Discussion on:

Sanity check: The 10 biggest headaches of 2007 for CIOs and IT managers

Here's my list of the top 10:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=574

How well does this list reflect your top challenges from 2007? What do you think was the No. 1 issue? Were there any important issues that you faced that weren?t on this list?

I like to think of them more as challenges, but otherwise pretty much spot on, I'd say. Thanks for putting it so succinctly.

I agree with your approach, as there will always be challenges and hurdles to move forward. I think they call that challenge, and it is what keeps "it" meaningful, and employed.

These are definitely right on the mark for me. Agree 100% with what you chose to put as the #1 concern. In my environment, #2 would have probably been the lack of involvement of IT in organizational strategic planning, goal setting, etc. Even though I am one of the 19 directors who run my company, I tend to only get called into meetings if someone thinks the web site will be involved or that someone will need a new computer! Very poor use of my skills ...

Thanks from another Louisvillian for your great articles. I just started reading recently and am thrilled to have found this resource!

In my organization the COO is the IT Manager and I make the recommendations for technology implementation. I don't sit in on management meetings unless something technical comes up and they need things clarified.

So there's folks making IT decisions that aren't sound and I'm stuck with the consequences. For example, instead of purchasing an off-the-shelf software solution, we decided to build our own. We have one programmer in house and if he gets run over by a bus or lost at sea (likes to go deep sea fishing) we're screwed.

Another thing is that we're having so many implementation problems. Due to the fact that our homebrew software isn't network capable, we have to deploy seperate installations on seperate servers at all 9 locations. Guess who has to figure out the logistics of all of this? Guess who has to manage 9 different backups? Guess who has to deliver the bill because of our aging fleet of servers are running on borrowed time? Yes, me. The guy that should have been in on the management meeting when they were deciding what to do.

There are 100 different applications that can do what we need, but we decided to build our own solely based on politics. Yet when someone forgets their password for the database at site X they blow up my hotline and I get asked why everyone has a seperate username and password at every site.

Why am I reaping the bad fruit that management sowed?

/rant

Despite you have a person who 'virtually' represents an IT part in top managerial events, it sounds like he/she is not represents IT in fact. This person is not a pro as CIO nor IT Manager, with appropriate tech knowledge, am I correct?
In your case point 6 (alignment with business goals) must be no.1. Because this is two-way road. Business not aware of all technology and methodology that stands behind an IT and very complex to understand in details (that's what the CIO for). It just earn money.
So per my understanding your organization is in trouble due to lack of clear communication between IT and other units. If it's impossible to make right connections through your current COO, try to establish 'horizontal' lines and keep them working. Although, this advise is against that ITIL says

This top 10 list covers it pretty well. These areas are especially difficult with moblie users or staff that want the ability to access their business apps. and data from their home computers. Difficult to manage the amount and level of service to provide, not to mention how to maintain compliance & protect the business from security risks. Makes it even more important to have that seat on the exec. team and have good communication with all departments.

"Managing mobile users" should have probably been on the list.

If you haven't seen it, I recently did a Webcast on managing mobile users:
http://whitepapers.techrepublic.com.com/webcast.aspx?docid=325611

I have seen little or no reason to begin the upgrade to Vista. In fact I've seen reasons to stay clear. We tried a few test deployments and within a few weeks we decided the deployment failed and replaced Vista with XP pro.
The headaches and incompatibilities were just to much and the OS itself offers nothing that people can't live without. Not to mention the learning curve for users and even myself. Things were so re-arranged in the control panel and everywhere else that I found myself asking "OK now where did they put..." far too often. The changes were completely unnecessary and they added to the poor experience we had.

This article is dead on, although I might move #10 (Vista) up a couple of notches. I would submit my headache #11, Microsoft Office 2007 deployment, management, and support. Office 2K7 does offer some exciting new features, like Excel Services and the XML storage format, but the fact is that MS has completely rearranged a perfectly usable UI, made many of the features we use regularly very difficult to find, and introduced strange bugs into a fairly stable set of applications.

