|
Home Our Company Public Workshop Schedule In-house Delivery and Consulting Workshop Descriptions Site Map Articles |
Business and Information Technology Professionals:
An Evolutionary Perspective
Between the amateur and the professional
..there is a difference not only in kind but in degree.
Bernard De Voto
The evolution of commercial computing since the early 1960's has been analysed from many perspectives. Common perspectives have included the technological view such as 1st, 2nd, 3 rd or 4th generation languages or mainframe versus mini versus workstation; a development perspective such as unstructured, structured, object-oriented or a broad organisational and technological view such as Richard Nolan's Stage Hypothesis [1979] and Watts Humphrey's model [1990] which presented staged evolutionary models of technical, data management and organisation development process maturity.
This paper presents a new view of computing evolution that focuses on the relationship between computing people and their clients. It also puts this relationship into a broader context of professional versus amateur behaviours and practice. Most importantly, this paper analyses the use of expert power and the how the abuse of this expert power has placed many computing groups in a difficult position.
The four stages of power
There are four broad stages in the evolution of computer and business professional relations that are discernible in most computing organisations. Commercial computing organisations such as contracting and outsourcing companies and system integrators have generally not exhibited these stages. However, because they are involved in working with other organisations, they have to accept these stages and are often victims of the behaviours that typify each stage within their client organisations.
Each stage has its own written and unwritten codes of practice and behaviour - in essence, its own culture. The prevailing culture is evidenced in every inter-action between a business and computing professional. It influences the processes of project management, systems analysis and system support.
These cultures and their associated power relationships have been evolving for the past 40 years and, like all cultures, are not readily observable to outsiders. In many organisations, the more senior IT managers had their attitudes "embedded" when they were new computing people and, in many of our clients, the cultural attitudes of senior management to their clients are in complete conflict with the attitudes of their new recruits.
The key cultural difference between the stages is the direction and nature of the control and power relations as shown in Figure 1. Simply, the power relationship revolves around who controls the information technology and system development activities.|
There are four stages of professional behaviour that are currently evidenced in computing organisations. These are: Each Stage seems to be a prerequisite for the next though this is not inevitable as there are a few organisations that have by-passed Stage 2 and some that have the potential to by-pass Stage 3. It is typical of the early stages (Stage 1 and 2) that the impact of the prevailing culture on the users of computing systems has rarely been examined, understood and effectively managed by either business management or, more importantly, by computer people. For example, pioneering work by socio-technical experts such as Louis Davis [1971], Fred Emery and Eric Trist [1965] and others on the impact of computing technology on work and control patterns of business areas was effectively ignored by most computing areas. |
Fig. 1 - Four stages of power relationships |
Simply, computerisation was driven by values such as efficiency, cost reduction and elimination of "low value" work rather than from values such as the empowerment of people through the use of technology. In some cases, computerisation was also driven by the desire of computing people to be at the "state-of-the-art".
It is also important to note that the decision to move from one stage to another has often not been consciously made. In many cases, is inevitable. Changes in either technology such as the growth of "para-professional" computer developers through the use of personal computers or organisation environment changes such as cost containment because of strategic or competitive pressures generally have forced computing or business people to reactively confront the existing culture and move to the next stage without fully understanding the implications of the new stage.
The differences between each stage will be explored from the perspective of four critical components. The components of the stages are : (1) the attitude of computing people to clients; (2) client participation in the system development process; (3) the practices of quality assurance; and (4) the project management process. These are outlined in Figure 2.
Fig. 2 - the elements of the stages
Stage 1 - Dark Age
For most organisations, the Dark Age stage was associated with the first introduction of computing into the organisation. In general, this stage lasted through the 1960's into the late 1970's. The prevailing ethic was that of expert diagnosis and expert power. As detailed by Nolan, Humphreys and others, there was little standardisation of the system development and project management process and, each senior programmer or project manager had his or her way of "doing things".
A typical scenario in this stage was that a perceived business problem was quickly outlined by the client with the computer person asking specific questions about the nature of the problem, the business person would be told how long the system development process would take and then, unless they were required to provide more information, the business client would not be disturbed until system testing and implementation.
The key to this was that the business user was completely dependent upon the computer professional. Should the project take longer than estimated, there was little that the business client could do with the exception of complaining (which in many cases, further reduced their likelihood of satisfaction as they had upset the computer professional).
In summary, this stage was marked by a professionally-based directive attitude to the clients (i.e. trust us we know what's best for you in computing solutions), no or little client involvement in the system development process and the issues of quality and project management left entirely to the computing group. In essence, computing people were left alone to practice their dark art. This situation was strengthened by the newness of the technology, the need to prove that it was effective and the lack of education and consultancy for the business people.
As has been documented by Yourdon, Constantine and others, this stage inevitably lead to a serious organisational conflict, a maintenance nightmare and with the arrival of data base technology coupled with the structured revolution (data flow diagrams, data modelling, structured design and programming ) in the mid-1970's, organisations began to move to the second stage.
Stage 2 - Tokenism
The second stage which emerged in the mid-to-late 1970's is marked by the redevelopment of many of the systems developed in the first stage to take advantage of the benefits offered by data base and the emerging communications and network technology. In addition, this stage marked the first attempts to automate new types of information systems such as management information and decision support.
However, the key element of the second stage was the development of more disciplined approaches to system development, project management and quality assurance. These techniques were pioneered by Ed Yourdon [1990], Chris Gane and Trish Sarson [1979], Larry Constantine [1989] and many others and involved a radical rethink of the approaches to analysis , design, programming and testing. Implicit in these techniques was the need for more active client involvement in the specification and testing of computer systems. However, it is revealing that none of the classic texts in these techniques really addressed the social and political issues associated with client involvement in system development.
