The 'goal' is to have key people in IT that are cross-trained in business disciplines ... Early in my IT career, I was solely a technologist , and could make the technology do most anything requested at the time. What I lacked was the knowledge of the business practices that utilize technology as a tool towards their ends. The real need is the knowledge of how to apply the technology to meet ( or exceed ) the business goals. And that's where the gap is, especially with so many vertical specialities within IT itself. Kind of reminds me of the old 'Disaster Recovery' issue, where executives used to consider DR putting in a backup tape to restore the data. The bigger issue is Business Continuity, which includes Executive, HR, IT, Finance, etc to keep the business running in the event of a 'disaster' ( shameless plug : http://www.scpa-us.org )
Erik Goldoff IT Consultant Systems, Networks, & Security _____ From: Christopher Bodnar [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 8:56 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: No answers here, but a suggestion for an approach I agree with this assessment 100%. I also like the analogy to the airline industry. My take on this issue is the difficulty in finding truly competent people (technologists?) at each progressive level of management. For example I think it's fairly easy to find someone who is competent at SQL, or Oracle or AD. But then go to the next level. Is it as easy to find a competent technologist to manage these people? And keep going, to say a director level who is managing multiple groups (DB, Wintel, UNIX, Storage). Who is qualified to evaluate candidates for this type of position? In my experience that is the underlying problem. Chris Bodnar, MCSE Sr. Systems Engineer Infrastructure Service Delivery Distributed Systems Service Delivery - Intel Services Guardian Life Insurance Company of America Email: [email protected] Phone: 610-807-6459 Fax: 610-807-6003 _____ From: Andrew S. Baker [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 8:11 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: No answers here, but a suggestion for an approach It is easier to improve and maintain things you understand vs things you don't. And, ultimately, most people don't understand IT. This is partially the fault of senior management, and partially the fault of IT practioners, and partly the fault of the technology industry. Let's face it. Flying planes is hard. The abundant use of technology has made it safer, more reliable, and more profitable. AND it has made it easier, but only for people who become pilots (which is a very small subset of the population). The idea that technology makes everything easier is highly flawed, but ardently advocated by the technology industry in order to sell more stuff. And, without giving it sufficient logical consideration, many senior executives buy into this notion, and end up with superior technology (but not superior technologists, nor superior results from technology). The right people can deal with all other problems relating to technology, including insufficient tech, inadequate budgets, and poor requirements. The wrong people can ruin even the best budgets and greatest technology. We often fail to get the right people, and then, if we luck into getting them, we don't listen to them. Yeah, that's a recipe for success. I feel a blog entry coming on for December... ASB (My XeeSM Profile) <http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker> Providing Competitive Advantage through Effective IT Leadership On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 8:05 PM, Kurt Buff <[email protected]> wrote: I think this might prove an interesting conversation... http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9141609/Opinion_The_unspoken_truth_ab out_why_your_IT_sucks?taxonomyId=14 <http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9141609/Opinion_The_unspoken_truth_a bout_why_your_IT_sucks?taxonomyId=14&pageNumber=1> &pageNumber=1 _____ This message, and any attachments to it, may contain information that is privileged, confidential, and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use, dissemination, distribution, copying, or communication of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and delete the message and any attachments. Thank you. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