I think Firefox has made MS "tab-happy", to borrow a phrase from one of my users. The learning curve for our users, the rearranged UI, the fact that some of the apps like Excel crash regularly with no provocation, and the small percentage of adopters in our industry has made us limit the number of installations on our network so we're essentially running a 90% Office 2003/10% Office 2007 shop for the foreseeable future.

I do believe that these headaches have existed prior to 2007.
1. Centralized vs decentralized IT has been flip flopping back and forth since the 1980s.
2. Very rarely are there IT managers who actually have IT degrees. Try on a VP over the IT department who is the company's CFO.
3. Outsourcing then hiring back has been a trend over the years since the late 1980s.
4. IT departments are primarily viewed as service organizations to the business folks. The definition of what those 'services' constantly change even within the same company. IT departments viewed in this way will often cause conflicts. Now we not only have the general people kind of conflicts which inevitably will happen BUT between departments.
5. Recently had some functional people with absolutely no training in relational databases except for very simple self learned data manipulation techniques who had been given superuser passwords in respective databases. Their managers would not approve formal training nor purchase them a full featured database tool. They had internet access and kept downloading the free trial version of TOAD to do what they wanted to with data. They did have query capabilities with Cognos catalogs and a trained Cognos administrator just for the business people.
Who do you think had to answer to those same people when something was wrong with the electronic data?

etc. etc. On a positive note though some business people are responsible in knowing how far they should go, when they should check with IT on what they want to do, and when IT should just provide what they need.

Another positive note for me is my perception of the high growth business awareness for a way to bridge some of the core gaps between traditional IT and business units

DST change and Email archiving law.

These are spot on. We have had conversations, debates, and concerns about each of these issues.

Great article. It was like the reading equivalent to a group meeting for IT professionals. :-D

Great insight.

I would also add few more.
- Finding Resources with both mix of Technical and
Functional Knowledge
- IT Maturity to follow processes
usually in ASIA it is always the requirement
to be completed "Yesterday"

Roger Datavision Limited Hong Kong

Reason number 1 is something we realized,there had been serious problems with relations between IT and business in our company, up until we stopped and went through a major mind set change. it wasnt easy, but the benefits , speak for themselves. Now at the end of 2007, we see a stronger bond between IT and business, enabling business and end user's to more effectively reach set goals and work more effectively.

I definitely agree with number 1. I have seen too many IT departments that take the view that before a business process be implemented that it be reviewed to see if it conforms to the current IT procedures. Seems that a lot of IT people forget that IT is a support function. I meet one IT manager who's attitude was that everything must evolve around IT and get IT approval.

As for the centralized/decentralized, I have seen this go back and forth for years. I believe in a mix by looking at it on a case by case for each organization.

There are many times when an IT organization has to provide a service to the company by reviewing and sometimes saying no to an idea presented to them. This doesn't mean that they are not service oriented. It means that they understand the infrastructure and capabilities in place. As we all know there are many ways to accomplish the same thing. Finding the solution that will fit within the established infrastucture, is supportable, and will not require "unseen" expenses is a great service to the company. As long as IT performs the review and signoff for the right reasons, I don't see an issue in doing so. IT belongs on the executive committee 1. To understand the strategic direction of the company. 2. To keep the company from following every technology of the week being marketed. 3. To ensure that upper management understand the implications of decisions made.

While IT lives to support users - they are the biggest problem. Its almost always the users who infect their systems with viruses, cause issues because they install personal software on work PC's...the list goes on.

For IT to continue to provide the best support and services possible we have to protect users from themselves. The problem is that many people THINK they are smarter than they REALLY are when it comes to PC's.

A CIO at a hospital I worked at coined it like this "A great many users see their work PC's as extensions of their home PC's and treat them as such".

The rest of problems are just part of what makes the IT world what it is - ever changing.

I agree with you 100%. Here are some things I learned during my career at a at major corporation, before my job got outsourced.

1, Adopt a ZERO tolerance policy on use of personal SW on your company computing assets.

2, Enforce that policy, and make users sign a disclosure that they will be terminated if they do so.

3, Install a proxy server or use monitoring software to capture websites users visit.

4, Have your MS admins set up user permissions on workstations so they can't go outside the company intranet.

I've dealt with the so called "smart users" before. Downloading porn, and thinking that "they'll never catch me if I delete the history file."

