The premise of these blog entries is that the situation described in the previous post can change, but it is usually slow-going; or worse, there can be an immediate channge when your department is outsourced; it happens. In the meantime, what can be done to be “successful” in your average IT department in your average company?

What has to be done is to deliver on all those change requests, and finish those current projects so you can start new ones (there will always be new ones). At risk of sounding like a psychedelic poster, this means accepting the things you can’t change and changing the things you can.

What can’t you change right now: 

The installed base of legacy systems.

The backlog of change requests and bugs (even if you do manage to deal with a lot of these things, there will be new ones come along to take their place; that is job security).

Senior management’s’ conflicting priorities for IT.

What can you change (or at least start to change?)

The structuring and management of the IT projects.

Overall management of staff by skills/specialties.

Allocation of staff to the projects.

What will follow in this blog is my prescription for this change, supported by some war stories, lessons learned, and lots of ideas to try. Even an ‘average’ company has some unique aspects, so maybe not everything in this book will work for everyone, but I hope to give you enough that some will work. My own fervent belief is that visible success with IT projects may lead to softening/improvement of the things you can’t change right now.

And why should you believe me?

David Wright is a veteran of over 25 years in the IT trenches. He started as a programmer in the mainframe-dominated 80’s, followed by 20 years as a Business Analyst and Architect, supplemented with stints in project management and testing when limited resources required it.

Mr. Wright has spent time both in operational areas delivering enhanced and new business systems, and in research and development focusing on information system methodologies and tools. The companies he has served in these capacities have ranged from life insurance to express delivery to equipment leasing & financing. In those companies, he has supported both the operational business’ and supporting functions like Finance, Human Resources, and even IT administration systems.

Sound good enough? If so, lets get started.

Next time: Start with some Principles...