It seems pretty widely accepted in CIO circles that much of the bad rap that often accrues to IT comes not so much from the IT department (although IT people certainly have their failings) as from other parts of the business ascribing mystical qualities of perception and capability to the IT department. "Just make this work," is a not infrequent demand. Many executives don't want to hear about the complications, don't want to put the time into evaluating process, and have a misguided expectation that technology is a global panacea which can solve all business problems.

It's a tale that Nick Malik visits once again in this post about a law firm which went that route and the woe which befell them.

Nick's points, which are all good, generally ascribe the blame to the fact that the firm started with the IT component, and brought in IT consultants to craft a technical solution before examining the process issues which were at the heart of their complaints. His solutions, however, are well-detailed and eminently reasonable, but seem to me to rather miss that point. On their own, any of them are good ideas, but taken together they fail to describe much of a plan for generally handling such situations. As is common in the wake of such disasters, Nick describes a lot of things which clearly could have been done specifically to avoid the problem, but which fail to account for the mindset which lead to it in the first place, which was: bring in an IT consultant and have them fix the problem.

Nick also recommends bringing in consultants, but focusing them differently, and while that's a good idea, it was the focus that was the problem initially. The partner bringing in the consultants probably thought he was doing exactly what Nick now recommends.

This is a peculiar class of problem that just isn't obvious until after you've been through it, and is difficult or perhaps impossible to adequately describe to someone ahead of time. It's a bit as if you are attempting to teach someone how to drive by giving them step by step instructions to get out of their driveway and to the corner Kwik-E-Mart. They may get to the store, but they don't really know how to drive. I don't want to seem like I am knocking Nick, because I don't think I have a better solution, really; it comes down to experience. The fact is that the CIO or some consultant is always going to be asked to read minds. The key for the business layperson hiring them is to get a trustworthy one, and the key for the CIO or consultant is to know how to explain in reasonable terms that mind-reading isn't part of the solution and that taking the time to do the sort of thing Nick describes is.