If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire…

What happens when the business turns bad? When they have a technology problem and no matter how much effort and unblocking they throw at it, their own IT function has neither the skill nor expertise to fix it? Why they create their own special A-Team.

 

I scan the horizon for technology trends all day so find it interesting when I start to see a new industry behaviour develop. An industry of mercenaries / consultants that will work around policy, people and procedure to execute on behalf of their customers fast. The difference is these IT mercenaries are employed by the business directly rather than the IT function itself.

 

Today things are moving this way but are not quite there. Say hypothetically I am a function of the business and decide I want telepresence. I engage my IT Rep, get the relevant staff to draft my requirements but am told by IT that it is not possible. All I get is a no, with some technowibble reason why not. I am wishing my IT function had some yes men but alas one of these new external mercenaries / consultants manages to bag some diary time.

 

Within a week there is a proposed solution to my problem. Not only can I have telepresence but my own mini data centre in the cloud. I have consumer grade broadband lines plugged into my building that no one in IT knows about and servers / hardware that also no one in IT knows about. 60 days later and having paid 3 x what I should have for the hardware and consultancy, the solution is in place. I don’t know I am paying 3 times what I should have for the hardware but as an end user the product appears to work and I am happy. The business is happy but what about the shareholders?

 

Shareholders are paying twice for IT. Once for the legacy thinkers who could not deliver and once for the external mercenaries who will do work on behalf of the business without IT. Actually they will end up paying four times for IT as the mercenaries will charge 3 x the market rate for their work and any hardware purchased. Oh yeah probably once more again when the business want to collaborate with another area of the business outside of their new homebrew IT environment. Both IT and the Mercenaries have failed in creating an IT Nirvana where everything just works at a competitive price. What is worse is that on so many occasions a corporation already has the talent internally to pull off this and much more complex projects. Yet they are stifled by hierarchy, policy and legacy thinkers within IT.

 

The fact that the democratisation of IT will kill the traditional IT function of a business is now an old concept. The business is increasingly voting with pounds for their own IT solutions through frustration.

 

What I see developing is that business areas will pick apart the old IT functions, taking the best talent for themselves to create their own A Teams. They will be set free of hierarchy, policy and legacy thinkers to collaborate and execute.  They will deliver; both the business and their A-Teams will be saying silently as not to gloat…

 

I love it when a plan comes together…

 

The best teams will be in high demand, merging between business units as projects are delivered. Although before my time I guess this is close to what the landscape looked like in my industry when many core banking systems were first implemented. The policy came later to protect the infrastructure but in time has stifled both execution and Innovation. Those who can circumvent it successfully will be successful, IT is not dead but I believe the slow mammoth it has become at many large corporations is soon to be extinct. IT will become interesting again and the best staff will flourish.