The ones I've loved are the ones that move a database to their desktop from the server, and accidently delete it. Fortunately I was able to retore it almost immediately, because Novell had a neat command known as salvage. The MS equivilent is nowhere as good.

All these problems can be solved if your IT dept, just put their foot down, and say "enough is enough."

I agree with.

"Your comment - All these problems can be solved if your IT dept, just put their foot down, and say "enough is enough.""

Unfortunately IT is typically not given the power to do so. Those that do have the power feel that us IT serfs just need to shut up go back in our closet and do our job "if we know how" and just leave the big decisions to the brain numbed Nimrods. They of course typically side with the Users and demand they be given free reign to do as they please. Thank god regulations (YUCK) are being both imposed and enforced on business. It's a double edged sword you have meat heads in charge of both the enforcement and writing of the regulations. Which seem to have been out sourced to folks for which English is neither their first or second language and are often referred to as bean counters. I see things kind of slowly migrating towards the correct path. I credit (GAG) regulations pushing it in that direction.

Yes Users are and always have been a huge problem that has tantamount to a boil on IT's back side. However we must now lift our eyes above that and look at those whom actually create that persistent pain. Short and sweet IT needs both a prominent and permanent seat at the big table. In most cases it is simply impossible to separate IT from the business they are now a sum of the whole. What use is it to breath if you have no lungs or the means to deliver the byproduct?

... Simple solution. BAN ALL USERS FROM THE SYSTEM!


Oh yeah, then figure out again what you are getting paid for... and who is signing your check.


PS - if the users are downloading porn, it is not your business - it is a management issue. You can report ALL non-business downloads to operations/management and let them decide what is/is not punishable by "immediate termination".

Other SW downloaded by users is often done so to work around the snail paced IT dept. Become better at customer service and the users.... er, CUSTOMERS become better.

I'm just going to cut and paste the post I made to the other off worlder.

WOW!!!!

The only thing that seems fitting to do is to ask you these questions.

1. Did you read the entire post?

2. Did you devote your complete and undivided attention to the reading of the post?

3. Did you comprehend the post?

4. Did you read the other posts I made to this article?

5. Is this a joke are you putting me on?

It's kind of scary to see posts like yours. Once again WOW!!!

I'm just astounded to see how many posts here at TR are in the same vein as yours. Pull that string hanging out your left ear and flush your head then read my post again. In fact read all of the posts in this article. It's a good experience.

Your flame even had bullet points...LOL!

So tell me, do you even know who you are replying to? From my vast knowledge of reading threads, it would seem that you were trying to reply to Deane75? However, Deane75 was replying to James Speed and NOT your post.

C'mon.......surely you CAN post some positive comments rather than useless rants? Try it, I'm sure you could if you really try.

Cheers!

Still to this day I hear about a clerk picking up the phone, calling the IT department for help and getting a surly voice telling the person that IT has in fact changed the coding for records entry without the need to tell anyone, but if accounting has an issue with generating reports/checques/etc. that it is an accounting problem and not an IT issue.
Service is a difficult paradigm to install in someone who is more concerned about AMD vs Intel than contributing to the corporate success.
Not to pick on IT, the attitude can be present in any organization's departmentalization, but, because my work takes me that way, I have seen it in the arrogance of the tech "specialist".

First off, by far the largest problem users have is their staunch entrenched resistance to both accept that they MUST learn the rudimentary fundamental basics of IT user requirements and the responsibility that goes with it. That is reflected not only by general staff but also with the managers of that staff. Another way of saying that is their largest problem is themselves or they have seen the enemy and it is themselves. I would also say that the mentality of their management greatly aids their own delusions or in a softer way incorrect assessment.

They simply think that they have neither a responsibility to learn how to use the equipment nor are they bound to adhere to policy. More importantly that someone else must be in ready set go mode to aid them.

The bottom line is they feel that the sole purpose of IT is to serve them and that they should not need to learn anything about "those @#$%&* computers" to do their job. Even although 90% plus of everything they do is done in conjunction with a computer.

The younger the users the more arrogant they are with their stance and blind they are to the fact that IT or perhaps I should say High Tech is in nearly everything they do in life. Which would include Cell phones, DVDs and Vehicles.

