Reply to post: Fix the real issues

When the IT department is 'just another supplier'

RichardB

Fix the real issues

First up: Stop talking about the Customer when referring to someone, somewhere in the business that wants something. They are team mates. You both have the same goal, to help the company do whatever the company does to be successful. Customer as a term carries altogether too much baggage to be a useful way of describing that relationship. 'The customer is always right', 'The customer gets what they want', 'the customer is king'. No... the customer is desperately looking for help with a problem they don't understand. Think doctor and patient...

Second: Cloud is there simply because it allows salesmen to get down and dirty with their marks; the broadly naive and lets face it borderline IT illiterate (IllITerati?) 'business'. Why? Because it enables the marks to bypass all the governance and procurement chains and processes that have been set up over decades, that turn what should be an easy process into weeks of wrangling, signoffs and general dickwittery. So - streamline that business process. Take a chainsaw to procurement and governance and figure out what it really needs to be. And dont spend a year on it. 2 weeks. Focus people, Focus... this is important - as it is killing your entire business function, and possibly the business itself.

Third: Just because you are a socially inept IT engineer who can only talk to other IT engineers and barmaids, you really cannot get away with it any more. Stop wasting your training budget on IT courses (just DIY it) and get the soft skills sorted properly. Go... mingle. I know they are from marketing, but, try. You might enjoy it.

Fourth: Somehow we have to break down this idea that "Business' and 'IT' are different. We should start by undermining the concept that 'IT' should learn to talk 'Business'... and name and shame those who would say 'I can't do that, I'm not technical' when it's suggested they do something beyond clicking a shortcut. Business needs to learn to talk IT. Just like they need to talk Finance. Just like they need to understand how to use a washing machine or a fridge... yeah check the fucker is plugged in and the door is closed.

Fifth: It's not easy. It's never been easy. It will never be easy. Anyone who says it is, needs a proper kicking. Then ignored.

Sixth: It's really not that difficult; In fact most of it is pretty straight forward. Stop the vanity projects. Stop the big bang enterprise solution to everything that will take a decade to even plan by which time it is no longer relevant. Sort out the business processes that 'IT' use, properly, get finance to help. Get a marketing team in house to IT, some PR reps. Work out how to model it as a profit making part of the business, and always talk about it as such. We in internal IT have almost no propaganda wing, no one specialised in competing against the consultants and conmerchants, no advertising budget, no wining and dining the marketing droids. And honestly, there is no truly good measurement of success for us to game...

Oops... I seem to have had a rant...

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