IT Doesn't Want to Work On Anything (Bad Narrative)

Communications Management Organizational Culture Stakeholder Management

Danielle Smithen Director of Operations Systems| C.R. England West Valley City, Ut, United States

In our current climate at my company (which is that of strict cost management, because of the industry we are in and what we're currently experiencing) all projects coming in need to be pre-approved by the VP over that department before any scoping or work is done. Lately, again due to cost savings, NO projects are being approved. That's fine from the VP level, but at the lower levels where the project requests are coming in, the message prevailing is of "Well, we'll just deal with it because IT doesn't want to work on anything right now". How do you overcome this narrative in a rigid, cost-conscious environment?

Posted: Feb 13, 2023 5:07 PM

Sort By:

< 1 2 >

Danielle Smithen Director of Operations Systems| C.R. England West Valley City, Ut, United States

Feb 13, 2023 5:23 PM

Replying to Kiron Bondale

...

Danielle -

I'd hope that the leaders of each functional area would be communicating the need for fiscal restraint appropriately so that such bad press wouldn't emerge.

And while larger projects might not be possible, ongoing continuous improvement might be doable, especially if it is happening within operational teams.

I'd also argue that I've rarely seen "no projects" fly as that implies stagnation which leads to obsolescence...

Kiron

Thank you. There is certainly not stagnation, as there are several tech debt and application improvement projects still going on. We have internally-developed applications that we're continuing to enhance and maintain, and just last year, I took on an ERP-level project to replace the technology in all 4300 trucks on the road, which was completed in 5.5 months. But that project request obviously came from the top down, which is not the level of projects being referred to in the question of course.

The only thing I'm trying to do is overcome the stereotype or misnomer that IT does not want to work with the business to solve problems and issues, which is not the case at all. It's just that the final decision for projects that solve these problems come from VPs in those departments, who aren't currently approving any of them.

Posted: May 25, 2023 2:12 PM

< 1 2 >

Please login or join to reply

IT Doesn't Want to Work On Anything (Bad Narrative)

Sponsors

Vendor Events

Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data

Newsletters