10 Laws of Information Technology

1.       Never lose data

2.       Centralize when you can, distribute when you have to

3.       Standardize when you can, customize when you have to

4.       Simple is better than complex

5.       Spend as little as possible to solve problem or achieve a goal

6.       100% utilization of IT assets always yield the lowest cost

7.       Always have a “plan B”

8.       If it CAN break, it WILL break

9.       Volume Changes Everything

10.   Do Not Be Married To Your Technology

Information Technology by its very nature tends to be very complex.  Computer science students have a very rigorous curriculum of set theory, digital circuit design, database design using 3^rd normal form, and binary logic with 2’s complement to name a few.  This stuff isn’t for the faint of heart.  But beauty is found in simplicity.  The “art” of computer science is the ability to take these complicated concepts, mask the complexities, and make them useful to the businesses and consumers.  Perhaps some examples from my career would better demonstrate this concept.

·         Writing complex queries to VSAM files at IBM were replaced by a simpler “LPAR” (logical program access routine) that masked the VSAM complexities.  This was pre-databases.

·         A farm of federated databases was replaced by a single, mac-daddy database.

·         Replacing a CICS, custom-written inventory system with a COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) enterprise resource application.

·         Some, not all, IT people (and businesses) like to make things more customized and complicated for job security.  If you can replace an entire dept that is supporting custom code with one application that can be managed by a fraction of a person, you can imagine there might be some resistance.

·         I really like “suite” programs rather than lashing together best-of-breed tools.  Gartner eventually published some research that agreed with me.  Remember back before the Microsoft Office suite was the norm?  There were religious wars over WordPerfect being the best word processor, Lotus 123 being the best spreadsheet, and Microsoft Powerpoint being the best presentation tool.  IT was charged with making all these file types work seamlessly with each other.  This was a complex strategy.  It is now MUCH simpler to buy Office 2007 from Microsoft and all these things work together with no muss or fuss.  You can still argue that there are better tools, but the simple, integrated solution meets 95% of businesses needs, saves a ton of User/IT labor, costs less, and reduces user aggravation.  This suite strategy carries over to a lot of different technologies as well. (such as ONE ERP system vs. integrating separate information systems)

·         Complex strategies drive to unique/customized/higher price solutions.  Simple strategies drive to standard/commodity/lower price solutions.  Vendors want the former, business buyers want the latter.  And what was once only offered via a customized solution, sooner or later a simple, commodity-type solution becomes available.  Watch your customized systems like a hawk and constantly look for ways to replace them.

·         Simple, commodity-like systems also require lower cost people to support them than complex/unique systems.  I’m just saying, based on my experience, Microsoft-trained IT people cost less than IBM, Oracle and Cisco-trained IT people.  The law of supply and demand applies to IT labor.  There are more people that know Microsoft technology, so there is a bigger supply thus lower price.  Again, there may be very valid business reasons for going the complex route, but do it with your eyes open.

·         Simplify your technology interfaces.  I can remember crafting site-to-site VPN circuits over the public internet to connect regional offices with headquarters.  Initially, we had software firewalls that would secure the connection and provide the necessary tunnels between offices.  With software you had to deal with the Operating System, the open ports, the add-on firewall software, etc.  There were a lot of moving parts and things started to collapse down to hardware appliances.  This eliminated the software complexity.  Then carriers started offering MPLS networks that took the hardware complexity from us to now we have a simple switch or router to connect all our offices.  There are a million ways to skin an IT cat, so look hard at all your moving parts.  The fewer parts, the simpler it is, the less likely it is to break.

·         Simplify the number of vendors that you have providing IT services.  Now let’s kick this discussion up a notch to the CIO/Business owner level.  Look at your entire enterprise and decide if it really makes sense to have all those vendors.  Do I need multiple carriers?  It adds complexity and cost.  A solid, single vendor will get you better pricing and better service.  It’s also easier to manage one telecom vendor vs. 5 telecom vendors.  Do you really need multiple server hardware providers?  Multiple data storage providers?  Have just enough complexity and vendor duplication to meet a particular business need.

·         And finally, is it possible to simplify your IT staff by changing the way services are delivered and consumed?  With the advent of “cloud computing”, things that used to require a lot of heavy lifting (like server procurement and administration) are becoming very simple with virtualization technologies.  Technology that used to run only locally at the business’s offices can now be run from another location.  IT is being automated and simplified.  What happens if you automate your IT group to such a degree that a $500,000/year IT group can support a $50,000,000 business and you are only a $25,000,000 business?  Do you keep paying $500,000/yr for your IT and increase your innovation and/or services or do you simplify your IT spend to $250,000/yr for your $25,000,000 a year business?   These are interesting times indeed for IT and every business that uses IT.