Technology Bravado

The world of corporate IT is incredibly complex and yet there are vast numbers of people involved in the industry who have no idea, nor interest, in how things work or don’t work.

Unfortunately as you get away from the coal-face the ability to understand the technicalities is difficult. If you’re managing a team of 50 people you haven’t the time to worry about the details of this weeks security patches. In fact I think a lot of people in IT have “risen” in the ranks in order to escape from the relentless technicalities – it’s all too much for them. 

It’s beyond most people’s ability to fully understand the big picture, so how can we expect those non-technical people to understand it.

In order to understand this complexity most organisations have hired legions of specialists to manage their environments. For this to work there must be good channels of communication. To senior staff highlighting any issues and concerns, and at the same time this information should be listened to and actioned upon by those senior managers.

There is a problem though and I call it “technology bravado”. You may have been victim of it, here are some symptoms:

• Have you asked a “Techie” a question, received an answer, acted upon it and then when it’s gone wrong been told that “it’s not my area of knowledge”. (The “Should Syndrome”)

• Have you ever questioned a “Techie” and found out later that the information you wanted was never received because “You didn’t ask the right question”?
  

• Have you ever asked a “Techie” a question and received a scorning sneer back, making you feel inadequate and scared to ask further questions?

• Have you ever offered up a plan of action and received “that’s one way of doing it” as the answer? Then spent the next few hours clawing out the alternative plan from the mind of the nay-sayer.

• Have you ever asked for updates on progress and never received any communication at all?
  

…and the list goes on…..

Now this infuriates me. The condescending view towards those “not in the know” only exacerbates the problems that our industry faces. If we want to start solving the problem of complexity we have to stop hiding behind it in order to prove to the world how clever we are. If we can’t share our knowledge and communicate effectively with our colleagues (and users) we will never add value to our businesses.

Let’s start making things simpler rather than defending the complexity for our own self-aggrandisement!