03.30.10
Control Breeds Arrogance
[Cartoon]
Most of the IT shops that I visit are very focused on doing what they believe is best for their organization. They listen to the management of their organization and attempt to provide solutions that will fulfill the needs. Unfortunately, most of these IT organizations have almost complete control and can dictate how the IT resources are to be used. IT can be downright arrogant.
One of the worst examples that I have seen was with an IT organization that provided information to the organization’s customers. For some reason, this organization became infatuated with Business Intelligence tools as a means of delivering the information. The IT group built massive warehouses of data to be delivered using BI tools. Unfortunately, over the years most of the major projects had failed to deliver on expectations.
When a BI project failed, another project would be initiated using newer technologies. This took place over several years and consumed millions of dollars.
BI tools are extremely valuable when applied correctly. These tools help businesses understand the past so they can better predict the future. Most businesses will collect information from all of their major business functions in order to get a complete picture of their performance.
The customers served by this worst case organization already had their own BI tools. Would it not have been more realistic to deliver the information in a manner that would fit into the customer’s environment? Essentially these information providers should have been a cog in the customer’s big wheel rather than trying to be the big wheel.
This story gets even worse. The IT organization pushing their selection of BI tools on their customers did not use any BI tools for their own organization. How could this IT organization have any real idea of the value of BI tools for their customers if they had no actual experience themselves?
If this organization had been a user of BI tools, they would have realized that the focus is on business. For their customers, it is their business, not the business of information provided from someone else.
This type of arrogance is prevalent where IT controls the decision-making for customer products. Senior management needs advisors to help keep them from being subjected to the waste for misapplied technologies. Those advisors are Enterprise Architects.
Enterprise Architects are business-focused with a total understanding of the multiple technologies available to solve business needs. They provide senior management with the visualization of IT so the senior management can understand and control IT.
Closing the Business / IT gap
