What is wrong with IT?

I don't know how you see it but according to my experience IT in the corporate world is the ideal scapegoat. It costs too much, delivers too little and too late.  It' rather surprising that IT departments are so much in defense in world where information technology plays such an important role. Why is it so? Here is my list of possible causes:

• IT is different. That sounds boring I know, but it is true. The recent hundred fifty years were the time of immense technical development and in the last fifty years we have seen the broad domestication of technology; television sets, cars, refrigerators, mobile phones, computers are part of our daily life. All of these inventions increased our capabilities; the phone and radio gave us better ears to hear somebody talking miles away, TV our eyes, bikes and cars gave us faster legs, and airplanes let us grow wings. Information technology extended our brain, we can store more data, collect more information and compute much faster. However as using cars doesn't means that we should cut of our legs, computers doesn't mean that we should stop thinking. Just the opposite; new opportunities force us to think more deeply. And we miss it: IT guys can talk for hours about changing requirements, never ending developments, or making decision which influence the IT ecosystem without consulting IT at all. That costs  a lot not only for IT but for the whole company, still IT is being blamed
• Information tsunami: the IT world is developing so fast that internal IT departments can't keep up. It is easy to buy a new device or a useful piece of software but IT has to support it, integrate it to other systems, buy the required hardware and software, and take care for security. The complexity is increasing endlessly. It's like the piggy child in the confectionery. If it tastes all pastries the consequences will be bleak.
• Costs: Costs are everywhere under pressure and IT is no exception. But other departments seems to have better bargaining power and are more successful in proving their importance or they role in money making. And IT is not cheap.
• Invisibility: IT is obscure, outsiders don't know what they do and why the do. The only thing they see are problems.

There is a strong temptation to circumvent internal IT but at the end the price will be higher. Companies need somebody who coordinates and harmonizes it efforts.  Traditionally it's the IT department but it can be something else. But there is no way around it.

As for the IT department there is no silver bullet for solving this issue. We can wait non IT folks to turn IT capable but that is not a good strategy. We have to make IT visible. How to do it depends on the circumstances, it may be presentations, blogs, open-days... or doing a large software update which stops or slows down some services in the middle of the workday that people feel how important IT is. Second IT has to do its homework; the right processes, standards, trainings... etc. There is no way around it.

Further reading: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21591201-information-technology-everywhere-companies-it-departments-mixed