Slashdot Mirror
Tech Vs. Business?
An anonymous reader writes "I've recently found a spot in a large company, and I'm noticing that here a lot of people on the technology side are very anti-business. Tech makes up about 40% of the total line of business staff, but the whole LOB is only a tiny percentage of the larger company in the financial industry. I personally haven't seen this before in prior jobs, but I'm told that this animosity is commonplace. So I come to Slashdot to find out if others have experienced this adversarial relationship between business and tech, and if so, what was the effect on the overall success of the business?"
As IT people, we look at the world logically; we know that if A follows B and B follows C then A must also follow C. We know that if the user wants to view the balance on an account, they bloody well better have the account number before viewing it.
But business people don't seem to have that same view. We assume they aren't interested, or that they're illogical when they say "why do I have to enter the account number to view the account balance?"
The problem I find is usually one of language. For example, in the question above I figured out the business person wasn't being ignorant of the need for an account number. They simply wanted to *scan* it, not *enter* it. To us IT people, there's absolutely no difference how the number gets into the system, but to them that difference seemed so great they had to point it out that they never wanted to *enter* it again.
Yes, there are obstinate and stupid people out there, but not everyone with those questions is either. And the moment we respond to a question like the one above with a groan or a "duh!" comment, we do become condescending and anti-business. The best way to deal with these questions is to keep the dialog from degenerating. Rephrase the question, restate your problem with their assertion, and get them to confirm it again. Something such as "well, we need the account number before we can show the account balance, so where do you want us to get the account number from?"
Keep the discussion friendly, don't get patronizing or condescending, and try not to sound like Scotty ("I canna' break the laws o' physics!") Try hard to discover the real root of their issue. It's critical to treat them like peers, and not talk down to them. Remember that they must bring some value to someone in the business, so try to respect that. And yes, sometimes it's harder than others, and sometimes it's just never, ever going to sink in. Try bringing in other people to moderate the discussion, or to bring alternate suggestions.
John
after all if a company is going to smelt aluminum they don't go around building an atomic power plant to run their smelters, they find a cheap source of electricity preferably reachable by major shipping lanes, and let the utility company worry about where the power comes from.
Minor nitpick unrelated to your argument: A lot of aluminum smelting plants and large paper mills have their own power generation facilities or have entered into some sort of co-op for generating the power they need rather than paying a power company.
There's no place like
computers are still relatively new, and eventually you won't need a whole staff of IT gurus to keep a network up and running, when a basic desktop computer can get rid of every moving part, there is less to replace and maintain, thus less IT workers needed...
Cars are relatively new, and eventually you won't need a whole staff of .... No wait that doesn't work. We have mechanics.
Plumbing is relatively new, and eventually you won't need a whole staff of .... No wait that doesn't work, we have janitors and if they can't fix it we have plumbers. Oh and plumbing is old
Electricity is relatively new, and eventually you won't need a whole staff of .... No wait that doesn't work, we have electricians.
Science is relatively new, and eventually you won't need a whole staff of .... No wait that doesn't work, we have janitors and if they can't fix it we have scientists.
Do I need to repeat with other professions? Anything that requires specialised expertise will require professionals. It has nothing to do with how new a field is. It has to do with the knowledge to operate in the field not being common knowledge. It has to do with how badly things go if they go wrong.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer