Saturday, October 21, 2006
No Excuse for IT Ignorance
I've worked at more than one place now (never a game company) where a company executive told the I.T. department that they have no clue what I.T. does. But they always added that they knew it was important to the company. IT was a mystery to them - a magical black box - and while they spoke admiringly of the technical expertise of their employees, hinting that it was somehow BEYOND their comprehension - they still seemed happy to remain aloof from all this.
There's one company that shall remain nameless that was completely taken advantage of by an IT director that they hired who told them what they wanted to hear, right up until the point where he could not disguise the misdirection of the IT department any longer. What's worse, this IT director replaced another one who was (in my opinion, at least) very competent. I don't know all of the reasons for the sudden re-assignment of the first IT director, but I'm sure a major factor was the fact that he was a straight-shooter who would tell them "no." Or, "it can't be done." The executive officer's hated that. So they replaced him with a yes-man who effectively stalled all IT development for a year.
It's not a unique story - all it takes is a bit of browsing through the stories in The Daily WTF to hear a common refrain. A company executive trusts an IT director to manage things properly, and fail to recognize incompetence. Because IT is all some magical "black box" to them.
Bragging About Ignorance
What's very scary is that I hear that the executive leadership of the aforementioned company is still meeting with the I.T. department after subjecting them to insane hours to meet their demands and explaining, "I don't know anything at all about what you do..." Maybe they are just using it as an excuse, as a way of saying, "I had no idea it would be so hard for you to design, build, test, and launch a major new product with only a six-week deadline, in spite of the fact Marketing's known about this for months... We just didn't think it would be a big deal."
Now, this isn't unique to IT. Marketing is sometimes treated the same way, though most C-level company officers either come from at least a peripherally marketing background or have had some amount of marketing training as part of their education. But it does seem to me to be almost a matter of pride for some executives to claim an ignorance of all things Information Technology. Like they don't want to get their hands dirty. Or maybe it's some kind of caste-system thing they are subconsciously trying to reinforce.
Complete Ignorance Is Laziness
We live in a day and age where we have so much information available to us that the difficulty isn't in acquiring it so much as sorting through it all to find what we really want. There are "For Dummies" and "For Idiots" books out there on about every conceivable subject. There's even a "Dungeons and Dragons For Dummies" book out there! Personally, I have started listening to audio books during my commute each day, and about half of what I listen to now are non-fiction books about such things as marketing, investing, and business development. I've been reading up on art and drawing, and trying to get in some practice sketching when I can.
This is stuff I never thought I'd WANT to know about when I was starting my career as a videogame programmer! Stuff I was somewhat proud to be ignorant of! After all, all marketing people are weasels!
But the key difference was that I wasn't in a position of responsibility over people taking on these jobs, either.
Knowledge Is More Than Just Power
Now, I truly doubt that I'm ever going to excel in any of these skills. I am too focused on programming and game design. But I do have to deal with marketing people and artists in my self-appointed job as the founder of a small (Tiny? Insignificant? Microscopic?) videogame company. I have to deal with managing projects, and running a business. I don't feel I can afford to be totally ignorant of these topics anymore. I have to do some of these jobs myself to some degree or another, and I have to be able to communicate with people and understand what it is I'm asking them to do.
And, if someone who may be very good at their job tells me "no," or "it can't be done," I'd like to know enough about what it is that they do that I may be able to come up with alternatives - ask them the RIGHT questions - so I can take advantage of their skill and talent. I have no interest in surrounding myself with people who will only tell me what I want to hear, and then fail to deliver on promises.
One other thing that I have discovered is that my appreciation of the skills in people in these formerly-magical disciplines has actually INCREASED as I have learned more about what it is that they do. And I certainly hope that I'm learning enough to help me spot the bozos.
Ignorance Is Bliss?
Why can't a company executive take this same approach with IT? Is it fear? Are they afraid that they will no longer be allowed to ask for miracles when they begin to understand the true limitations of information systems technology? Is ignorance truly such bliss?
Only for the fearful. Yeah, there are a lot of tasks that are pretty daunting once you understand them. However, I'd have much more trust for a leader who knows the challenges and decides to tackle them anyway than a leader who simply throws around marching orders out of cluelessness.
Other Applications
Now, while this has mainly been a rant against managers who voluntarily remain ignorant of IT in spite of having a responsibility over it. But there are many other applications. How many times in your life are you required to work with or rely upon someone with specialized knowledge that you don't possess? Doctors, lawyers, building contractors, auto mechanics, whatever. What are the consequences if your reliance is misplaced? Is it worth it to remain in ignorance?
