360°IT Blog

Many IT projects that get conceived, developed and funded never actually see the light of day. Why? Because the 'business' has changed its mind. The application that was so recently deemed critical to the company's success is worth nothing just months or weeks later. Perhaps the market conditions changed. Or maybe the business guys had an even more brilliant idea (that may well end up in the same dustbin as its predecessors).

What did this mean for IT until now? Usually, IT had already bought the servers, the storage capacity and a lot of other equipment. Sometimes the new hardware was very specific to the project. And of course the next hyped project would need another set of servers or storage or whatever.

The reason for this is that the business user invariably wants this one piece of software which will differentiate the company from the competition. Unfortunately, it only runs on specific hardware. Servers are ordered, material is delivered, the projects starts, stumbles and gets put out of its misery. So the IT department turns into a junkyard of failed or forgotten projects, a dump for unrequited servers, a boulevard of broken dreams.

Cloud computing can change all that, we're told. It means you don't have to buy servers and software yourself - you can buy the capacity you need 'as a service' from a cloud services provider.

Of course, business managers can still come up with wild ideas for new applications, and IT will still lose a lot of time setting up the project and looking around for the best solution. But at least they won't have to buy the hardware any more. Let's assume a project gets started then abandoned. It's not just the project that stops - so do the invoices from your cloud service provider.

But maybe it would be better if we didn't tell the the business users this. After all, since we can now just as easily pull the plug on a project as begin one, they might see it as an invitation to concoct yet more unnecessary, unwanted and unproductive projects to waste our time.

I'm afraid that's been the sad fate of IT all too often: business users come up with the wildest ideas, assuming technology will find a way to make their dreams reality. The road of false promise is one IT has been walking for too long. Let's not make the same mistake again.

Peter Hinssen is one of Europe's foremost technology trend experts and co-founder/MD of Across Technology

Tags:

cloud computing, saas, user expectations, managing expectations, project management, agility, abandoned projects, hype

The 360°IT Blog is part of the new 360°IT event, taking place on 22-23 September 2010, Earls Court, London. Tackling the business issues that drive the implementation of IT infrastructure, register now for free entry to 360°IT