Technology is always the easiest part

An interesting topic, thanks for raising this. I fully agree that the IT department is best placed to assess and consolidate all the many technology requirements and a lot of the business issues that we probably shouldn’t get involved but do. I also agree the easiest part of any solution is the technology, thats what we are paid to do and where our skill set lies.

I believe there are a number of different issues that impact the people parts of the problems, for instance:
Because they have a computer at home everyone thinks they are an expert yet have very little knowledge of the real issues that go on behind the scenes to keep a corporate network running.

We make the technology work look so easy – this in turn leads to high expectations of project delivery. While we will attempt to build the best solution within budget, time, technical limitations and other constraints, more often than not decisions regarding the end products are usually out of our hands. How fantastic would your computer system be given you no constraints of cost, time or resource etc! Most times the best than can be delivered is far from ideal.

There also needs to be a desire to change (you can lead the horse to water etc.) and often this is lacking amongst all levels of end user communities.
Even though expectations can be set, they are often severely misunderstood – a typical example is the time required to be dedicated to a technology project to make it work for the individual or team end user etc. The general expectation is that the computer systems should just work and be completely intuitive for all who use them (irrespective of skill level) – a bit like the utilities: turn on a tap and the water comes out, why can’t my computer system work the same way? If only the systems we delivered were that simple or required to perform a single task only.

People problems require emotional intelligence to overcome. Each person reacts differently to similar problems or challenges and they each require a slightly different approach to resolving. I think we first need to realise that people problems can take much longer to resolve and use up more resource time than you generally allow for the project. Many different approaches and experiences are required to find the right fit for the issue to be resolved. We need a huge pool of people, change, problem management resources to filter through to find solutions that may work and and then trial them and learn from your mistakes (btw, all too often mistakes are not allowed and the blame culture takes over which ends up killing all the good work you have achieved).

It’s likely to be the hardest part for the managers who don’t know the difference between management and leadership. WIkipedia page on Leadership is a good starting point for investigation. There are too many managers in IT today and too few leaders. Not only it creates massive overhead and information distortion, it has a demoralizing effect on work environment. Here is twelve distinctions between the two groups:
▪ Managers administer; leaders innovate.
▪ Managers ask how and when; leaders ask what and why.
▪ Managers focus on systems; leaders focus on people.
▪ Managers do things right; leaders do the right things.
▪ Managers maintain; leaders develop.
▪ Managers rely on control; leaders inspire trust.
▪ Managers have short-term perspective; leaders have long-term perspective.
▪ Managers accept the status-quo; leaders challenge the status-quo.
▪ Managers have an eye on the bottom line; leaders have an eye on the horizon.
▪ Managers imitate; leaders originate.
▪ Managers emulate the classic good soldier; leaders are their own person.
▪ Managers copy; leaders show originality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership

I escaped the battlefield a few years ago, but there is an additional issue to all the things said before. My main perception is that – especially as from the 90ies or thereabouts – there is an increasing perception in the core business components of the corporation that IT is not, and never will be considered to be really part of the company as its not considered core business – even if a good, cost effective and flexible IT structure is crucial to the business’ wellbeing.

Therefore IT is continuously in a situation between hammer and anvil, high demands (very often from a business community that does not really knows its requirements or creates them on the fly) but on the other hand not taken altogher seriously because IT is not a member of the club called core business.
This is painfully felt at the level of service desks (see Dave’s point), but also with project management and service delivery in its widest sense and leads to all kinds of strange experiments.
Eventually, being completely outsourced, pointing out issues bluntly to the customer (Dave) is not the wisest path to continuity. On a shortterm notice it is probably better to slavenly follow the demands as it will keep you in business, but on the longer term you’ll be kicked out because of cost issues. As I said you are between hammer and anvil, where only the best will sneak out before the hammer falls.

Solution? Reconsider the position of IT in the grand scheme of business activities.

IT professionals need to understand the system’s strategic and tactical objectives and the value this brings to the business correctly and map these into corresponding features prioritized and implemented in the order of the benefits it can provide.

IT professionals should also be trained in business domain knowledge and skills as required in addition to technology skills which does not always happen.

Most of the successful systems and their implementations have had huge management support at various levels of business and IT managements which results in good will building and knowlege of criticality of the system among all concerned.

Strong user training and support in implementation and changeover are also key to the system acceptance in addition to good design and system delivery.

Yes, technology seems to be the easier part of it.

In brief – play up the many strengths of IT professionals, speak of and treat them as professionals. Success in business is about recognising the full spread of skills required to keep the business on top form.

I am a small business owner with an MIS background that melded technology with business. The reason for the rise of MIS programs years ago at universities was, in part, prompted by the very fact that managing technology required business, but not necessarily technical, skills. You try telling small business owners that business reasons should drive technology implementation and see the look on their faces!

I believe that education is a key component of dealing effectively with the issues that users face. For example, in any new application or system deployment, research has shown that if users are involved in the initial decision-making leading up to a new deployment, users are more likely to accept the new system and throw their support behind it. Such research results call for effective change management strategies to reduce educate users on the benefits that accrue from new application / system deployments.

As another example, in the area of information security, research again has shown that an educated workforce is less likely to commit errors that lead to security exposures. Additionally, security governance adds another dimension to the issue of dealing with users and keeping their computing activities from adversely impacting organizational resources.