I came across this article 8 Things We Hate About IT and I just had to respond to it. Apparently it seems many things are the fault of IT.
1. IT Limits Managers’ Authority You bring in 10% of the company’s revenue but can’t authorize a $100,000 project if it requires IT. Furthermore, IT’s bureaucratic governance process rivals the tax code in complexity and inhibits rather than promotes innovation.
Sure go ahead and authorize a $100k project without any IT input. The thing is the cost of your project could really explode because well, you don’t understand the underlying technology or the technology infrastructure the company currently has just wont support your project.
Isn’t this like some PHB wanting to authorize say a $100k solar panel system to save the company xx% of $$ and get all huffy because the maintenance/facilities people want to be included? To see if this project would actually integrate into the current system? To see if its even possible?
2. They’re Missing Adult Supervision The CIO is impressive, but totally unavailable. So the next best option is your IT “relationship manager” who’s a few clicks down the evolutionary scale and doesn’t have the breadth of expertise to truly act as a trusted IT adviser to senior business executives.
Why is the CIO missing? Where is he/she at? I could easily say the same thing about the ’senior business executives’ being unavailable.
There are really 2 reasons why ’senior business executives’ need to interact with IT. The first for the planning that ’senior business executives’ are suppose to be doing. Yeah, the CIO should be involved with that. The other reason they would need IT is to fix something, PDA doesn’t sync, printer doesn’t work, etc. These ’senior business executives’ do not need the CIO for these problems.
3. They’re Financial Extortionists When was the last time there wasn’t some emergency in IT (e.g. Y2K, SOX, HIPAA) that requires a zillion dollars? Compound this with the lack of visibility into how IT spends non-project dollars and it makes you want to become a technology vendor to cash in on the booty.
A zillion dollars? Using fictitious numbers isnt something I would expect from Harvard Business Online.
Lets take Y2K, no one knew for sure what would happen. So if stuff had broke when the year went to 00, guess who gets blamed. Not the ’senior business executives’, but IT.
As far as SOX and HIPAA goes those requirements were thrusted onto IT by the lawyer types running the government. Should IT just ignore those requirements so IT doesn’t spend a gazillion dollars?
4. Their Projects Never End In-process projects are always 90% done. “Completed” projects don’t have agreed to functionality, and the team that promises to deliver missing functionality in future phases are always mysteriously missing-in-action.
The only time I have heard that completed projects don’t have ‘agreed to functionality’ is when this functionality is requested very late in the project design cycle. Projects that are always 90% done are usually projects that suffer from feature creep that keep on growing. Oh and projects that deploy some sort of system do usually require continue maintenance, don’t mix up maintenance with being incomplete.
5. The Help Desk is Helpless When glitches emerge, you are become a technology pauper, going door-to-door begging for help while functional specialists defend the reliability of their piece of the byzantine infrastructure.
This is easy, even for the ’senior business executives’. If you are having issues, when a glitch emerges, reboot. Turn your computer off and back on. Yes, sure you should not have to do that, but computers aren’t perfect. Software sometimes screws up, it happens. Also, if you have a question on how to do something, like removing a footer in a word document. Before calling up the helpdesk try using the built in Help system in the application. If you don’t, when you call the helpdesk what will happen is the helpdesk will just open up the application and go to help and read to you the solution.
6. They Let Outsourcers Run Amok You know that outsourcing wasn’t really IT’s idea, but you blame them when you’re trying to communicate with external “service” providers that lack even a basic understanding of your business. It’s like trying to teach calculus to a 4 year old.
So ’senior business executives’ make a ‘business’ decision to outsource, customer service with the outsource company sucks and it is IT’s fault. wow
7. IT is Stocked with Out-of-Date Geeks It’s not good when you learn about social networking from your 12-year old at home while IT is still trying to cope with email. Then, when you try to brainstorm with IT about how to apply new technology, you get paternalistic responses akin to the look that parents give their children when they play dress up.
So IT should be educating ’senior business executives’ about each new technology fad that your 12-year old knows about? This week web 2.0, next week micro blogging the week after the new iphone. Shouldn’t the ’senior business executives’ be discussing this with the CIO and not the ‘Out-of-Date Geeks’ who are extorting money for their never ending projects that are run by outsourced companies?
8. IT Never Has Good News No matter how much you spend and how hard you work, you never have anything to celebrate and little to look forward to as the promise of technology seems perpetually beyond your reach.
You could always go back to typewriters, paper, analog phones and dialup. IT systems are just suppose to work, when they do there is no news. When they fail then you have bad news.
The majority of these issues are management and communication related. The reality is this is just a troll article and I took the bait.
Entries (RSS)