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Tech Vs. Business?
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Sep 16, 2008 12:29 AM
from the two-towers dept.
from the two-towers dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I've recently found a spot in a large company, and I'm noticing that here a lot of people on the technology side are very anti-business. Tech makes up about 40% of the total line of business staff, but the whole LOB is only a tiny percentage of the larger company in the financial industry. I personally haven't seen this before in prior jobs, but I'm told that this animosity is commonplace. So I come to Slashdot to find out if others have experienced this adversarial relationship between business and tech, and if so, what was the effect on the overall success of the business?"
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common place (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:common place (Score:5, Insightful)
I've often considered tech to be like plumbing. The users of both have no idea how it works, basic knowledge of how to use it, and only care when it stops working. Users expect it to work like magic all the time, and the tech/plumber always has to put up with the disgruntled user's shit. Both are looked down upon by most people in society, yet both are absolutely essential to today's way of life.
Parent
Re:common place (Score:5, Interesting)
I think part of that 'works like magic' mystique is due to how reliable the electric grid, water and sewer pipelines and telephone and data networks have been. it's more profitable for the utilities if the system never fails, or as close to never as is possible. companies probably don't understand why they need an IT department at all, they don't understand why all the utility they need can't just come from an outside company. after all if a company is going to smelt aluminum they don't go around building an atomic power plant to run their smelters, they find a cheap source of electricity preferably reachable by major shipping lanes, and let the utility company worry about where the power comes from.
computers are still relatively new, and eventually you won't need a whole staff of IT gurus to keep a network up and running, when a basic desktop computer can get rid of every moving part, there is less to replace and maintain, thus less IT workers needed... large websites and databases will get easier to manage, eventually, the only thing that won't go away is the need for real security. because hacking is getting more and more economically promising in many places in Africa and former eastern block nations. so security is where real IT growth is, computers will get more reliable and software easier to manage, but hackers are getting smarter and more skilled every single year.
Parent
Re:common place (Score:5, Funny)
We can't all work for your parents.
Parent
Re:common place (Score:5, Insightful)
tech workers are looked down upon, because people only ever come to us when things go badly
If I had a nickel for every time I've heard of an IT guy being [sacked|not replaced after leaving] because some ass in a suit reasoned thusly:
"What do we need an IT guy for? We never have any computer problems!"
Parent
The effects here (Score:5, Funny)
So I come to Slashdot to find out if others have experienced this adversarial relationship between business and tech, and if so, what was the effect on the overall success of the business?"
Yes, it is extremely prevalent here! On the other hand, it doesn't seem to have had any negative effects. Actually, standing in the way of various technologies seems to have made our business more successful!
Opinions here do not necessarily reflect those of my employer, Exxon Mobile Corporation.
I work for a large financial firm too (Score:5, Insightful)
With that being said, I know that certain departments within this massive company have a very different relationship and there is a lot of animosity between the business and the tech side. Incidentally, those are the departments which are currently being outsourced to India (not saying that I can't be next).
IMHO after years on both the tech side AND the banking side, I can say that the two cultures really aren't compatible. After all, our range is stoned hippie/crazy genius and there's is buttoned down tightwad/midwestern church going Republican. There's not a whole lot of overlap there - there will always be culture clash.
However, this is not an excuse to treat your business people badly. They are the ones writing the checks, they are the ones to whom you must explain what is possible and what is not, and they are the ones that are ultimately doing the work that is paying your salary (yeah, they couldn't work without us - but we definitely couldn't work w/o them).
If you are working in a polluted atmosphere where people talk terribly about the business, I'd suggest you change it. And if you're not in a position to change the culture, I'd find another job. Not only is it soul-crushing to work in a hostile environment, but your department's days may be numbered anyway.
One thing I have noticed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One thing I have noticed (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:One thing I have noticed (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you need to sit down and explain your perspective and try to understand what you are being compared to. You may have to agree to write up a progress report/log that shows all the activity you do and what kinds of things it prevents. If you keep people informed, they are more likely to trust you. Whether that's "fair" or not is another thing. Life isn't always fair, but communication can go a long way. Most managers hate being in the dark.
Parent
You could at least explain what you mean (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you mean they are "anti-giant-corporate-monopolistic-practices"??
Do you mean they don't want to see your company make a profit?
Do you mean they take a stand against certain business practices engaged in by this corporation?
There are many, many more. So: WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN? Your post was about as clear as mud.
Does it matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since it's the financial industry you probably won't be working there long :P
Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Funny)
Since it's the financial industry you probably won't be working there long :P
Well, someone has to be there to shut off the servers and sell them for scrap on eBay...
