Blackmoor Vituperative

Ilya Bogorad has a pretty good article over at Tech Republic called Five ways of thinking that can fell IT leaders. In brief, they are:

1. The business should identify its technology needs
2. We are a fast-paced organization
3. We are under-resourced
4. Show me the money! For a project to be approved, it needs to save costs or generate revenues.
5. In difficult times, we must cut costs

These are all valid and legitimate problems. Unfortunately, the most common of these — number one — is often not something the IT department can control. I have seen it more times than I can count: business decision makers who think they are competent to make technology decisions. They trust the mechanic fixing their car to choose the right tool for the job, and they trust the plumber fixing their water heater to choose the right size and type of pipe, but when it comes to IT, they micromanage both the tools and the techniques used, because they are under the delusion that they are competent to do so.