While there's no way you can approach their level of training without a similar investment in time, it's usually pretty easy to do some basic research on your own to double-check their advice. I've found that professionals - at least the good ones - really don't mind you doing that. In fact, they value it - it will often validate their opinion or at least ease communication.
It's usually only the incompetent ones who value your ignorance.
Labels: Biz
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:56 AM (Permalink)
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Interesting post. Reminded me of my time as a junior officer in the Navy... I recall my department head telling me something along the lines of "You don't need to know everything your guys do - they're the experts. You *do* have to know enough to be able to tell when they're feeding you a line of bull, or when they're solving the wrogn problem."
# posted by 
: October 21, 2006 2:25 PM
: October 21, 2006 2:25 PM
I wrote about this in my recent article "Big Banks vs. Small Hedge Funds", in the context of a Wall Street environment.
If you're not an experienced developer, or even if you are, but have a difficult time providing project estimates, working for a company where the founders or managers are clueless about IT is a nightmare. You always get into a situation where they want the world from you, yet they don't really know what it is exactly that they want, and when you quote an estimated completion timeline, more often than not, the case is that they think you're greatly overexaggerating and either don't know what you're doing, or just trying to rip them off.
If you're not an experienced developer, or even if you are, but have a difficult time providing project estimates, working for a company where the founders or managers are clueless about IT is a nightmare. You always get into a situation where they want the world from you, yet they don't really know what it is exactly that they want, and when you quote an estimated completion timeline, more often than not, the case is that they think you're greatly overexaggerating and either don't know what you're doing, or just trying to rip them off.
At a former job, I remember the lead artist actually wanting to know a bit about what the programmers do, so he picked up a copy of K&R 'C' and read through it. His wife, also an artist, thought he was insane, but I thought it was pretty dang cool that he went through that effort.
Which marketing, investing, and business development audio books would you recommend?
Which marketing, investing, and business development audio books would you recommend?
Anonymous: That's EXACTLY how I feel. I'll choose to believe your department head was very wise, as it serves my ego :)
Andrey: I like to think of myself as an experienced developer, yet I still have problems estimating time. Many times the tasks look simple from the 30,000 foot view (ESPECIALLY if, as you say, your marching orders come from someone who isn't very sure of the requirements himself), but once you get "down into the weeds" of development, you discover a number of unanticipated challenges. Unless you are working with an extremely familiar problem-space.
In fact, this was almost exactly the situation I ran into at one company. Originally, the company only had a couple of developers who were specialists in their fields and very knowledgeable about that industry. Management would throw very vague project descriptions to the developers, who in turn made up the requirements and procedures themselves based on their deep industry knowledge.
Unfortunately, that became policy, and as the company grew and expanded and was forced to hire more generalist developers, it failed miserably. Generalist programmers didn't know the legalities and traditions of the company, and found themselves bewildered by the extremely loose (like, one-sentence!) project definitions.
Andrey: I like to think of myself as an experienced developer, yet I still have problems estimating time. Many times the tasks look simple from the 30,000 foot view (ESPECIALLY if, as you say, your marching orders come from someone who isn't very sure of the requirements himself), but once you get "down into the weeds" of development, you discover a number of unanticipated challenges. Unless you are working with an extremely familiar problem-space.
In fact, this was almost exactly the situation I ran into at one company. Originally, the company only had a couple of developers who were specialists in their fields and very knowledgeable about that industry. Management would throw very vague project descriptions to the developers, who in turn made up the requirements and procedures themselves based on their deep industry knowledge.
Unfortunately, that became policy, and as the company grew and expanded and was forced to hire more generalist developers, it failed miserably. Generalist programmers didn't know the legalities and traditions of the company, and found themselves bewildered by the extremely loose (like, one-sentence!) project definitions.
There's a study that I like to refer to where they demonstrate that skill to do something is directly related to the accuracy of your estimates at that skill. Those who do poorly will generally overestimate their skill by a wide margine, while the skilled will often underestimate their skill level.
To me this means that those bragging their ignorance have a couple steps to make. One to learn the basics, and two, to realize that basics are all they know.
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To me this means that those bragging their ignorance have a couple steps to make. One to learn the basics, and two, to realize that basics are all they know.
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