In the new Simple-Talk spirit of ‘coming out’, I have to confess I used to be a practicing IT strategist. In fact I gave up and went back to being a database developer after a number of almost identical conversations with IT Agencies.

‘OK, you’ve sent me your CV, how would you sum up what skills you possess?’

‘Ah well, I’m an IT Strategist’

(embarrassed pause)

‘Yes, great but what skills do you have?’

‘Well, IT strategist is one of them’

(nervous laugh) ‘come on, no kidding please. What sort of marketable skills, like VB, Sybase, Oracle, .net?’

‘Oh hell, I give in. You win. Yes, SQL Server, C#, etc…etc…’

Why should any IT department bother with an IT strategy when there is Microsoft, which one can follow like a sheep after a bell? As a constant reminder of the answer to this I keep a complete set of Xenix, created by Microsoft as a successor to MSDOS, on the bookshelf. I used to have a copy of Microsoft’s OS/2 too but it irritated me so much I threw it out. The message is simple: Microsoft gets it wrong sometimes. Others sometimes get it right.

The trouble is that long-term planning is so neglected that most organisations are unable to think far enough ahead even to employ a strategist to do the work. Please do not confuse a strategist with a project manager. A project manager cannot care what happens to the rest of the universe as long as his particular project comes on in time and under budget. A strategist has a broader perspective, and tries to see further.

Nowadays, it is rare co come across a well-thought-out long-term strategy plan in IT departments. A lot of the work is now either neglected entirely, or done by a hybrid race usually known as ‘Technical Architects’. It is a very cosy idea that, having chosen the general direction of one’s IT developments (now either J2EE or .NET, it seems), it is all subsequently a fairground ride with no steering wheel, often with everyone screaming.

A while back, I was asked to investigate the IT problems in a large national organisation whose identity I am not allowed to divulge as I signed a piece of paper saying I couldn’t tell. They should have made me sign one that said I couldn’t laugh either. It was irresistible. At one time, this organisation had a strong centralised IT department, nicknamed ‘The Kremlin’, that ruled with a rod of iron. The gifted intelligent people who used to run it had long moved elsewhere, leaving a runt of ‘Jobsworths’ and knaves. At one time there had been a carefully maintained IT strategy, which plotted the narrow path between the icebergs of the IT marketplace. It has subsided into an ossified orthodoxy, which could be changed only by the technique known as the ‘Lobster Lunch’. This involved the salesmen of the IT companies vying with each other to take the IT executives to the best lobster restaurant on the Maine Coast in the States. It became a code word for all sorts of other, more criminal, inducements. (I’ve always worked on the premise that, if I can eat it, or drink it, in one sitting, then it isn’t a bribe).

The inevitable then happened. The Kremlin was overturned to cheers from almost everybody except the rather plump IT executives. The various regional groups within this organisation started to create their own IT systems, in much the spirit of the French revolutionaries. Off they went to PC world with cheeks aglo to purchase whatever development system, 4GL, or database caught their eye. As each region was pretty autonomous, there was a frantic race as they all developed different expensive systems to do exactly the same thing. It must have seemed wasteful to outsiders, but there was a general euphoria that, at last, with the ‘Kremlin’ gone, at last they would get the systems they wanted. And so they did. By the time I came on the scene, there were seventeen different systems all of which performed exactly the same role, all written in different ways in different applications. None of them could even share data.

The problem was that the organisation had reorganised. It was no longer to be regionally based. The IT applications now had to synchronise and inter-communicate.

Calling in a strategist at this stage was like calling in the fire-prevention officer when the building was a smoking ruin. However the design of a new architecture was a pleasant and rewarding task. Due to the fact I had not signed a ‘no laughter’ clause, it was a happy time too. We had to reverse-engineer some of the systems to soothe ruffled feathers, and find out what they did. In the rush to get the systems launched, some managers had unfortunately employed their teenage sons to do the work in the thoroughly mistaken idea that they were computer geniuses. There were some database howlers that, had they been furry creatures, I’d have had stuffed. Even when professional organisations were commissioned to do the work, there were disasters due to the lack of any strategic thinking. The funniest one was the elaborate Sybase database system commissioned at great expense from a highly esteemed software house that I would dearly love to name and shame. It recorded the entire years trading in every detail. It was installed, and eventually worked fine. At the end of the first year, it stopped working. Everybody scratched their heads wondering what had happened until they suddenly realised it was written only to do one year. Simple, they concluded; all one needed to do was to install a new system every year. By the time I got there, five identical databases existed on the server, one for each year, and any serious reporting was a nightmare.

To cut a long story short, I had a happy and remunerative time mopping up, to the point in time that the reconstruction could be handed back to the permanent staff. I popped back a year later to see how things were going. The Kremlin was once more in place, staffed, one hopes, with earnest, conscientious types. It was all very cordial and I felt that we’d set the organisation to rights. It was in the pub after the meeting when I nearly coughed on my beer when I heard that the organisation was going back to a regional structure. I hope the ‘Kremlin’ stood firm this time