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Politicians still don’t get IT

Picture credit: Lucy A Little

Picture credit: Lucy A Little

Just in case any government ministers read this story, here is the simplest possible advice to avoid IT blunders: Stop thinking about IT projects and start building effective information systems.

Computing reports “Government computer blunders are being caused by political priorities over-riding the advice of IT experts, according to MPs.” That statement simply re-inforces the crux of the problem, politicians still think that IT is the right point of entry to solutions.

I say don’t blame politics for debilitatingly expensive Government ‘IT blunders,’ ignorance and poor approach are the real culprits. See Bryan Glick’s diary

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  • Herbert Macaulay

    You are right. These people are simply politicians. Politicians (most of them) think they are subject matter experts in everything when they are not. They work in environments where old public service culture of territorial attitudes still prevails. Politians are only interested in what will generate sensational sound bites because sensational sound bites wins them votes. So they come up with stupid “nice to have” projects that do not fit in with existing IT and/or business strategy and/or roadmap and they insist on having the final say on the project. If true SME’s attempts to suggest otherwise, the politician and/or old school civil servant feels threatens because territorial attitudes towards work still prevails in a lot of public sector organisations

  • David Flint

    To focus on building effective information systems is certainly a step forward from ‘building IT systems’. What’s really needed though is back to basics – focus on solving the business/admin problem. IT will often be a part, perhaps a big part, but it’s not the purpose – just a means.

    The lack of this perspective is often expressed in project governance. Since the Wentworth Research report on benefits realisation in 1998 I’ve believed that assigning accountability for benefits was THE key to success. Most organisations still don’t make assignments that are clear and have attached rewards and penalties.

  • http://www.microsoft.com Bryan Lambe

    All of these comments are valid but from my experience of the public sector governance is never applied properly.
    The focus on the benefits of the programme are totally ignored as this would imply some form of accountability.

    Accountability is an alien word in the Public Sector not just in the political arena but also in the project and programme management of IT deliverables and is nearly always focused on some form of committee where no one person is accountable.

  • Peter O’Rourke

    The degree of personal accountability for a projects measurable outcomes/success factors often appears to share an inversely proportional relationship with the size of a projects budget.

  • Eric Galvin

    Sorry to be a dissenting voice on this one. No, I am not a politician but I have worked closely with politicians for many years. In my experience most in high office are fairly straight forward people attempting to do really tough jobs in a welter of conflicting advice and (often) self interested lobbying. Yes presentation is important but not the be-all-and-end-all of their lives; lives lived in constant minute by minute scrutiny by the media, lobby groups and colleagues. And collectively they do have to balance (often) inherent conflicts between objectives and means of achieving them where rational processes can only take them so far and have a role to play alongside ethical considerations, value judgements, building support for policy approaches and the like. inevitably this means that one’s advice will be set aside in some situations – something which is understandable and expected in democratic debate.

    Lest you think I am soft on politicians I am and have been highly critical of some policies in my “home” fields of educatiion, training, employment,equality and social policy. Sure they make mistakes (but so do all of us) and some pay a high priice for them.

    In my experience part of the responsibility for failed IT projects lie with the IT industry itself who too often promise troo much, too quickly and for too low a price.

    Actrually I agree that a more realistic approach is needed. I would go much further than the shift from IT to effective Information systems. We do need a much more rigorous approach to the actuality of decision making across a whole range of fields and levels. We are still tempted by the illusion that if we had more data, presented more effectively all would be well. Not so. The focus should be on less information but about the things that really matter in different situations to help decision takers make wise judgements using sound data alongside better homed value and ethical systems.