MCSEs...

On time and within budget have different meanings when it comes to IT
projects.

 

Yup. The industry has a lot of growing up to do. Most professionals
working in it now realise the problems, but the legacy attitude still
remains.

It's why I'd get out if I could.

 

They mean you don't have the scope you've asked for.

The problem lies with most people not realising the IT projects are
actually really fucking hard. But unless you understand them, then
it's very very hard to see why and most people in IT are lousy are
communicating why. So projects always get underestimated or run over.

The solutions is simply for IT people to be more honest about their
capabilities and for business people to believe them.

Oh, look, pigs flying.

 

In point of fact lack of technical skills are very rarely implicated
in the failure of large (or small) projects. It's nearly always down
to poorly understood, accepted or communicated requirements.

 

Ok... like most things, if it seems too good to be true, it usually
is. ;-)

 

I've never liked IT/computing. My problem is, that from a very early
age I've had an aptitude for it and find it very easy.

So now I'm stuck in an industry that I can't stand, doing a job I
don't particularly like, because it pays me a very very good salary
that my lifestyle is based around. Hoisted by my own petard, is, I
believe, the phrase.

 

I've worked in various different places dealing with aspects of IT.

My take on it is that some places... they're out of their depth when
they decide all of a sudden they're going to implement new
technologies / don't do enough groundwork, and then wonder why they
end up in a big hole they're struggling to dig themselves out of,
usually by way of expensive shovels otherwise known as
'contractors'. ;-)

Groundwork is everything... as is keeping a decent honest handle on
exactly how well / badly a project is going, because without that, the
hole you've dug will invariably just get bigger and be harder to climb
out of once the proverbial hits the boardroom fan.

 

Scope-creep, in my experience, is the biggy. Which is why I much
prefer working in an agile, iterative, manner where you have the
ability to react to people saying "oh, but I thought it'd work like
this...", rather than a monolith approach that persists in delivering
the original requirement. Original requirements, are always
inaccurate because people never know what they want. And IT's
attitude of "we can give you anything" doesn't help.

It's like an architect saying to a client "oh, don't worry, you can
have your hospital look like absolutely anything you like and provide
any service you can think of and we'll still build it for when we
agreed". That's what IT does. It needs to grow up, and take leaves
out of the books of the more evolved engineering disciplines.

 

Heheh. That is so true.

 

<nods and dredges memory>

It was all CATWOE and SSM when I did my IRA module.



--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Yamaha WR250Z/Supermoto "Old Gimmer's Hillclimber" |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

 

It's not impossible, y'know. I did it (even though I still miss it).

 

And apt example is my upcoming project up north. We've been
sub-contracted to do it, because the outsourcer (I'll let you guess
where they are...) has won it, despite not actually having the
skillset to deliver it.

 

<Hollow laugh>

--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Yamaha WR250Z/Supermoto "Old Gimmer's Hillclimber" |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

 

It was all fertilizer bombs and kneecapping when I did mine.

 

I will, but I'm not in a position to be able to retraining into
anything else at the moment. Maybe in a couple of years.

 

Cab iNET

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

Also from the commercial side it can be down to something as simple as
having sales people focussed and paid purely on signing new business,
with no involvement with the long term delivery and profitability of
that business.

Perhaps we could compare that with the problems in the banking
industry...

 

Cab le Monkey.

 

That's one of the reasons why I was so worried in taking a leap into
the unknown a few years ago. It's actually worked out rather well in
some respects, not so well in others.

 

<G>