Once again I'm more convinced then ever that there is a culture of brain dead folks that just insists that IT folks should be used and abused like serfs. For that I give you both numbers 3 and 6. We are not here to serve we are here for IT. Now that said yes in the lowest levels of IT (the best of us started out there ) where in some cases it is not even necessary to be an IT professional user support is provided and quite frankly it is necessary. Users definitely need both ongoing support and training for Computers, other Office Equipment and Policy. That is not the direct responsibility of the Core IT group. Although they can certainly play a role in advising and supporting those for whom it is. In fact most User needs can be handled with in their department since the vast majority of support needs are centered around common repetitive mistakes (How To's). A reasonable but not all encumbering example is number 9. Centralized vs. decentralized IT. Take it out of two and put it in one then take it out of one and put it in two. It's time for non IT folks and perhaps even more so imitation IT folks to be completely and permanently removed from the decision making process where IT is concerned. OK, I'll loosen up a little and let them deal with help desk, user training and user policy enforcement.

Warning!!! don't make Sys Admins, Network Engineers, and god forbid Programmers and all other high end IT folks perform Help Desk, on site support and user training. Most especially, if you think either we are your servants or simply here to serve then you need removed from the decision making process.

In fact I also give you 4 and 5 as examples that the "business" culture doesn't take IT seriously. They view compliance as a big to do about nothing that IT better get done so the Big important bean counters can sign off on it. As well as, confidentiality is what the Execs think they should have with their decisions and perks not the Risk of company and personal/consumer data and other information. Once again it's IT making a big to do about nothing. This often results in meeting compliance goals being part of the existing IT budget and not an extra or special budget. I must note that it's not just IT that contains confidential information and is subject to compliance. Yet it's typically viewed as an IT only issue which leaves the company vulnerable.

As for 5. I would add 5a. which would be the attack of the bean counters. Yes for what ever reason bean counters are used to audit IT. An audit is simply an evaluation to ascertain the validity and reliability of information and an assessment of internal controls of which bean counters are prohibitively unqualified to conduct for IT. They are often referred to as regulators or examiners.

I have noticed that the author's job title and background is not a pure IT role and more of a semi IT person (IT convert) whom the powers that be put over IT and he just doesn't have it with in him to remove the serfdom mentality of IT from IT. We are not here to be manipulated, dominated and controlled. Think of us as a new kind of Executive who's place is at the big table not cleaning it after the big dogs leave. Sorry Jason you otherwise typically do excellent but you consistently slide a zinger in there which needs confronted. You have otherwise presented an excellent article. If you could have that part of you which looks upon IT folks as lap dogs and not highly trained skilled professionals in a profession that has come of age and is so intertwined with business that it is now synonymous with business it's self surgically removed then you could become a giant in your field or at least TR.

I'm just astounded that so many folks feel that users are to be given a free pass and IT folks most especially both the high end folks and the one person or micro IT departments are here to serve the users. There simply are not enough hours in the day to do all the IT let alone deal with a persistent arrogance and stubbornness which flies in the face of IT and dogs IT in performance of the essential duties of IT. This often results in Operations taking a hit. It's the mentality of a three day old retarded rock which simply must go by any means.

I worked for technology-driven startups throughout the 90's, where there were few barriers between IT and "the Business." In fact, I never heard that term used seriously until I joined my current employer, a large traditional retail company with a successful e-commerce presence. I still cringe when a support person says "the business" as though what they do is completely unrelated to making a profit.

At this company, my job falls just on the business side of this artificial divide, and it's been a struggle to get the level of IT support that we need. While IT was spending energy protecting me from myself, I've been trying to explain why our online-only competitors are closing the gap between us and them so quickly, and why it takes a year to do what would have been three months' work at my previous employers.

The belief of IT departments that they know better than their users may mitigate technical risk, but it puts companies at enormous competitive risks. If you aren't willing to completely decentralize your IT department, so you can have support stuff who actually understand the daily realities of what they support, then at least find the people in the business side who know what they are doing, empower them, and support them. If you don't, you'll all be looking for work together when the nimble competition that gets it eats your employer for lunch.