In addition, the disciplined approaches to project management introduced by people such as Phillip Metzger [1973] were based on engineering models which also excluded any meaningful client participation in estimation, scheduling selection of strategy and so on. Similarly, the most commonly adopted quality management approach of walkthroughs as developed by Gerry Weinberg and Daniel Freedman [1977] was primarily used as a computer related quality assurance technique for program and test evaluation.
As a result, while the intrinsic quality of the system development and management process was considerably higher in Stage 2, client involvement was restricted to initial systems analysis, system testing and documentation. In many organisations, a "token" business analyst or client representative was recruited to the computer project team or, in some cases, specific Business Analysis or Special Project groups were formed using business people that were designed to represent the business areas. Typically, members of these groups were corrupted by computing people and these groups eventually entered a "Twilight Zone" existence neither representing business or computing groups interests.
The Tokenism stage was typified by computing groups still firmly in control of the project management issues such as cost, effort, quality and priorities. Though there was some participation by business clients in the development process but this involvement was on the terms of computing people. Some organisations are still in Stage 2 but are moving rapidly to or are in Stage3.
Stage 3 - Pay Back
This stage reflects both the years of frustration of business people with their lack of control of the computing effort and a series of major technological and environmental factors influencing organisations throughout the 1980's.
Simply, in Stage 3 the pendulum has swung dramatically from computing control to business control. The major factors behind Stage 3 are business factors that have been well-documented by people such as Tom Peters [1988], Peter Drucker [1989], Charles Handy [1989] and many others. Competitive, financial and social pressures forced all organisations -private and public- to evaluate their methods of working, managing and planning with a result that senior management begun for the first time to critically examine their organisation's investment in computing. In particular, senior management became focussed on issues such as how computing technology and systems were aligned to business fundamentals such as strategic planning, return-on-investment, client service and added value. As a result of Stages 1 and 2, internal computing professionals were found wanting.While continuing evolution in system development techniques and development technology such as CASE and application generators have further raised the effectiveness and quality of computer systems effort, the main emphasis in Stage 3 is in the areas of project management and quality. It is in these areas that the clients have regained control.
Features of Stage 3 are terms such as " a business within a business", computing as an internal service bureau, becoming professional and, in extreme cases, computing as an independent business subsidiary. In practical terms, this means that clients are charged fully for their use of computing people and equipment. It means that return-on-investment and the associated techniques of risk assessment and risk management are taken seriously and that projects that cannot be objectively measured and justified from a business (not computing technology) perspective are not supported. In extreme cases, it means that internal computing groups are forced to submit project estimates or quotations that are in competition with quotations from outside organisations (in many cases, they are threatened with outsourcing). Stage 3 also involves penalties for non-delivery and for poor estimation. In other words, business clients are demanding from internal computing people the same level of service that they would expect from commercial consulting and system integration organisations.
While Stage 3 may give the business professionals a legitimate power and a perhaps less legitimate feeling of "getting even" over their computing professionals it does little to address the fundamental issues of meaningful participation and organisational impact that underpinned Stages 1 and 2 and lead to Stage 3 with its shift of power to the business groups.
In many ways, Stage 3 has made matters worse as it has lead to an antagonistic attitude between computing and business professionals and although they are now "in control", business people can do little to really ensure that they obtain quality systems as they have simply removed themselves further from the development process by adopting a contract-at-arms-length attitude. In essence, they have become victims of their own control and this has continued the lack of understanding between the two groups.
Most organisations are at Stage 3 and it is becoming apparent from working with these organisations that Stage 4 will quickly emerge to address the short-comings of Stage 3.
Stage 4 - Partnership
Since this stage has not been reached completely by any organisation, the features of Stage 4 are speculative although some of those features are already evidenced in organisations at both Stage 2 and 3.
Stage 4 will be marked by a recognition from both computing and business people of the need for a collaborative partnership based on professional behaviour. This partnership will include all the return-on-investment, cost recovery and other project management and quality concerns of Stage 3 but will also include open negotiation of these issues and full client participation in planning, managing and developing the computer system.
Rather than the "closed bidding" of project costs, effort and delivery schedules that are typical of Stage 3 (and to some extent Stages 1 and 2 as well), projects will be planned in joint planning sessions that include the formation of essential "contracts" for project delivery and quality requirements. These contracts will not be the one-way contracts associated with Stage 3 but rather, joint contracts which also require commitment from business clients.
Another key feature of Stage 4 will be inter-disciplinary project teams that remain together throughout the entire system development and support phases. While in Stage 2 and Stage 3, some organisations formed such teams, once the system analysis phase was complete, these teams split into separate teams : the computer team continued with design and programming, while the user team concentrated on documentation, training and implementation issues. Stage 4 teams will remain together with business clients actively involved in system design issues and in quality assurance of system and testing designs.
Inherent in Stage 4 will be the expansion of both business and computing professionals awareness of each other's concerns. Computer professionals will need to be more aware of the strategic business issues associated with the use of information systems and will need to be fully trained in cost-benefit and risk management processes. Business professionals will need to be educated in computer project and quality management processes as well as in systems analysis, cost-benefit analysis and the associated system development techniques.
This is not to suggest that business professionals will become computer professionals and vice versa but rather that education is necessary to ensure a deeper appreciation of each group's concerns and to facilitate more meaningful participation. What is essential is that each group acts professionally and respects the other group's professionalism.