What Would You Demand From Your IT Department?

ZombieLine asks: "The IT department at my company (approximately some 500 people) is showing signs of incompetence, and has been ignoring knowledgeable user input for about a year. Additionally, they haven't been able to sell needed changes to senior management. Unacceptable server down time, maxed network storage, and no backups systems have hit the bottom line, and those on top are starting to notice. We users are staging a revolt to make IT more responsive to users by creating a group from the company divisions and IT to discuss needs and solutions. What would you put in our charter?" What services and responsibilities would you demand out of your IT department?

Comments

Why the PC was invented..

[deacon]

What you are describing is what IT was like in the mainframe world years ago. IT lost sight of the fact that they existed to serve the needs of users, and instead became convinced that IT would tell users how those users were going to do their jobs.

The PC was created exactly to get out from under the ossified IT Priesthood, and return power to the users. The wheel has now turned full circle, and todays IT regularly shows complete contempt for the users in a company who actually do work that brings in revenue. In this way they are very similar to government employees, except that at the moment most of them do not have a union.

The problem today is that there is no new "personal computer" on the horizon that will let workers just do their work without the "We Are Gods" attitude that many in IT bring to work with them every day.

I look forward to the flambe mod that I will recieve from those unable to accept any criticism of the Ivory Tower. The rest of the posts in this thread modded +5 which drip condescention at the "stoopid" users will prove me right. IT thinks that it exists to serve itself. The fact is that few companies sell IT as a final product. In most companies IT is just like the guy who services the milling center and turning center - important, but not in charge.

Re:What would you demand from your IT users?

[shmlco]

This is exactly what I was thinking when I read the post. If management is refusing to fund new hardware, software, and services, then they're saddling up the posse and chasing after the wrong bad guy.

Your mention of quarterly reports is also a good one. Too many of the clueless think that their demands are somehow reality, not realizing that dollars have to come from somewhere.

Third, the question ignores their own responsibility. One question they should be asking is: What can we do to help? Or better, what can "I" do to help?

If half the people in the company are streaming music and torrents and downloading porn over the companies net, and storing those files and three years worth of (your favorite list) newsgroup lists in their email boxes, and opening every attachment that comes down the pike, then it's no wonder the system is hosed.

Whoops!

[Hosiah]

the weenie who lost an argument to me has two mod points left to spend.

Re:From the non-tech perspective

[ocbwilg]

For those of you who don't know what HIPPA is, imagine a very protective law about patient confidentiality that can result in serious jail time if it is violated.

Really? That sounds an awful lot like a law we have called HIPAA. Funny that the names would be so close. But I don't believe that HIPAA results in jail times, just large fines and penalties.

Re:From the non-tech perspective

[fprintf]

Off topic rant:

Argh! It is not HIPPA!

It is HIPAA. I write/edit medical proposals for a living and if I see HIPPA one more time I am going to jump off a cliff. Even google gets it and suggests the correct alternative: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=HIPPA

It stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Back to the usual programming.