's Michael Earl. He previously worked for the Oxford Institute, and ventured the definition that a hybrid manager is 'a person with strong technical skills and adequate business knowledge or vice versa'.

Earl's definition continues: 'Hybrids are people with technical skills who are able to work in user areas doing a line job, but adept at developing and implementing IT application ideas.'

It's a definition echoed by Colin Palmer, a well-known advocate of change management, who also helps companies get the most out of their information systems.

But Palmer goes one step further in citing examples of how hybrid managers are currently being deployed. 'Setting up scanning systems in supermarkets to provide up-to-the-moment sales and stock usage information is one case that springs to mind,' he notes. 'So is providing access to car-hire facilities through airport terminals.

'At the heart of these developments there seem to be people who combine an understanding of the business and how it works, with the technical competence to recognise ways in which technology might transform the situation,' he says.

Palmer maintains that hybrids also display personal characteristics that enable them to make things happen - particularly listening and negotiating skills. 'You will not find people doing jobs called "hybrids". What you will find is many valued individuals engaged in helping organisations to change the way they work by using IT. They may be called project managers, they may be in specific line or IT jobs,' he says.

Such qualities are as valuable today as they always have been. 'As with all IT staff, good hybrids are hard to find and should be highly valued,' says Computer Futures' managing director, Simon Arber. He maintains that one of the most common areas of demand for the hybrid manager is within the medium- sized organisation, probably in its second or third generation of IT usage - typically a retailer.

'IT is also under greater pressure than ever to perform. Its job isn't being made any easier because of technological change, unreasonable user expectations, and so on, which turns the day-to-day business of running an IT department efficiently into a bit of a treadmill,' says Peter Hutchings, marketing manager for NETg.

Tales of non-competitive applications, implementation backlogs and the inability of general management to understand the strategic importance of the technologies now at their disposal, are placing even more pressure on companies to educate managers in the wiles of IT, and forcing IT to forge much closer partnerships with the business.

'Hybrid managers play a leading role, creating awareness of IT's potential in the business, educating IT professionals in the business, as well as educating the business in what is achievable and realistic with IT,' says David Skyrme, a self-styled hybrid manager and knowledge management specialist.

'To do this effectively needs the knowledge and experience of both business and IT,' he adds.

Much work has been done to define more clearly the sort of skills that need to exist at the interface between the business and information system functions. This has most notably been achieved through the BCS' hybrid manager programme, and now through Cepis, the association of national computer societies, which is looking at the harmonisation of IT qualifications across Europe.

'It is now much more widely accepted that those with the potential to rise to senior levels in the organisation should, at some stage in their career, have extensive exposure to the exploitation of IT, and that IT people should have much more opportunity to work in the business,' says Palmer.

Ian Andrews entered IT as a computer operator in 1972, and describes himself as a 'hybrid manager and consultant, possessing an extensive mix of project, process and people skills, and also a unique blend of technical, managerial and business awareness'.

He reveals: 'Although I have an operations background, and I could and still do program on the Web, I have a wider concept of the complete business from operations.

'In operations, you are effectively responsible for the whole business processing. This business understanding helps you to prioritise - particularly when things go wrong.' Andrews says that this helped develop his general business and management skills.

'So I developed as much in business as I did in technical computing terms,' he adds. 'My over-riding skill is being able to manage technical people, and translate to them the business objectives. That helps particularly in times of technical problems when technical people tend to look on the problem as interesting, rather than acknowledging that there is a business impact and therefore it is a priority.'

Andrews also maintains that IT professionals have failed to achieve proper board-level recognition because they are often thought of as being too technical. 'This is not only because their seniors cannot understand them, but also because they do not understand the business requirements in business terms.

'IT professionals should get back to the real world, and balance their IT knowledge with a clear understanding of how and why their company succeeds from a business perspective,' Andrews advises.

This is crucial. According to David Holden, head of strategic development at Peritas, a good IT manager should excel at two things. 'First, they must have the ability to translate business needs into IT requirements while understanding pressures on the business users and the impact the department's activities may have on the rest of the business,' he says.

'Second, they should be able to think strategically and develop as a visionary. IT can have a massive effect on a company's performance, and the IT manager needs to educate business managers proactively about how existing systems can be used more effectively and the possibilities presented by new technologies.'

The IT manager must still maintain a good understanding of technology in order to maintain effective management and maximise the benefit of his department to the business as a whole.

That's not easy. Today's IT manager will have grown up in a period of rapid technological change. Given the size of IT budgets and the high expectations of the services now being delivered, IT managers don't have the luxury of a large network of people able to make up for the shortfall in their knowledge of the relevant business processes.

'Their points of contact within their organisation are many and varied. If they are unable to pre-sent and deliver fit-for-purpose solutions - networking, Internet, back office - they are highly vulnerable,' warns Computer Futures' Arber.

'This can place the hybrid manager under considerable pressure to have a greater breadth of knowledge and responsibility. They are effectively the glue between systems and business, and are a highly visible target when things go wrong.'

However, Learning Tree International's managing director, David Pardo, maintains that many IT managers have been promoted on the strength of their technical skills. Few, if any, receive any real management training until after they have taken up their new jobs.

'Skills such as taking an organisation-wide view, seeing IT from a business plan perspective, interviewing, delegation, and coaching and counselling staff are, in most cases, areas that are totally unfamiliar to them,' he says.

'Even speaking without using any jargon can be a problem. IT professionals attending management courses often say that what makes them most uncomfortable is not being able to talk to finance departments in a language that they understand.'

The number of subjects IT managers have to focus on at the same time can also be difficult to cope with, as can the faster pace at which management decisions sometimes have to be made.