In most cases it is not IT that makes the decisions for IT's role and functions it is the non IT folks who do that at the peril of both the Business and Operations. You really need to have some specifics and not a generalization. Such as the IT department was given both the budget and independent authority to literally do anything they desired and as a result they became obsessed with all the whizzbangs and completely neglected everything else (give a list 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9) and so on. Otherwise you set yourself up as one of the folks whom I have suggested need to be removed from the decision making process.

So I'm not going to spend a lot of time posting to this thread. However, you missed my point. The IT perspective I've been exposed to is that anything "the business" wants is a poorly-considered "whizzbang." The speed of change in the competitive landscape will eventually weed out the companies where this IT mindset still holds.

I'll leave it to the others who've posted recognizing the deep failure of the anti-service approach you espouse to change your mind or not.

Which is exactly my point!!!

I like this list and agree with most of it. I have a really hard time with executives making IT decisions and they are not real IT people they are insurance people. I am the IT director at my company and I have to put up with there decisions. As for the service end of things you have to have someone on IT staff to do this. There should be someone who is a desktop support speacialist who knows the software in and out to support the users. That way the cio's, net admins and programmers do not have to help. Service is a part of it. I worked for a manager whom hated that end of things and now he is out of a job.

I said that Users need on going support. I also said that the Core IT folks should not be providing that support. I did mention Help Desk and on site support and Users do need that with out question. I Also said just don't force that on a one person IT department or a Programmer other highly skilled IT professionals and so on. Of course my main point is that from Users to the Execs they all get IT's role wrong. So Unless I missed your point then I would say we are very much in agreement.

I have plenty of substance. I have market share over time, business strategy, business tactics, apparent rate of consumer-facing technology adoption by our competition versus us, etc. I have experience at companies that followed a different model, grew, succeeded, and paid out for all out hard work. I can compare past experience with present experience, and tell which model was more efficient at making money and mitigating risk.

As far as I can tell, what you have is the certainty that no one outside IT has a clue. A lot of people do. You put everyone in the same bucket with few idiots who infect the network with virus they picked up surfing porn. In the end, it's competitive edge that suffers.

The capital of business is risk. If you accept no risk, you are putting your capital in your mattress. If you accept a little risk, you are putting your capital in a savings account. As an organization, your company needs to decide how it wants to invest its capital based on the rate of return it seeks weighed against risk. Traditional IT has taken the position that no amount of risk is acceptable, which often puts it absolutely at odds with the goals of the company it works for.

Seriously now, I have to get some work done.

You said that you were to busy to give substantive examples and yet you make another post that is not only lacking substance but is tantamount to a diatribe. You have no specific examples. "A did X and the result was Y" if A would have done X+1 the result would have been Z the impact of each are 1,2,3,4,5.

Odd how folks like you have time to read the original article and someone's posts such as mine and make several posts yourself while persistently mentioning that you are on the job and have no time for detail. Typically those kind of folks are derogatory and take offense to comments that refute IT being user lapdogs and having no place at the big table. You have made yet a another contradiction. Hey I see a pattern!!! Are you Help Desk or Desk Top/on site support by any chance?

My guess is that all the folks whom make posts which you disagree with are poorly using company time but you are some how exempt. I suppose being on vacation, after business hours, working FREE over time or simply occupying my time in between running various jobs still makes my posts a poor use of company time.

Perhaps you better not answer that and get to work and refrain from posting again. I would not want to encourage you to make yet another infraction and poor use of company time


Since I can't make another post to this thread I will comment here to thomas.peterson.

Honey, if you look at my history you will see that I don't do Users. In fact it's been many years since I have. Better yet and much faster just look at my title IT Manager. If you actually have a clue about IT then you know that I don't do Users. In fact the closest I get is supporting those who provide User support. So my advice is to quit blowing smoke about your non existent IT credentials for which you have no means to prove in this thread that they actually exist.

Now as to your comments about bean counters. You certainly spanked yourself there. Most folks in any other occupation (except bean types) will vote against you tooting your horn there. DOH!!!! In fact you get spanked again for if we are to believe that you are in IT and you are doing IT auditing then IT is doing IT Auditing instead of a bean counter which is exactly one of my main points. So double DOH to you on that one. Now go get help taking both of your feet out of your mouth.

