In an environment where every organization is under pressure to hold on to revenues and slash costs, and “accountability” is the word of the day, one wonders what the accountability impact will be, if any, on IT. Certainly the number of available opportunities within IT has been shrinking, but I am also interested in the changes that will take place in IT departments themselves around the country.
I have always been struck by the apparent disconnect between IT salaries, which have generally been a bit higher than similarly complex functions outside IT, and the overall poor performance record for so many teams. Do we get that premium because of our precision in delivery? Think about it: we try to convince our business partners that what we do is so complex, they will need to give us a 50% high/low cost estimate bracket on each and every step in our process, from envisioning, to requirements, to development, and so on. We often go on to produce million-dollar overages or large time delays for projects, but depending on our brackets, we may still consider it a success. And we do this for a living.
How many other corporate functions could operate at this level of in-precision? Do you suppose that the packaging whiz at Tropicana had a 50% sales gain/loss goal in place during the recent rebranding of that product – ending up in a 20% sales loss? I doubt that anyone involved is calling that a success.