Eight reasons why IT people hate managers

Harvard Business Review article on "Eight reasons why managers hate IT" - it doesn't half play to the gallery! But amusingly, it really is just what you'd expect a Pointy-Headed Boss (see above) to say. In Italics I have therefore added "Why IT people hate managers"- tongue in cheek, but you get the point.

1. IT limits managers' authority

IT's bureaucratic processes rival the tax code in complexity. When challenged, IT justifies red tape as necessary because the business makes half-baked requests and is clueless about enterprise impact.

(Wrong target Bozo - its Managers - especially you middle managers - who tie up companies in red tape, political fudges, poorly thought out committee based policies etc etc. The reason our processes are so convoluted is due to your predecessor's Six Sigma Total Corporate Co-Evaluation policy, which then got inflicted on the IT departments - its a sort of Garbage In, Garbage Our process)


2. Consists of condescending techies who don’t listen

The CIO may be impressive, but he or she is also totally unavailable. When you have questions, your only option is someone a few rungs down, who lacks the breadth of expertise to advise senior executives. The irony is, these “techies” often feel just as frustrated by managers who treat them like servant-genies.

(Its called a heirarchy. The IT staff wish they could all just talk to your VP, who can make things happen and fund it without bozos like you and your colleagues squabbling like 2 year olds over a half sucked lollipop and you squeaking about how you just couldn't live without the thingummy button )

3. Doesn’t understand the true needs of the business

IT nags you for requirements and complains that you always change your mind about what you want from your systems. Why doesn’t IT understand that change should be expected in a dynamic business environment where nothing is static?

(Why don't businesspeople understand that a complex system with many linked users cant just be switched around like that?. You can't adjust the position of your clutch and brake on a car, or decide to change which road signs to obey, for good reason - so why should you have the those rights on a computer program? )

(For what its worth, I have been consulting to and working in and around corporates for 20 odd years, in my experience the number of people - IT or no - who really understand the business is very, very small.)

4. Proposes “deluxe” when “good enough” will do

Your “simple” request requires a boatload of specialists and weeks (if not months) of analysis. Yet you wanted a timely, cost-effective solution, not an expensive panacea.

(Oh Boy - and when will managers ever get it that their "simple" often request isn't that simple, and then the toads change their mind once you do build what they said they wanted anyway)


5. IT projects never end

It’s not just that IT projects are never completed on time…it’s that they never feel completed at all. They’re perennially 90% done. "Finished" projects don't have the agreed-to functionality.

(We build the "simple thing" the buggers said they wanted. Then they change their mind, but they don't have the budget to do any more work. And then their own VP tells us that isn't a priority and tells us not to go further but says nothing to his troops so we get the cr*p)


6. Is reactive rather than proactive

When you need help, you feel like a technology pauper, going door-to-door begging for help from functional specialists who complain that you didn’t get them involved early enough.

(The buggers never involve us early enough, they try and do some bodge themselves, then f*ck it up, scream for us and try to pretend they never touched anything. And boy, we should leave them to fix all the viruses they bring in themselves)


7. Doesn’t support innovation

When you try to brainstorm with IT about new technologies you could use to innovate – like 2.0 tools, for instance – they patronize you by dismissing your questions and noting that your people aren’t properly using the systems already in place.

(If IT people had a dollar for every person who now wants some shiny thing they have just read about in some over-the-top blog post hyping the virtue of the new new thing, they'd all be millionaires and living in Florida. Just because some evangelist says X is the new best thing doesn't make it true. And your people aren't using the existing stuff - the last New New Thing you wanted - properly. So, what are the chances they'd use the New New stuff properly, or not be wanting the next New New Thing in 6 months time when you are 90% done on this now Old New Thing (see point 5 above) )


8. IT never has good news

No matter how much you spend or how hard you work, the promise of technology seems perpetually beyond your reach. Even the “successful” launch of new systems is accompanied with the inevitable onslaught of bugs, crashes, and change requests.

(No matter how much you spend or how hard you work, the promise of rational management seems beyond possibility. Even the “successful” launch of new systems is accompanied with the inevitable onslaught of cr*p data, the resultant crashes, and "new features we hadn't thought of" change requests.)

I've worked on both sides on this one, and in my experience both sides are as guilty as each other. If you've never seen "The IT Crowd" sending this whole issue up, you're missing a huge treat.

But I'd expect to see an article like this in a tech hype blog, not the HBR. In my opinion it cheapens HBR considerably - and there is not even anywhere to respond there on the site.

Good thing I have a blog eh