Comments on: Whose Fault? Yours. http://effectivecio.com/2009/06/19/whose-fault-yours/ ...ruminations on many things, all ultimately related to effective IT leadership... Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:44:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Chuck Musciano http://effectivecio.com/2009/06/19/whose-fault-yours/#comment-459 Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:03:45 +0000 http://effectivecio.com/?p=1084#comment-459 @Wally: You’ve nailed it. Our accountability is assigned by the users, not by us. We need to step up, own it, and move on. Everything else is just perceived as whining and complaining.

@Mike: Ditto!

]]> By: Mike Giuffrida http://effectivecio.com/2009/06/19/whose-fault-yours/#comment-456 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:56:16 +0000 http://effectivecio.com/?p=1084#comment-456 As the CEO of an IT consulting firm, I couldn’t agree more with this view point. For too many years IT has “blamed” the users. It is OUR job to “get it”, not theirs. Let’s take responsibility and get business done already. That’s how companies will survive economic times like these.

]]> By: Wally Bock http://effectivecio.com/2009/06/19/whose-fault-yours/#comment-454 Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:44:25 +0000 http://effectivecio.com/?p=1084#comment-454 I don’t think Chuck is saying, “IT is always wrong.” I do think he’s saying, “IT is always accountable.” Your customers, inside or outside the company, simply don’t care about why things don’t work. They see it as your job to make them work or come up with a reasonable workaround. You can trot out excuses or reasons, but they both sound the same to the people you’re supposed to serve.

]]> By: Wally Bock http://effectivecio.com/2009/06/19/whose-fault-yours/#comment-453 Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:13:20 +0000 http://effectivecio.com/?p=1084#comment-453 Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best independent business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/06/24/62409-midweek-look-at-the-independent-business-blogs.aspx

Wally Bock

]]> By: Chuck Musciano http://effectivecio.com/2009/06/19/whose-fault-yours/#comment-452 Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:12:26 +0000 http://effectivecio.com/?p=1084#comment-452 Bryan, taking responsibility doesn’t fix things, but it is the first step to getting things fixed. It may be the case that the problem lies outside our purview, but the perception of the user trumps reality. If they think we are at fault, we are. In the case of conflicting business drivers, there may be a problem in your IT governance model that is allowing those conflicting drivers to ultimately drive projects to fail. And as you note, pointing out those conflicts is our job, and should be a natural outcome of a good governance process.

]]> By: Bryan http://effectivecio.com/2009/06/19/whose-fault-yours/#comment-450 Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:19:59 +0000 http://effectivecio.com/?p=1084#comment-450 “After all our hard work, how could they still get it wrong?
Easy: because we obviously did not work hard enough. We build this stuff; we must ensure people can use it effectively. If they can’t, we dropped the ball somewhere. Railing about the users does not fix the problem. It only annoys the users, makes us look petty, and reduces our ability to serve them.”

I agree with the thrust of your article, but there are some points on which I hold some slightly different opinions.

I do not believe that “IT is always wrong.” I believe that “IT should always be willing to admit they’re wrong.” You are absolutely right; railing about users does not fix problems. But having worked within many different IT environments, I can also say that taking responsibility for all failures does not fix problems, either. Sometimes the problems are outside of IT’s purview such as conflicting business drivers. IT is not always in the power to resolve such conflicts and should be unafraid of pointing out such issues to the highest levels of leadership.

]]> By: Lui Sieh http://effectivecio.com/2009/06/19/whose-fault-yours/#comment-442 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:39:32 +0000 http://effectivecio.com/?p=1084#comment-442 Hi Chuck,

Nice article – it’s a necessary and good cold shower for us in the trenches. I’d like to build on this. It’s important that as part of our “day-job” we provide the right learning opportunities – because it is very important to have what I call “An Educated Consumer is our Best Customer(R)” environment.

It would be just so much easier with this in place for us to focus on the key differentiators of our service mission:
- to provide quality services and products
- to provide value for money in our company investments
- intelligent “account management”

With IT and non-IT folks having more of a common language is a win-win for all.

Cheers,

]]> By: Arun Manansingh http://effectivecio.com/2009/06/19/whose-fault-yours/#comment-434 Sat, 20 Jun 2009 12:45:03 +0000 http://effectivecio.com/?p=1084#comment-434 A nice perspective on IT. You are right the burden is on us to make things right.

]]> By: Wally Bock http://effectivecio.com/2009/06/19/whose-fault-yours/#comment-430 Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:26:21 +0000 http://effectivecio.com/?p=1084#comment-430 Great post and a dose of realism, Chuck. Every effective manager I’ve known has accepted responsibility for outcomes, tried to learn from them, and realized that sometimes it’s not your fault, it’s just your turn.

]]> By: Marc Sirkin http://effectivecio.com/2009/06/19/whose-fault-yours/#comment-429 Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:52:40 +0000 http://effectivecio.com/?p=1084#comment-429 OH, wait, I thought you just blame marketing, right?

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