IT people are horrible, right?
Plain rude.
They’re the only people who refer to their customers as 'users' - a vague, impersonal, derogatory classification.
Let’s ask the Users what they think.
We need to write some user stories
Have you called the user back yet?
We even have super users who presumably have special powers or wear their underpants on the outside. But, hey - at least they get a positive pre-fix to pimp-up their status.
What if we were to create a vague term for IT people too, so that "the user community" could frame their end of the relationship with a vague impersonal identity too?
How about geeks?
Or dweebs?
Dweebs is good - let's go with that...
The Dweeb tried to call you back about your issue with SAP.
I’ve forgotten how to do pivot tables again, I’ll need to call a Dweeb.
That Dweeb said I need to clear my cache but I've only just been to the bank.
I know you think I'm taking the piss, but I have a serious point.
If we chunk-down from IT as a function to the Dweebs within, then surely we can chunk-up a from Users to their broader bounding function - The Business.
Of course, for authenticity it has to be capitalised to give it deserving proper noun status.
Ying or yang?
Cat or Dog?
Rice or Chips?
Heads or Tails?
True or false?
User or Dweeb?
The fact that we treat IT and the Business as two different things is the reason we have to talk about the problem of alignment between IT and the Business.
It’s why we have SLAs - so that the Business can measure what they get from IT.
This construct is also fundamental to the arcane witchcraft of ITIL. These clowns have even coined the term Business Relationship Management to make sure that the Business and IT get along.
IT is part of the Business.
IT lives inside the business.
IT is one of the functions within your business just like sales, marketing, finance. distribution or manufacturing.
Do you have an SLA between sales and marketing?
Or, between HR and Finance?
Sure - there are metrics and integrated processes and handoffs. And, yes - there is a little bit of us-and-them between certain business functions - but that's natural and healthy tension.
However, this natural friction is nowhere near the scale of the multi-functional ganging-up that goes on to create a fractured relationship between all of those other functions and the function of IT.
I'm not blaming the other functions by the way - they gang-up on IT because IT classifies them in a vague, universal way. As users.
Outsourcing makes things worse. More complex. More transactional. IT has become a multi-headed, multi-supplier vaporous function, facing off to a faceless 'Business'.
Meaning that IT has grown up by implementing management methods like tickets, change requests and service catalogues to help the cause. Outsourcing then makes these things commercial.
IT should be the milk in the tea, not the bacon sandwich sat next to the mug of tea.
IT should be mixed in, rather than separate.
Too many metaphors?
Good.
Because if there one thing that makes my blood boil more than the word 'users', it’s the notion that IT is a totally different entity to the Business.
This single attitude is the cause of most problems on failed technology transformation projects and it fundamentally undermines people adopting technology.
If you work as a Dweeb in IT, you should ban the word User from your lexicon and use an alternative instead - like business people. Or, better still, something functionally specific - like Accounts Payable Business People.
Beneath that faceless icon you use to depict them, users actually have specific needs. They have feelings. They have frustrations. They tolerate stuff.
If you're not an IT Dweeb, start thinking of IT as function within the business instead of your adversarial nemesis.
You'll honestly be much more successful with your technology projects if you do.
* The word Problem is used for ironic purposes and to wind-up so called ITIL Experts