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When people talk about their IT departments, they always talk about the things they’re not allowed to do, the applications they can’t run, and the long time it takes to get anything done.
Here is the beginning of an intriguing post called: The end of the IT department – (37signals).
Let me state immediately that I consider it oversimplistic and a just sales pitch (guess what’s the proposed alternative to the status quo?) but … there is A LOT OF TRUTH in the post! And we, the evil IT departments, should always keep in mind these things I’ll quote from The end of the IT department – (37signals): the list of why your It department sucks
- When people talk about their IT departments, they always talk about the things they’re not allowed to do, the applications they can’t run, and the long time it takes to get anything done
- If businesses had as many gripes with an external vendor, that vendor would’ve been dropped long ago.
- There’s no feedback loop for improvement.
- IT job security is often dependent on making things hard, slow, and complex.
- It’s the same forces and mechanics that slowly turned unions from a force of progress (proper working conditions for all!) to a force of stagnation
I agree on all these diseases and I seriously doubt the solution is the new silver bullet: “today you can get just about all the services that previously required local expertise from a web site somewhere“.
Is this “you can find everything from a web site somewhere” changing a lot the way we do IT? Yes … and it’s not the silver bullet as it was not the outsourcing or SOA or … It’s a tremendous arrrow, among other arrows.
The step ahead in IT departments will not be done thanks to a ‘technology’: as I use to say “if you think technology can solve all of your problems you don’t know technology or you don’t know your problems“.
But I’m more interested in learning from you: why does your IT department suck precisely?
PierG
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PierG (aka Piergiorgio Grossi) 
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February 25, 2011 at 3:20 pm
0x
IMHO IT Depts should provide indepth knowledge, technical expertise, sound advice, tecnhological oversight and should anticipate industry trends.
As you might have noticed I have not mentioned IT services, as you can get almost anything from cloud based providers for a nickel these days if thats your pie.
But there is no website, no Apple app, no Google service nor MS cumulo nimbus that can do that for you. It’s hardly something you can “own”, you just have to have the right people.
February 25, 2011 at 5:12 pm
Michael Hugos
This is a thoughtful post and by the way 37signals is in Chicago which is where I live. IT departments are famous for why things can’t be done and why things are so complex and it does make them unpopular in their companies.
Yet in the last several years IT has become so central to any business function that IT and business are almost one and the same. What business function can continue to operate if the systems that support it were to go down? The way forward for IT departments is to be experts on how things can be done and to offer both simple and complex solutions and be honest about the pros and cons of each solution.
Most people in business now grew up with computers and they are not so afraid of doing things on their own if IT won’t help. So if IT won’t help then people will go around them and contract with companies like 37signals and hundreds of other SaaS and Cloud and consumer IT providers.
Just as unions have to remake themselves if they are going to survive, IT also has to remake itself if it is going to survive. I’m sure in-house IT departments will do this. As the saying goes, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” IT departments will become the experts on how to combine in-house systems with Cloud and SaaS and consumer IT and they will have a whole new role to play in making business successful.
February 25, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Simone Brunozzi
Well, most IT departments are going to be reduced in size and budget, thanks to SalesForce, Google Apps, Microsoft online, and similar “in the cloud” technologies.
Other things should be kept in house, but efficiency must increase.
There are tough times for IT departments ahead. The problem resides in the fact that they’re considered Cost Centers, not sources of innovation.
February 26, 2011 at 5:29 am
Anonymous
The best websites and vendors sell an experience, and they do it in language the client understands. Client loyalty is to be wooed and won.
Many overworked and resentful IT departments tend to address the task – the experience would be scope creep – and make the client learn their dialect. Client loyalty is a rules-based entitlement. And for the client, that sucks.
IT has historically been perplexed by the hearts and minds game. I don’t agree with 37signals that the IT department is on death watch. Their skills are still needed, and many are doing a better job communicating with their clients . But I think most will have to acquire new skills they previously considered unimportant, in order to please a client base that no longer views technology as alchemy.
February 26, 2011 at 7:39 am
marco
Come mai le formiche non hanno la funzione IT
February 26, 2011 at 5:03 pm
PierG
@marco forse perchè non usano i computer? 🙂
February 28, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Calabrowser
I’m tired and bored by these stereotypes. And stereotypes are killing the IT: stereotypes of CIO’s, of System Engineers, Developers, PM’s, …. We shouldn’t be here to argue why but what and how. What the business needs to run and gain competitiveness, and how to do it. With or without web applications, cloud or SOA. Listen to the business, give them your advice at the best of your knowledge and you will have trust in exchange…and decrease your level of frustration
Why IT sucks? Because people suck!!!