Parent
Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Funny)
What servers? We never had any servers *whistles nonchalantly while walking to brand new Mercedes*
Parent
What do you mean, Anti-business? (Score:5, Funny)
I'd like to know what you mean by anti-business. Many suits have no knowledge of anything technical, and so make requests and demands that violate things like 'logic' and the laws of physics. When the tech staff attempts to point this out, they are often told that they are being needlessly obstructive. Pleas that it is the universe that is preventing them fall on deaf ears.
Is this what you mean? Is an insistence on following the laws of physics "Anti-Business"?
Re:What do you mean, Anti-business? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:What do you mean, Anti-business? (Score:5, Insightful)
And will often be quite condescending about it as well; after all, they're the wizards. Users are just muggles.
Parent
Re:What do you mean, Anti-business? (Score:5, Informative)
As IT people, we look at the world logically; we know that if A follows B and B follows C then A must also follow C. We know that if the user wants to view the balance on an account, they bloody well better have the account number before viewing it.
But business people don't seem to have that same view. We assume they aren't interested, or that they're illogical when they say "why do I have to enter the account number to view the account balance?"
The problem I find is usually one of language. For example, in the question above I figured out the business person wasn't being ignorant of the need for an account number. They simply wanted to *scan* it, not *enter* it. To us IT people, there's absolutely no difference how the number gets into the system, but to them that difference seemed so great they had to point it out that they never wanted to *enter* it again.
Yes, there are obstinate and stupid people out there, but not everyone with those questions is either. And the moment we respond to a question like the one above with a groan or a "duh!" comment, we do become condescending and anti-business. The best way to deal with these questions is to keep the dialog from degenerating. Rephrase the question, restate your problem with their assertion, and get them to confirm it again. Something such as "well, we need the account number before we can show the account balance, so where do you want us to get the account number from?"
Keep the discussion friendly, don't get patronizing or condescending, and try not to sound like Scotty ("I canna' break the laws o' physics!") Try hard to discover the real root of their issue. It's critical to treat them like peers, and not talk down to them. Remember that they must bring some value to someone in the business, so try to respect that. And yes, sometimes it's harder than others, and sometimes it's just never, ever going to sink in. Try bringing in other people to moderate the discussion, or to bring alternate suggestions.
Parent
Presentation versus inside guts (Score:5, Insightful)
Business tends to be "presentation oriented". It's controlled by sales, and the sales culture permeates the entire building for good or bad such that perception is everything. Techies tend to distrust salemanship as too superficial, and like to instead focus on building a better mousetrap. The thing is, paying more attention to presentation gets one promoted and recognized more. Thus, techies are forced to choose between focusing on a better mousetrap or "playing the game" to advance.
A compromise is to find better ways to communicate technology to non-techies. Find analogies to common items, such as say laundry when talking about the difference between sorting and filtering. And don't talk down to people: respect their specialty. Show interest in their specialty when you can; or at least aspects of it that interest you. The more you learn about their job, the better you can help them.
Also, even if you can't outright fix something, find a decent compromise or alternative. Don't tell them "no", but rather "I'll have to ponder that one". Show that you are not ignoring them, but putting your Sherlock Techie cap on."
And for every "that's too hard" or "takes too long", throw in enough, "oh, that change is easy, it'll be right up". If you always delay, you'll lose trust.
Re:Presentation versus inside guts (Score:5, Insightful)
Techies tend to distrust salemanship as too superficial, and like to instead focus on building a better mousetrap
I tend to distrust sales people because they badly oversell the product. Without proper knowledge of the extent of the technical problem, they will often tell a potential client that a required feature will takes days/weeks when the developer has already told them it's more like weeks/months.
I've seen this problem for the past 8 years, and this animosity between techies and marketroids won't go away until the latter are reigned in. I think I estimate my projects better than the sales people, but the salesperson is only interested in their commission, which is usually paid prior to any support or maintenance contracts.
The net result is that salespeople get paid without any accountability for the actual project. All problems from this point forward are viewed as a deficiency in technical resources rather than a poorly planned sales pitch. I'm not fond of being the scapegoat when I've very carefully explained why the project will take longer than the sales guy thinks it will.
Parent
Prior Experience.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a consultant, so I get to see many different businesses. I have also worked for many prior to consulting.
I can say that those that do not understand business fare poorly. On the flip side, those that understand business, but not the technology that they are supposedly in have problems as well. I have seen both.
Both of those businesses are neither failing not advancing. They are just sort of hanging on. The businesses that understand both do quite well of course.
And you were expecting what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, tech and business really are two different worlds.
The techies want to learn, deploy, do "cool things", etc. Whereas the business people want to make assloads of money. The problem comes in when these two worlds collide. The business people don't understand that when they change there mind with a complex (software) project, that it really isn't as simple as altering a pie chart on a presentation and takes some (if not a lot) of time. This makes them mad and then they come down on the IT people like they're just being lazy.