Having managed both IT Programs, Products and Projects at Fortune 1000 level companies, I can truly appreciate the thought, tact and substance that you brought to this discussion.

Don?t worry about No Luser because as he is still chaffing from having to do defrags deskside we?ll be busy planning the next mobile, portable and profit-oriented product or service and strategically catapult ourselves and our companies over the competition. Oh did I mention that the key to this is through an established and on-going positive relationship with our internal and external ?business-partners??

IT folks who chaff at end users, disregard the value proposition established by IT Auditors, and blather on about 1s & 0s in logical arguments lack the finesse and nimbleness necessary to evolve.

BTW I recently got certified as a CISM, CISA & CISSP and converted to IT Audit to better promote relationships between business groups and IT. One of the foundational strategies is aligning business process with the technical and logical controls ?in support of the business tolerance for risk.?

Best wishes and I hope our paths cross someday, I think it would be great to share a pint and pick your brain on the evolution of IT value, leveraging risk as an asset and managing the risks with SAAS.

Is like competing in the Special Olympics...even if you win, you're still retarded.

Just because somebody's experience isn't the same as yours doesn't make them right or wrong.

How many ways are there to do a thing? I don't know...how many companies are out there?

You are a web developer, you probably do not support users or perform case studies or even know how to bring up Active Directory. Therefor because you most likely lack the proper credentials would encourage everyone who is reading this to consider you a null and inappropriate voice. Leave the IT decision making to those who understand entire networks and not just CSS\Java.

I am an IT Director, and I have worked direct-user support for more than 10 years. I've also done hardcore DB design and implementation for a fortune 50 company. And I have to agree with BOTH of you. The point I would make is that both of you tend towards the extreme. The point where you meet is communication, and that - in my experience - has been the single largest point of failure in the business/IT value proposition.

I have rarely seen an instance when IT wasn't willing to do something without a very good reason. I have seen and been part of that where IT objects because of data corruption issues and/or where management ignores advice. I have similarly been a part of things where the business users determine and convince their bosses (who have control of IT) that they know better about how to do something and that they should be put in charge of making sure IT does it regardless of how dangerous it is.

I have an MBA, so I can appreciate the idea of risk. Many IT people have a VERY low risk tolerance inherently. So to get their buy-in, you have to genuinely listen to their feedback, ask them to evaluate the potential risk in a scenario, and them assure them (big item here) that the BUSINESS side is going to undertake the risk, not them. When IT acts like a security-monger, it is because they are cognizant of the risks but don't think you are. So make sure you are both on the same page about the risks and then agree to take responsibility for assuming the risk. IT has every amount of CYA that standard business-people have. So you work around it by making sure that those making the decisions about the risk are the ones taking responsibility. Once you acknowledge responsibility for the risk, I don't think you'll find a problem in asking your IT department to facilitate you - as long as you aren't asking them to compromise morals or their continued employment.

Your summary of the issue of risk is exactly right. This is a very important part of understanding the problem of the disconnect between IT and business. Thanks.

As I have stated many times IT is part of the business. The failure to understand that is the beginning of the problem. Treating IT like the unwanted Red headed step child or as I prefer servant or serf is the furthering of the problem.

Yes communicate but all together as a sum of the whole. Simply put, both accept and deal with reality.

I agree about his comments on RISK. The one I quoted is excellent.

Although you have stated that I had an extreme view and you both have some agreement and disagreement after a second read of your statement you seem to have near complete agreement with me. Perhaps it's the translation. Good for you and your experience however, as far as RISK goes I flat out stated that it was not all IT and in fact went so far as to say that the lack of the rest of the professions at the BUSINESS to take RISK seriously and equally important understand that RISK is not just an IT thing it's the entire business is the problem. That failure leaves the BUSINESS vulnerable.

Now, you make a point about dialog and that once again is at the heart of what I said. IT Simply MUST be at the big table where IT rightfully belongs. That is where the dialog begins. Where I see that we disagree is that you seem to take the position that IT resides outside of Business in your title you state that IT is a service and I flat out state that business and IT are inseparable. IT is no more a service then every other profession and position in the business. I can look at it like everyone employed by the business performs a service for the business but not that IT alone is a service. Whether anyone likes or not we are part of the business and we are here to stay. In fact in many posts that I have in other articles explains this in great detail.

