How ITS is a Curse for Organizational Efficiency
ITS: If people know you exist, you're doing your job wrong
2024.09.17
TLDR;
Many in ITS don't comprehend the S portion of the acronym: ITS is a field of service and support to others. You don't lead or make demands in ITS, you follow and support the demands of others. In ITS, others come first, never you. ITS is a people field, not a technology field.
Introduction
Wait, an IT guy slamming ITS? He must not know his shit. Despite managing VLANs at home and at work, coding from the lowest tolerable level to the highest cringible level and everything in between, and over 7 years working with healthcare simulation technology, I'm sure I don't know dingus from doody. Yes, an appeal to authority or whatever was in there. I also like to brag on the fact that I've administered Windows, Linux, BSD, and Solaris servers in a mix of personal and professional work.
But why slam ITS (Information Technology Services)? Because of the T in ITS. That right there is the problem: way too much of a focus on Information Technology (IT), not the greater and more important aspects like Information Systems (IS). Most organizations focus on an IT department, with a CIO/CTO, IT managers, IT project managers, and finally IT support roles. The problem is, IS always seems to be an afterthought to IT. ITS pulls up the best tech they can find to support a given organizational objective, oftentimes without looking at the organizational systems as a whole. Even worse, the constrained budgeting and complacency by all forms of administration and management plays in the decision-making process. Since we've been using this tech for decades, we should either keep using it or find a functionally capable alternative. Even worse, if this tech stack works great for us and is easy, then others should be able to use it just fine. And finally, this is what I want us to have, therefore we need it. All of this comes from ITS. Notice why? Tech, tech, tech.
I'm not saying IT is worthless, far from it. However, IT without IS is worthless. One needs to know the system as a whole as well as how it integrates with organizational objectives. Most don't. ITS lays out policies (if they do it right) that focus on consistency, stability, and cybersecurity. It can be these policies that become a burden and curse to an organization, as ITS is viewing things from their tiny, limited, rose-tinted spyglass. It's great to have policies in place, but when they negatively impact organizational efficiency and performance, they need to be re-assessed. If your Organizational Information (OI) policies are based on complacency with working a certain way or keeping things under IT control, with little consideration of IS, you will be a burden and do no good for your organization. IT and IS are supposed to be sub-components of OI, where IT and IS should be working to support, NOT run, the organization.
Yes, a lot of what we do is via IT. Yes, we can't work without it. Yes, that right there is the problem.
In cybersecurity, you trade off security with usability, and stability with performance. In each of these examples, you can have one or the other, but not both. OI groups need to realize that IT and IS works the exact same way. Organizations are not technology platforms. They provide and leverage tech platforms to help get work done. If an IT employee is working at an organization that doesn't respect or care for their department, they'll leave to find greener pastures. The same can be said by organizations.
IT is toxic. It's rude, condescending, arrogant, and vulgar. Almost everyone in the world of IT suffers from the Dunning0Kruger effect, and to a very extreme and severe degree. We act like we know everything about the universe because we make paperweights bend to our will. Nothing in IT is real, it's all a facsimile. Yet, we in IT believe ourselves to be gods, when we are lower than scum. Doctors have more practical knowledge than we do, yet we think we deserve $100k salaries. And this is all because we are focused on the technology.
Anyone remember papyrus? What about the reed stylus used to make cuneiform? Ancient technologies obviously come and go. Fairly soon, IT will be as useful as the steam engine or internal combustion engine that we have in cars. And if you think that these will be mainstays in our culture, we are likely to throw them out for electric vehicles.
The point being made is that IT is a fancy name for a technology, one which is here today and gone tomorrow. Those that work in IT want to dominate something that has existed long before it did. Corporations, organizations, units and bodies of people, is fairly ancient and has made it through to today. They lasted for thousands of years without IT, and they can go another million without it. IT depends on the organization, not the other way around. Therefore, we in IT need to realize that and accept that fact. We need to realize we are like an organ in the body that is our organization. If we are not working or are causing the body's health to decline, we are treated. If treatment doesn't work, then we are either removed (like a vestigial organ) or replaced entirely.
IT is not the end-all. It is a small and truly insignificant sub-component of IS, which in turn is a branch of OI. Branches can be pruned, and IT needs to start acting like it. We need to focus more on the systems and how they work together to meet organizational goals. We need to leave the ivory tower and realize that we are the dependent, not the provider. If we keep acting like we are oh-so important, then we are the problem why the organization is failing. We are the cause of our own suffering.
How can it be that implementing the latest and greatest system results in massive failure? How is it that we have a huge and open knowledgebase of information, yet nobody is capable of performing the actions described? Why are all data breaches not from the technology, but the failure of IT to educate people on ways that attackers can compromise the systems? If we will not change our ways, then we will have more problems to deal with, more to support, more tickets that we can't resolve.
Where I work, we had a meeting with our IT department leaders on explaining to them why what we have will not work for our new building. Immediately upon giving our case, the body language shifted to confrontational and defensive. Our IT didn't give a damn what we said; they had their answer, their broken logic, and their own form of confirmation bias like we did. They shut us down like I expected, but something was said that surprised me when I described the technical aspects of our issues: "in regards to your problems, we have them everywhere else [in the organization] so..."
I'm not angry that they shut us down. I knew it was a losing battle from the start (after all, we are a university, one of the most bloated and corrupt systems in existence). What I am angry about, is how ITS literally said that the problems (that are negatively impacting our efficiency and student learning) is going on in other departments and all over the university. And it's not so much what was said, but how IT was said. Our IT leadership knows these are common problems and are doing little to fix them. These problems are impacting the university all over and their tone and logic to defend themselves is that this is just the way it is. The tone and indifferent attitude towards the problem is what made me angry. Even my wife, who normally doesn't care about work things like this, outright said "Well if they are having these problems all over campus, then why won't they fix them?" You either have to be part of the solution, or you're going to be part of the problem.
Our ITS has these problems and are causing them, simply by focusing only on the technology. They fail to understand the system as a whole and their place as a support role, not a leadership role. That is why the same issues are affecting many other departments on campus. It's not the tech that's the problem, it's the complacence and focus on the technology only that's the problem.
The reason why Linux doesn't dominate is not due to corporate espionage and conspiracy. It's not because Linux sucks. It's because the Linux community focuses too much on the hard skills and technology, not the soft skills and humanity. When I defaulted to Linux for people, they always threw out the computer and bought a new one. When I helped show people how Linux worked and left it to them if they wanted it or not, they eventually tried it out. ITS needs to be the same way. Focus not on your wants but on the organization's needs. Remember the S in ITS: service, a role of subordination, assistance, help, and *support.