THIS is the reason why they dont Listen...

I've seen organizations go from Bad to Good and almost great.. others stuck in the perpetual state of Utter Stupidity to Complete drooling Moronitis. You can't necessarily lay a template for the reasons most companies don't listen to IT and ignore the ramifications. However - Ill give you the reason why we have such a problem when you read it you'll understand.

When computers hit the market in the mid 80's and from then on anyone could buy anything for just about any computer. Memory, Hard drives, Motherboards what have you. We put some of the most complex technology mostly in the hands of MORONS. A lot of us cut our teeth in those days. We've now got a culture of people who THINK they KNOW what computers and software are all about. Hey, they've cracked a case and stuck in a memory chip.. (probably backwards at first but they did it... Now they are SUPER TECH. God forbid someone actually loaded an Operating System with Dell/Compaq/HP/Gateway on the phone and now thinks they are equal to a Microsoft Certified Engineer but don't ask them what a Domain is or how to spell CPU.

People such as this are now in high positions within organizations making decisions. Sometimes you luck out and get somebody who actually says "I don't know this stuff, I need IT to help me understand it". A big HOOYAH! for them, they ARE smart ones....

I worked as a Network Analyst II for a huge hospital (Server Team). I was there just short of 5 years. The first two were tough as hell because IT couldn't get a handle on people in the organization. I kid you not, Tower Servers (for a rack mounted Data Center) were showing up on our doorstep with Department Directors shortly thereafter asking when we would be getting their NEW hardware/software working. I cant tell you how many times my poor Manager drank gallons of Maalox for the ulcers they were giving him. PS... I think you did great Greg W !

Finally our CIO (smart guy) started grabbing other Department Directors by the B**** and told them "If you buy it without our (IT) direction, then its yours and its NOT going in MY data center". The CEO got behind him and authorized a Project Management Manager position. From then on, NOTHING was allowed to be purchased by any Department if it had anything whatsoever to do with IT. Then a change management process was put into place to stop system admins from just rebooting servers whenever they wanted. This use to send the Server Techs Pagers going off like crazy all the time. We would hit the data center door on a run to see some pimply, squirrely Sys Admin at a console grinning that he had rebooted the system. It didn't take long after a few write ups to stop that nonsense once the change management process was put into place.

When I left, the only thing that was still giving the IT Department problems was individual departments purchasing those crappy inkjet printers to set on people's desk instead of using Network Print services. They continued to call for support on them - as we found them we confiscated them. That strategy started to work once they realized we were serious as a heart attack about it. Accounting helped by watching purchases for inkjet cartridges.

I said all that to show that it's possible for an organization to change direction and for IT to take a positive role in directing things. I saw meetings where Department directors TRIED to over argue IT for a system we KNEW was bad...and it didn't fly. I will tell you without a shadow of doubt - if you do NOT have your CEO/Presidents backing, you are NOT going to get IT the control that it needs to have. Someone MUST stand there with a big stick ready to shove up someone's .. ok.. never mind - you get the picture. Anything Less will only mean an exponentially lesser impact that the IT Dept will have....to the organizations chagrin.

People MUST learn THEY are NOT the experts - IT are the experts. Ok, give this one to me - we are SUPPOSE to be the experts. Until this is acknowledged, everything else will go along in their dysfunctional way. Sorry - this is just the way it is. No amount of assertiveness will overcome it ~ It'll just get you fired.