RISK is a company concern. Oddly enough the ancient business mentality is that once again IT is on the outside of the room with the big table and ancient business types decide the fate of the company. That is THE problem or perhaps just the biggest and not an acceptable way to do business. IT is part of the business and we decide together as a sum of the whole. In no way do I want IT to be in charge of all Security. In fact being a Traffic Cop is one of the duties I wish to be expunged from IT and be placed where it belongs on the shoulders of the managers. Everybody needs to be involved if not then you are at RISK.

Example about audits, I picked on bean counters. IT can "help" with both their RISK assessment and implementation just like they can "help" IT. IT is by no means better qualified to "tell" Accounting what to do then Accounting is to "tell" IT what to do. Unfortunately it is the latter that "IS THE WAY IT IS".

I think your following statement is excellent!!!

"(When IT acts like a security-monger, it is because they are cognizant of the risks but don't think you are. So make sure you are both on the same page about the risks and then agree to take responsibility for assuming the risk. IT has every amount of CYA that standard business-people have. So you work around it by making sure that those making the decisions about the risk are the ones taking responsibility. Once you acknowledge responsibility for the risk, I don't think you'll find a problem in asking your IT department to facilitate you - as long as you aren't asking them to compromise morals or their continued employment.)"


Perhaps I should explain what I mean by ancient business mentality. In another post which I probably wont quote in verbatim I stated the following. IT is the new kid on the block. Business has been around for thousands of years and thus business owners, managers, sales, marketing accounting labor both skilled and unskilled and so on. Those folks have had a long time to get know each other and in fact they understand each other. They sit at the big table. Then along comes IT and they neither understand IT nor IT folks not even the IT culture. There is an innate fear of the unknown in those folks and so they fear IT. Since they fear IT they resist IT taking it's rightful place at the big table and they are determined to manipulate, dominate and control IT even to the detriment and undoing of many businesses. If you are afraid of something you don't like that fear so it's natural to try to remove that fear a typical way is to be in control. As soon as the ancient ones get it together move over and bring IT to the big table the better off we shall all be.

So Jason, since you like his points on RISK I guess you agree with me as well!!!!


Since I can't reply to Tigertwo I will respond to Tigertwo here. I think we pretty much see eye to eye on this. I would add a point about your comment on IT folks who have sat at the big table and failed at their job. The as I refer to them ancient ones are the folks who picked that CIO/CTO or what ever title to sit at the big table. So those IT folks fit their mold not the mold that IT folks would cast. So I think we need to tread lightly when we look at examples. It's the CEO's or CFO's or COO's etc hand picked IT person. Not an IT professional picked by the IT community to sit at the big table. Once they leave IT Operations they often are all the way out to fit the mold that has been cast by others. That IT person is over loaded with reporting and other old school business like duties and doesn't have the pulse of IT Operations and is perhaps destine to failure because of that. We are different then the other professions yet they insist on making IT fit into their mold.

The TEAM consists of everyone on the TEAM. The folks on the TEAM are known as PLAYERS. The TEAM works best when everyone on the TEAM understands the ROLES of and works with all the PLAYERS. If the Manager of the TEAM neither understands some of the PLAYERS nor their ROLES then the TEAM is in big trouble. You can have either a narrow or wide view of the team concept and the above statement still applies.

And what I find is that you make a very good point but may be missing something close to the heart of the issue.

For whatever reason, business doesn't trust technology much. We went from a time where business gave us a pretty blank check and told us to "fix" Y2K, to business feeling like we spent the money poorly and misrepresented the whole Y2K issue.

I'v heard the arguments on both sides- IT says that it was a non-event because of the work that we put into making it a non-event. Business maintains that there was never a problem to begin with. Some facts remain- IT had better control of its destiny back then and lost that control shortly after, and business stopped trusting their IT departments.

I agree that we should be pulled in at the decision point. But I have too often seen IT leaders who ARE at that table make bad calls because they had used an approach or technology solution in another role and that is what they pushed to implement- even when it was the wrong thing.

