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Same mess - different scum.
I agree. I did some consultancy work for a large brand name in sportswear and was horrified by their IT systems. It had been held in thrall by one man who started his IT career in the 70s and was still going strong in the late 90s. New hires were quickly assessed and any that weren't subservient were quickly disposed of.

The result was an IT system that was running on the latest kit and was 30 years out of date in its approach. A customer calling up had to know their customer code and order code or else you could not find anything in the system. If a premier league football club phoned up you could not just type their name in and get a list of all open orders. You needed the 15 character order number. It often took 15 minutes just to check an order's progress and even then it was frequently wrong unless you knew all the product codes and variation codes. His opinion was "if they run their business correctly they will know all these things before they phone up". If they had a dozen items to check they could be on the phone for a couple of hours.

The customers hated it. The head of IT hated me for telling him how much the customers hated it.

I pointed out in no uncertain terms what they were doing wrong, but because I was contracted by his boss, he could not get rid of me, but he undermined and undid everything I attempted.

Shortly after, they were bought out, the top management fired and the IT systems junked. I was not surprised, but it was the first time I had seen a business letting itself be run into the ground by its IT dept.
Posted by: bportlock   Posted on: 09/15/08  (Edited: 09/15/2008 @ 02:25) You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use
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Same mess - different scum.  bportlock | 09/15/08
Sounds familiar  Roger Ramjet | 09/15/08
Better selection  Erik Engbrecht | 09/15/08
one way that OS/2 died  lost in Texas | 09/15/08
The Law of Unintended (or not) Consequences  Roger Ramjet | 09/15/08
What's an architect?  Erik Engbrecht | 09/15/08
A better job title for a sycophant?  murph_z ZDNet Moderator | 09/15/08
Yes and no  Erik Engbrecht | 09/15/08
Almost, I think  Anton Philidor | 09/15/08
If only it were so  murph_z ZDNet Moderator | 09/15/08
Zero sounds close...  Erik Engbrecht | 09/16/08
Organization needs to be able review itself.  DevGuy_z | 09/15/08
Reflection  Erik Engbrecht | 09/15/08
No funding?  Roger Ramjet | 09/15/08
Not quite that bad...  Erik Engbrecht | 09/15/08
Have I mentioned prototyping?  murph_z ZDNet Moderator | 09/15/08
It's not PROTOTYPING!  Erik Engbrecht | 09/15/08
Not just funding  Anton Philidor | 09/15/08
Because I try to look at different parts of a topic each week  murph_z ZDNet Moderator | 09/15/08
The Claudius principle, Yes  Anton Philidor | 09/15/08
An extension of the Peter Principle?  Roger Ramjet | 09/15/08
Promote to the level of incompetence.  Anton Philidor | 09/15/08
Other scoundrels  tonymcs@... | 09/15/08
And then there's...  zkiwi | 09/15/08
Fringe OS'  John L. Ries | 09/17/08

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