Is IT dead in this country

[suityou01]

Just had an interesting chat with another CUKer who thinks it is.

"Businesses don't want an IT / IS function, and everything is priced for the cheapest and nastiest"

What do the panel think?

[Cliphead]

Just had an interesting chat with another CUKer who thinks it is.

"Businesses don't want an IT / IS function, and everything is priced for the cheapest and nastiest"

What do the panel think?

That's why most of the work I do is for the septics. Marginally better if you can find the right companies and put up with long term fluctuations in the exchange rate.

[suityou01]

That's why most of the work I do is for the septics. Marginally better if you can find the right companies and put up with long term fluctuations in the exchange rate.

Hate working for American firms.

[gingerjedi]

That would apply to every service/function/product these days, just lower your expectations and you'll be fine. They can't repossess everyones house can they?

[Cliphead]

Hate working for American firms.

Some of the corporates were good a long time ago, mostly tulipe now. I stick with small niche companies these days.

[MPwannadecentincome]

"Businesses don't want an IT / IS function, and everything is priced for the cheapest and nastiest"

Some do and some don't.

Those that recognise the value of IT and how it can keep them one step ahead of the game or the competition or however they wish to measure their 'effectiveness' will invest in an IT / IS function and such companies will have an effective and valued CIO to head this up.

IMHO - British Airways is a good example, well it would be if it didn't have so many problems (outside the IT dept).

BTW - anyone read this QSM Associates: Thinking About Sending Your Project Offshore? Think Again?

[Gonzo]

Just had an interesting chat with another CUKer who thinks it is.

"Businesses don't want an IT / IS function, and everything is priced for the cheapest and nastiest"

What do the panel think?

The same attitude applies to much more than IT.

Buy cheap and throw it away regularly.

For example, how long to people keep TVs for these days compared to thirty years ago?

There is a good side to this though - it makes it possible to keep up with technology changes. If you weren't planning on buying a new TV for another decade you would miss out on advances such as digital and HD for many years.

Stop living in the past grandad and keep up with the future.

Some technical people seem to forget - the IT is there to support the people doing real work, not the other way around.

[suityou01]

Some do and some don't.

Those that recognise the value of IT and how it can keep them one step ahead of the game or the competition or however they wish to measure their 'effectiveness' will invest in an IT / IS function and such companies will have an effective and valued CIO to head this up.

IMHO - British Airways is a good example, well it would be if it didn't have so many problems (outside the IT dept).

BTW - anyone read this QSM Associates: Thinking About Sending Your Project Offshore? Think Again?

That facebook article made very interesting reading. Currently I am producing requirements defs for an off shore development team. The PM keeps talking about taking a more agile approach. Clearly this is nonsense with off shore work, and rather than dismiss this out of hand what I do is prepare the requirements def and also a slideshow of screen mockups as a kind of story board. I take the storyboard and conduct an ice break meeting with the dev team. At the end of the ice break meeting I hand over the spec, to the dev team and testers. Once they have digested this I then have a follow up meeting to walk through the spec. This is not agile, but satisfies the PM so I'm happy.

This works to a certain level of complexity, but not past this. The most recent piece of work was too complex to be explained this way and I recently had to fly to Kiev to hold a two day workshop with the developers.

Thoughtworks wrote an article about off shoring and agile development and concluded that each dev team should only specialise in one area of the system, and the test resource should not be in the same place. Also that regular face to face meetings with the business are essential and the more frequent the better.

Or as I like to put it, off shore development cannot be agile.

My first gig as a contractor was rewriting an N Tier .Net app that had been off shored. Had to rewrite the DAL, BL and parts of the presentation tier.

[norrahe]

In my previous gig I had the utmost pleasure of having to deal with offshore resourses and spent a lot of the time re checking most of the work that they were doing.

I think the worst project I had to manage was to offshore all the system testing (Mr Norr is a test type person and currently benched) and prep for any offshoring of the development work, thereby making a hell of a lot of people nervous at said clientco.


How long before companies realise the money they are wasting on inefficient resources?

[suityou01]

In my previous gig I had the utmost pleasure of having to deal with offshore resourses and spent a lot of the time re checking most of the work that they were doing.

I think the worst project I had to manage was to offshore all the system testing (Mr Norr is a test type person and currently benched) and prep for any offshoring of the development work, thereby making a hell of a lot of people nervous at said clientco.


How long before companies realise the money they are wasting on inefficient resources?

You've seen this before shirley? It's a kind of keeping up with the Jones type of thing. Big cheese goes to wine bar with other big cheeses and they all hear about how much money they have saved the company by off shoring all the IT. And with a degree in Business and horticulture they think they are the bees knees. Then the IT goes to rat tulip. They get tulip canned and the IT gets brought back in house.

In other words, its cyclical. Once the current fad and tulip managers gets canned then there will be plenty of clean up work to do, and then we can let the good times roll.