Photo by Smabs Sputzer
This slowly is becoming the theme of my thinking. Why don’t we just get this done, do it right, make it work, etc. This is what’s interesting to me more and more. Simple things still being hard. Often the reasons aren’t that rational and the thinking isn’t that straight. The last few presentations i’ve been giving had those questions as their main thread of thought.

And I guess these things really are the important matters. With rational thoughts, most IT projects aren’t that hard at all. Most IT problems are fixable with simple measures. But making decisions about those projects has little to do with the technology or the simplicity of it. Instead most of the decisionmaking is about very different subjects. Those include simple ones (like money) but also very complicatied ones. What does this mean for my position as a manager, what risks does this bring for the image of my organisation, what will happen if we fail, how can I keep firm control without knowing the first thing about IT, etc.

I’ve had times where these things frustrated me. Maybe I’m just mellowing a bit, or caring less. Maybe I just got used to it. The frustration has been replaced with wonder. Wonder about the intricate and diffuse and ambiguous and dark nature of the human psyche. Dealing with that is a whole different ballgame compared to dealing with stubborn standards or faulty hardware. And as far as I’m concerned, a bit more interesting as well.

Soon I’ll be speaking again at a conference in the Netherlands. And again, the why question will pop up. I’ll be reporting here about it later. In the mean time, How do you deal with these matters? What’s your experience with decisionmaking in the field of IT? Don’t hesitate to comment!