This somewhat peculiar blog was inspired by a ZDNet article: Forget strategy, IT managers are too busy fighting fires. There's no real link from a content POV, it just got me thinking about IT and plate-spinning.
I was a relative latecomer to corporate IT. I didn't get my first corporate IT-related role until late-1998, with my first IT service management (ITSM) role coming in 2002. And, rightly or wrongly, I've never fulfilled a hands-on, really-technical IT role; instead focusing on the exploitation of the technology and the management of service delivery.
So I'm not fluent in the language of technology and have to admit to being one of probably thousands of people who have, at some point, just politely nodded and smiled when faced with a barrage of technical terms that mean absolutely nothing to a non-technical listener. And why would I ask what it means when the explanation would probably include even more IT jargon? It's just easier to nod and smile. If the IT issue in question relates to how fast a hard disk is or isn't "spinning," say, I'm really only concerned with how quickly we can get to resolution and back to business as usual.
The I&O divide: spinning disks versus spinning plates
But that was a digression of sorts, the point I wanted to get to was the "Infrastructure & Operations (I&O) divide" — the Infrastructure team focused on the spinning disks (pre-SSD) and the Operations team focused on the spinning plates of IT service delivery. And, of course, there are also internal divides within the Infrastructure and Operations teams (which at some point I'll talk to in a blog tentatively titled "Why do we make IT service delivery so hard for each other?").
But whether it's the focus on disks or plates, as per the ZDNet article I still think of IT as franticly doing what is depicted below:
And then things change around us
People want new plates added. So we add them (plus new sticks). And some plates fall from their sticks to be replaced by replacements (or if the analogy was a really tight fit, the plate-spinner would be trying to piece, and then glue, the broken plate together while still spinning the other plates).
But do we ever deliberately take a spinning plate off its stick?
That is, when do we proactively decide to cut back on, or cease, an IT service? Unless of course it's as part a corporately-mandated budget-cutting exercise?
To add to the randomness, have you looked closely at IT's bicycle?
Again you will have to humor me.
I've not talked to this for a while, that I see IT organizations as bicycle riders on a journey from A to B. It all sounds great until you notice a few bicycle "abnormalities":
- The big pedals to allow for the fastest pedaling possible;
- The handle bars are nigh-on immovable — there's no ability to turn them to course-correct during the journey; and
- There are no brakes — the bicycle was designed and built without the ability to slow down or stop. After all we just need to get from A to B as quickly as possible.
And, if you want to be really cynical, when we get to B we find that the customer has since moved on to location C, where they are waiting for the IT organization to catch up.
Yes it's somewhat random, and what's my point?
There's so much talk of agility in IT these days but how agile is your IT organization? Ask yourself:
- Do you proactively seek to stop some of your plates spinning? And this is different to outsourcing the plate to a third party. Or, as per my last blog, do you continue to deliver IT services where the cost of provision is disproportionate to the business's perceived value from those services? Or even where there is little or no demand for the service?
- Do you need a more-appropriate bicycle? Take a long hard look at your bicycle and how it's constructed. Check the pedals, handle bars, and brakes. You never know, you might also want to swap it for a rickshaw or, even better, a tandem so the business can ride with you (thankfully I chose not to embellish this metaphor any further).
It's been an intentionally odd blog with a serious message. I sometimes think that we can become immune to the things that need to change because we hear the same message, in the same way, repeatedly. It's a kind of snow blindness.
So look for your spinning plates and whether you can stop spinning some of them. And dismount your bicycle for a moment to consider if there's a better way to continue your journey.
Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lissalou66/
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