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IT Managers Don't Know Their Stuff -- Or Their Staff

An anonymous e-mailer takes CIOs, IT managers, and IT staff to task for not knowing how to complete their projects. And if they don't know how to do their own work, how can they expect to expand their responsibilities beyond IT?

In response to a recent column I wrote about the difficulty of completing IT projects on time and on budget, a gentleman sent me an e-mail with a list of specific criticisms. He describes himself as a professional engineer with 30 years experience who wished to remain anonymous. He came into the orbit of IT through involvement in a long and apparently difficult ERP project. Here are his observations about "the IT world:"

In general, the IT world hasn't got a clue of what a "project" is, much less how to manage one or even work on one.

* IT "professionals" such as developers, programmers, and DBA's, love to tinker with their toys. Trying to keep them focused on a task is next to impossible. By their very nature, they love to invent and explore. Putting myself in their shoes, I have to ask myself, "How can anyone possibly stay focused when new hardware and software is made available to me at an ever-increasing speed?" Who isn't tempted to work on things they love instead of the things they have to? Isn't that why surfing the Net during work hours is such a popular activity in spite of the fact we all know we shouldn't be doing it?

* Inability to focus quickly leads to blown budgets and schedules. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a developer off on some tangent when the task was clear and simple but very mundane.

* Very, very few people with an IT background can become good managers. This is true in engineering, too! For one, they aren't typically very social people and have a tough time trying to manage other people and personalities. If the opposite were true, I doubt they would have taken up IT work.

* IT managers don't seem to understand the nature of their technical staff. Generally speaking, their staff is part of a younger generation that has a comparatively poor work ethic and doesn't have the same pride of craftsmanship. The only way I know to counter this is through micro-management -- and nobody wants to go there.

* Until IT understands how to manage their own business, they really shouldn't be trying to orchestrate complex scoping with others, including business managers. Many business managers don't understand how to scope, work on, or manage projects, either.

So the IT world is struggling with cultural issues way beyond their control and they don't seem to realize it. Too much IT time and effort is spent on learning the basics of project management when basic project management techniques won't work. They need to understand advanced human resource management and project management, and, frankly, I don't know any IT manager with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to truly do it right.

Ouch! That's pretty harsh criticism. Somebody out there has to understand how to "scope, work on, and manage projects" -- someone besides this gentleman, that is -- including some very competent IT managers, or nothing would ever get accomplished. Also, his criticism about young IT workers lacking a work ethic and pride of craftsmanship strikes me as a generation-gap issue: What makes me think someone in his past said something very similar about him and his generation of workers?

His basic argument seems to boil down to this: Too much tech tinkering and not enough advanced project management skills? Is that a fair criticism of "the IT world?"

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