The IT people know why things are the way they are, but the typical business person doesn't listen to explanations because in the business world explanations tend to be excuses and CYA. They don't understand that things are different in the IT field nor do they care. Nor do they realise that throwing money at a problem doesn't make it go away. As in, a bug doesn't care how much you're paid, it'll hide as long as it wants to.
But, most of these problems occur because of poor project management. Back in the day, project managers were there to protect the people that they were managing. They were there so the IT people didn't get screwed. But, more and more over time, the project manager has become an extension of the client.
No-one really seems to care that changing there minds constantly (sometimes back and forth) costs a profound amount of time and money. After all, why plan something out when it will waste someone (or someone else's company's) money and not yours.
Polish up your resume and look for a tech company (Score:5, Insightful)
First, if you work for a company in the financial industry, polish up your resume. Stock up on office supplies as well. You might be in for a tough ride, and be ready to jump ship.
Secondly, if you do IT, work for an IT company. Forget about adversaries, and other BS. Have you ever seen the IT manager promoted to run a financial institution or a hospital, or a become partner in a law firm?
NO.
But try out a tech company, and you will find that your bosses boss is a tech guy and that there is no ceiling for promotions.
The whole culture at a tech company will also be much more to your liking. Go have lunch at Google, Microsoft, Cisco, Yahoo or many other, and you will probably know what I mean.
Why do businesses even have IT departments (Score:5, Interesting)
Wouldn't it be simpler and better to contract that out? Here are the benefits:
Cost. There's no need to hire and maintain unnecessary staff. If there's an emergency, the contractor can bring in more people to handle it, but most of the time they won't need to dedicate even one full-time staffer to your office.
Versatility. The contractor will work with many clients and many environments. That means that they will have a diversity of experience that will allow them to deal with problems quickly. They will also have the experience to point out better solutions.
Employee satisfaction. The contractors personnel will need to be respectful and courteous to your staffers, or else you will find a different contractor. They will work to find solutions (and charge you more money) rather than making excuses about why your problem can't be solved so they can stay in their budget.
Come to think of it, maybe I should start a business doing this for people.
Quantitative techniques in business (Score:5, Insightful)
In my experience the biggest driver of tech's disdain for business is the farcical nature of some managers' attempts at quantifying certain aspects of their business.
All businesses manage to quantify a few things extremely well -- payroll, revenue, taxes, and so forth. There are many other things that can be quantified in a useful way. However, many business types engage in persistent fantasies about quantifying things like programmer productivity, ROI on buying software tools, and the effect of different business methodologies. Quantifying things is an excellent idea, but it's so overwhelmingly difficult to measure things like management productivity and (God help us all) "project velocity" that 98.6% of all attempts to do so are essentially fraudulent -- just as dishonest as if I pretended that number I just read off my rectal thermometer had any meaning more precise than "most."
Engineers are likely to feel a little twitchy just looking at the number "98.6" because they associate it with the classic overprecise and somewhat incorrect statement that normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees fahrenheit. If that number annoys us, what do you think we feel like when some business type says we should use Scrum because 87% of all enterprise-scale software projects come in 50% over budget, while only 63% of Scrum projects come in 50% over budget? Whenever engineers and business types speak in a common language (mathematics, logic, statistics, controlled studies) it turns out that the business types come off as STUPID, GULLIBLE, OVERCONFIDENT, AND FULL OF SHIT.
Which is not to say that business types are stupid. There are honest and intelligent managers who aspire to quantitative precision and may work very hard at it, but they don't go around waving numbers and graphs because they know the results are extremely difficult to interpret -- more "food for thought" than "results." The guys who make a big deal out of numbers like the ones in the last paragraph are either con artists or victims of con artists. They think that making quantitatively precise comparisons of programming methodologies is a strategic managerial decision that you implement by repeating numbers you read in [blog summaries of] management journals, just like creativity is a lifestyle choice that you implement by your choice of haircut, clothing, and a certain brand of digital accessories. It never crosses their mind that it might be something intrinsically difficult that you can work really hard at without ever producing anything worth sharing -- that's how poorly they understand it.
But it always seems like it's the guys who make up bullshit numbers who write the papers, run the consultancies, get the attention of upper management, and get put in charge of things they don't understand. Business types may have enough patience and faith in management to sit back and watch the pretenders rise meteorically and flame out, but engineers are used to calling bullshit on bullshit when numbers are involved.
Anyway, I could go on, but you get the picture. Engineers accept that not everything can be quantified, and every business decision must, of necessity, rely heavily on guesswork, folklore, and intuition in addition to hard numbers. We can't accept that the business world is full of people who pretend otherwise, without any reasonable justification, and somehow escape being laughed at by their supervisors and peers.