The combination of these two fields is an exciting place to be. I am not there right now. But being away gives me a chance to learn away from the field for a while, and helps provide perspective. Time and distance are my favorite remedies for nearly all problems.
\nIT is a new-ish field, and has nothing like the maturity which benefits other defined business fields. This is great because it affords many opportunities for innovation. This is a disaster because it affords many opportunities for innovation. Most new ideas are no damned good, and in IT, we try them all.
\nI am fond of a quote from somebody about the Last Big Thing. We spend our energy seeking a new solution while nobody masters the solutions we have. While I have endured my share of junk applications (mostly due to flawed database design), I am still amazed at how many problems with “junk software” are actually caused by junk users. It’s easy to not master the material and then say that the system sucks. I am fond of pointing out that the company spent a gazillion dollars on this crap — you should know how to use it.
\nI am going through a lot of the training available to our workforce so that I can show them how much they do not know. This is far from malice — I hope to inspire them. The workforce is critically undertasked. They have tasks enough to fill their time, but that is because they are busy busy busy doing what the software will do for them if they only learn how. So this is obviously not the fault of the workforce. They don;t work for me, because if they did, things would be different. That makes it a management issue. The unprepared state of the workforce is what I intend to use to show management that they are not doing their own job. Many opportunities for low-cost improvements around here.
\nWhich brings me to risk management. But more on that later. You would think that companies are good at risk management. They are not. Nobody is except insurance companies and gambling outfits. It’s not rocket science, but even NASA has shown appalling shortcomings in risk management.
\nTo be continued.<\/p>\n
The combination of these two fields is an exciting place to be. I am not there right now. But being away gives me a chance to learn away from the field for a while, and helps provide perspective. Time and distance are my favorite remedies for nearly all problems.
IT is a new-ish field, and has nothing like the maturity which benefits other defined business fields. This is great because it affords many opportunities for innovation. This is a disaster because it affords many opportunities for innovation. Most new ideas are no damned good, and in IT, we try them all.
I am fond of a quote from somebody about the Last Big Thing. We spend our energy seeking a new solution while nobody masters the … Continue reading