So I guess my position is that we need to step closer to business in order to clearly understand what the real requirements are, and business needs to step closer to us in strategic planning and decision making.

An additional note here- I would think that a flattening of the organizational structure would be the greatest step towards bringing the sides together. When I am in the early days of a project, I gather not only the managers of the departments I will be working with, I get their senior lead as well. Those senior leads will provide me with analysis from a purely technological standpoint, while the managers can take that input and determine how it will be presented to business for ratification. It also enables the team to discuss the impact of the proposed solution from a strategic standpoint. And I am generally better able to land on the technical requirements.

It is generally my responsibility as the PM to make sure that I am presenting the information to business in a way that is understandable to them and to insure that from a technology perspective we have considered all the possible solutions.

Further to my earlier comment on flattening the organization, I also think that politics play too great a role in decision making. Flatter organizations allow for better peer relationships and tend to inspire fewer politics.

Accounting may hold the purse strings, but all that does is reinforce my accountability to the team to validate my ROI first. To an extent, it also reinforces my accountability to my team and my business partner to evaluate the risk as fully as I can.

Nouser? I hate to join the fray since you are determined to beat everyone down with a long winded explanation why users are the problem, but? if we didn?t have users, you wouldn?t have a job. Rather than vilify users, find a way to work as a team? and if they are being ignorant, don?t lower yourself to their level but rather find a way to open lines of communications. If they aren?t listening, maybe it?s your cavalier attitude that is making them that way.

I?m not interested in specifics? I can find a specific to support either side of the argument (yes, there are users you?ll never win over? it?s part of life!) but it?s more productive to find a way to work as a team.

In a previous life, I spent many years as a service advisor in a multi-line automotive dealership in a role that fell between the users (customers) and technical staff (automotive technicians). By bridging the gap between them with honest communications and sincerity, I not only had less stress but my team was the most successful financially and had the highest customer satisfaction index.

Find creative and non-confrontational ways to deal with your co-workers (they aren?t just users?) and use your vast experience to influence, not antagonize.

Many of the comments in this thread seem to be confusing the idea of IT as a service and IT's role in supporting the user. I have always held the opinion that every employee of a business should see themselves as providing a service. The janitors provide a service to the employees by providing a clean work environment. Management provides a service when they create a work environment that allows people to earn a living. Everybody that works for a company should see themselves as providing a service to those that are impacted by what they do. For an IT Manager, this involves making sure that IT resources are available and appropriate for the work that is being done. In addition, the IT Manager plays a role in educating both the end-user and management. I could go on and on, but when it gets right down to it, I think that IT, as well as every other department in a company, must be seen as a service if it is really going to benefit that company. And, when you allow management to make very stupid decisions, you do everyone in the company a disservice. I've had to go toe-to-toe with management more than once in my career and guess what? It's always worked out for the best when I've done so.

Right on!!!!

In that respect lets go all the way. The CEO provides a service so does the board of directors and the company it's self provides a service to the customers and customers are providing a service to the company by conducting their business with the company. It goes full circle and loses it's meaning.

Personally though the word service often gets misconstrued and is used to both belittle someone else and cause someone to fill that somebody else owes them something as well as to feel cheated if they think they didn't get what they were owed.

How about we remove the word service from the dictionary and get a more reasonable and flexible name that doesn't cause veins to pop in folks eyes (notably mine) while getting the job done. There you go this is the age of PC2, Politically Correct and Personal Computer so let us rise above this and find a name that is non offensive.

But won't get any traction.

So I use partnership... regardless of how often I would really like a divorce!

Giving doesn't work- it really isn't a gift. Don't know about anyone else, but I would rather get paid.

I get your points. You are sick and tired of being the janitor- called in to clean up messes and KNOWING that those messes could have been avoided if anyone had thought to ask for help- or had taken the help that was offered.

Maybe we could just call it that. And understand that we are all janitors from the CEO down. We all get different kinds of messes, but we are ALL expected to clean them up.

On the bright side, every time I am able to bring a team together to do that, I have an opportunity to maybe introduce a new cleaning tool that will benefit us all. And feed cookies to my team. Yes, I feed my teams cookies. I even bake them myself. Sometimes I think that the treats are the only reason that people work for me...