More IT Whining

If there is any group in the corporation which seems to have a chip on its shoulder, it is IT.  Marketing and finance are two others who complain a good amount as well, but if there was an Olympic medal given for complaining, the gold would seem to goto IT over any other functional group.

Common complaints include:

• "We're just order-takers."
• "The business doesn't understand the value of IT."
• "Senior management doesn't understand technology."
• "The requirements always change."
• "IT doesn't have a seat at the table."

The list of complaints is a mile long.  And the worst part is that the popular media seems to reinforce these beliefs constantly.  The most recent example comes from Alan Cane in the March 19, 2008 Financial Times.  Cane's article entitled, "It's much too early to write off the role of the CIO" opens with stories from Boots, the UK high street chemist (aka pharmacy) and retailer, House of Fraser, which "did away with the position of chief information officer, a move which heightened speculation that this animal, only recently evolved from less exalted creatures, was on the way to becoming an endangered species."  Per Cane, the "apparent logic behind their decision was that the company's computer systems could be managed perfectly satisfactorily by a data processing specialist.  The job of aligning IT strategy with the objective of the business would fall to the chief financial officer."

So I don't want to argue whether what Boots and the House of Fraser did was appropriate as that is not the point.  I'll just say that I think it is quite a bad idea.

The more alarming point is that Cane seems to extrapolate the removal of CIOs from these 2 organizations as some sort of trend which it really is not.  Who is arguing for the end of the CIO?  Is this a common trend?  Cane then goes onto talk about the history of CIOs, assert the competence of most of them and closes with the advice that CIOs should "concentrate on finding ways to use technology to expedite business change appropriate to today's trading environment."  I have no idea what that actually means but oh well.

In any case, why is there so much conversation in the media and within IT departments of this type?  Has IT never heard of the power of positive thinking.  These types of constant "IT as a victim" rants serve to make the organization territorial, paranoid and probably do nothing for the morale of the people within the organization.

Anyone work for a positive IT organization that doesn't feel victimized by the "business"?  I'd love to hear from you and hear what your organization has done to achieve this.