Why are we here? 

In aggregate, the Fortune 500 spends over $300 billion on Information Technology every year. 

Most of that money is wasted.

Let?s see what we can do about that.

Wye 

I?m Michael Wye. I?ve been in the industry for 35 years, 28 of those at a Fortune 10 computer manufacturer, the remainder at smaller firms and as a consultant. I?ve done substantial serious systems development I?ve been Chief Architect of a $200M company. I?ve architected solutions for numerous clients across many industries, including six of the Fortune 20.  

Gee, what a swell guy. There?s more here if you can stand it. 

Wye Not 

I?m not a guru, academic, paradigm shifter, theorist, altruist, or evangelist. I have no silver bullets (and guess what, neither does anyone else). I don?t know everything important there is to know about Information Technology (but I did for about three weeks in the spring of 1992).

Wye Now 

Something is wrong with large scale IT. I?ve been patient for 35 years, thinking someone else was going to fix it. I?m tired of waiting.

I?ve seen CASE tools, ADA, C, LISP, C++, DB2, Oracle, TCP/IP, SNA, paradigms, methodologies, software engineering, re-engineering, bad engineering, mentors, evangelists, consultants, gurus, chief programmers, chief architects, Indian chiefs, CIOs, CTOs, BIOs, bad BO, ISO, TQM, structured programming, CORBA, Java, MS.NET, OO programming, OO DB, OO we goofed, OS/360, z/OS, Windows 3.0, OS/2, Longhorn, HTML, and XML.

And still here we are ? serious systems cost way too much to build, fail to work all too often, and are barely integrated. Large enterprises waste 80% of their hardware budgets. Systems don?t protect the integrity of the vital data they store.

Something is wrong.

Wye be Serious 

I like the word ?serious.? This site will talk about what I call serious systems. These are the large scale, complex applications, and the supporting enterprise infrastructure, that are used by the Fortune 500 and the government to bill customers and fly satellites and support marketing and provision equipment and communicate worldwide. These are systems with 500,000 lines of code that may serve 5000 CSRs or 5,000,000 Internet clients. 

If you work in an Enterprise that builds these kind of systems, I?m talking to you. So pay attention. 

You and Wye 

I expect my opinions to elicit a different response in different readers. Here?s a little test: Read a few columns. Look up your reaction in the table below. Recognize anyone?

Wye Pick on the CIO

Reviewing my first few columns, they?re kind of hard on CIOs. Why? Let me just give you an analogy: 

• When a ship runs aground, the Navy court martials the Captain. The CIO is clearly the Captain of HMS IT.

• Or is he? Maybe the CIO is really the Admiral of the IT Navy. If an IT ship (project) sinks, he should convene the court martial. And help hang the guilty project Captain. Yeah, that?s it! The CIO is off the hook!

• But wait ? what if half the ships he sends to sea sink? Ships he approved the specifications of? Ships he inspected at the ship yard? Captained by men he appointed?

• And the half that don?t sink? They get launched years late, use way too much fuel, can?t communicate with each other, and can?t perform many of their intended missions without years of refitting.

• Problem is, the byte stops here. The CIO?s got the big office. He wears the Hickey Freeman suits. If it happened on his watch, he?s responsible.

So it?s all the CIO?s fault? Nope. But I've spent considerable time working to effectuate IT change bottom up and middle out and have observed that real change, real improvement, must start top down. I?m mean to the CIOs to try to encourage them to engage every part of their job. Like what? Like making sure they?ve hired a superior Chief Architect and Chief Technologist. Like ensuring that there are vicious outside reviews of proposed new system architectures. Like making sure that their company has a real, workable Enterprise Architecture that serves as the integration substrate for all systems.

Anyway, after the first few columns we'll put these (crucial) organizational issues to bed and move on to process-oriented issues, computing topologies, when to insert technology (and how to make sure it's not inserted in you...), roadblocks to distributed development teams, perspiration vs. inspiration, top ten IT blunders, compensation compression craziness, some RFP follies, and pretty much whatever else I find interesting or pertinent.

Still think I?m not being fair to senior management? OK, a promise: in future columns I promise to severely criticize IT architects, consultants, vendors, project managers, IT support staff, Federal, state, and local governments, HR departments, and people who drive slowly in the left-hand lane. Fair enough?

War Stories 

Many of the my columns will contain war stories. These are not fictions designed to illustrate my point ? they are the opposite: true IT adventures with only the names and other identity data disguised. It is through my adventures in the computer trade that I have learned the things I wish to tell you about. While I make the stories interesting or humorous when I can, I never change the crucial points. The adventures are my library stacks, my database, my cruise on the Titanic.

So let?s finish by talking about truth and certainty, facts and opinions. The stories are true. The conclusions are opinions. I don?t do a lot of research and put in a lot of footnotes. I don?t interview industry titans and quote them. There are plenty of people doing that. They are often very right about some chosen IT domain. I am trying to be right about IT. 

I?ve worked on some of the most complex IT systems ever attempted. I?ve walked into perhaps 150 companies and worked with the most interesting problem they had, sometimes for a day, sometimes for three years.

Today I continue to work in the industry. I participate, I analyze real-world outcomes, I think. I work with smart people everyday. I learn lessons. 

And before I go, maybe I can teach a few lessons.

Thanks for visiting WITDW.