Where has IT Quality disappeared?

What happened to the concept of Quality?

In the old days of IT (or Computer Science, as I believe it was once called), the main practitioners were from an engineering background or civil service background. The idea of procedures and processes were pre-eminent.

Such was the importance of computing power that detailed design, walkthrough and analysis was used before people were let loose to cut code, or to implement as system.

This, in turn, led to the importance of processes and controls, and to the so-called Mainframe mentality. It was alleged that it took years for anything to be done on a mainframe, which was one of the justifications for the later Client-Server revolution (remember that?) and the rise of midrange systems (remember them?) which were said to be easier to deploy and implement.

Despite a period when the term Software Engineering was used, the cultural norms have moved towards the world of Agile Programming, Extreme Programming, Prototyping etc.

In the world of Infrastructure, there has been a rush to catch up as the Infrastructure desperately tries to keep pace with the rush of new Applications being thrown over the wall onto it.

In the meantime, we now have chaotic organisations, where management processes (control of change, scheduling of activities, etc.) are equally Agile (or disorganised, depending upon your point of view).

So where are we now?

Some organisations I have seen have Chaotic Programming, Chaotic Infrastructure Management and Chaotic Team and Processes.

Is this the best way to run Information Technology?

Sometimes I think not.

Yes, we must be agile and responsive to the business.

But if we cave in to the pressures for unstructured and ungoverned change we will be creating issues for those that follow us in the IT world.

For many, who live as contractors, this is not an issue; the next contract is around the corner, and someone else can pick up the pieces. Even CIOs are not immune to this short-termism.

Maybe it's time to take a longer term, more responsible view of the way we do things?

What Makes you Mad about the current state of the IT Industry?

We recently started a poll on LinkedIn to ask people what makes them mad about the current state of the IT industry. The results so far are insightful, but perhaps not surprising.

Many people sited short-termism and lack of a coherent strategy as a key factors.

Others spoke about how Management (and in particular Management Processes) were preventing innovation and stopping IT from delivering what the Business wanted.

There were also a significant number of comments about the way in which employees are treated within our industry, citing lack of commitment to training etc.

When the poll is closed, I am hoping that we can publish the summary analysis on this blog. We will also share some thoughts at the upcoming Service Desk and IT Support Show which we are attending in April.

In the meantime, this is your opportunity to share a brief rant with your fellow IT professionals. It could be the constant pace of change, the lack of training, the "fire-fighting" culture, the lack of proper processes (or maybe too many?)....

Whatever particularly drives you mad about our industry, feel free to share it!

The Linked In Poll

A famous entrepreneur once said that "every good idea begins with a rant".

Is "Big Bang" a good way to implement Infrastructure?

I was recently involved with a UK client who have just cancelled their Infrastructure deployment project, which was originally going to be implemented as a "Big Bang" deployment.

Part of the reason for this was the underlying risk of such a disruptive deployment.

To put this in context, when I was first brought in to review the project, I realised that the new technology was so disruptive that it would actually be far easier and quicker to have a clean switch-over, rather than trying to incrementally upgrade the infrastructure. My view was that the risk could also be managed.

Since then, the Client's Business has moved on, the risk analysis was reviewed, and they decided to move forward incrementally. This will mean only getting (say) 40% of the improvements in the same timescale. Nevertheless, because of the changed business circumstances this makes sense, and so I supported the change of Strategy.

As an IT Production Consultant, I am generally unhappy with big-bang deployments. I prefer the gradual incremental approach which is more risk-averse, and more in tune with the culture of IT Production generally.

It would be interesting to have comments from other consultants in this area.

What's in a name? Do we call ourselves Infrastructure and Operations or IT Production?

"Infrastructure and Operations" appears to be a recognised market segment these days. It is a useful descriptive term, since it covers the main aspects of the IT Production role:

• Infrastructure - looking after the equipment, hardware, software, networking and other technical stuff which modern IT needs to have in order to run day-to-day
• Operations - the processes and behaviours required to look after the "stuff" (the Infrastructure).

However, I personally prefer the term "IT Production", for a number of reasons. In my view, it ...

• Is simpler and easier to remember
• Highlights a logical contrast between "Development" and "Production".
• Implies a single organisational structure dedicated to a single purpose.
• Defines a clearly recognisable marketplace for tools and services.
• Recognises the importance of the "after go-live" part of IT, as a discipline in it's own right.

The last point is the most important: Whilst IT Development enable a business to gain competitive advantage by using technology, it is the IT Production side which actually ensures that the competitive advantage is realised.

One of the areas we are speaking to Gartner about at the moment is the importance of terminology, and the use of IT Production as the recognisable term for what we work in.

Names do mean something. They confer expectations, and status. And IT Production needs to receive the status which it deserves.

Which, of course, means that we have to start delivering to a higher set of expectations.