The History of IT Wizards

The BPC Era

Business users were at the mercy of their wizards and their computer departments. The wizards had the final word. Computer technology progressed significantly in the BPC era, to the point where large mainframes could handle huge amounts of work in parallel and response time was sub-second for thousands of concurrent users. The computer geeks reached a point where they could solve very large, complex problems, given enough time. But only they understood how the magic worked. And even then, they could not predict very accurately how long it would take to perform the magic.

The APC Era

While the users were busy gaining PC skills, computer manufacturers were moving on, taking advantage of microprocessor advances, making possible a whole new computer hardware environment. Instead of the monolithic mainframe, it is now possible to kludge together limitless smaller, specialized machines that not only can talk to each other but can also share work. These environments can be built in scaleable tiers of two and three levels. But these new environments are also extremely complex to manage in terms of production reliability, performance, security, and networking. Although each piece of hardware may work fine individually, the complexity of the total environments is orders of magnitude more sophisticated than the Wizards’ monolithic mainframes. So, new magic is commanded from behind the curtain in order to provide the levels of reliability and performance that users were accustomed to receiving from their mainframe machines.

Over the past thirty years, it has become apparent that hardware advances are easier to achieve than software advances. The limiting factor in the application of computer technology is now software development. Everywhere you look, vendors are touting the newest magic to produce software better, faster, and cheaper. Today’s CIO Wizards have many curtains they can stand behind as they decide which brand of new magic to use: the magic behind the OO curtain, the Java curtain, the pattern curtain, the reusable component curtain, or the ERP curtain. Each of these curtains claims to have the best magic available, yet much of the magic remains very difficult to perform. Finding, hiring, and retaining trained magicians is not only difficult but often cost-prohibitive. The learning curves for these new forms of magic are formidable. So, what is a wizard to do? So many magical choices! Yet, horror stories circulate of magic run amok behind the curtains. Many CIO wizards have been sacrificed on the altar of technology magic.

The Allure of the Illusion

The "Wizard Trap"

Trapped in Other’s Expectations

Because of the rapidly-advancing state-of-the-art, CIOs now have to perform magic when their business colleagues no longer believe they are expecting magic. This challenge can quickly turn the perception of a CIO from a wizard into "a very bad person" and of a competent IT staff into a bunch of slackers. These perceptual changes can create a deep chasm between business expectations and IT realities.

Trapped in Your Own Expectations

This thinking process succeeded in propelling me deeper into the Wizard of Oz Trap. The Trap became a rat hole for my self-esteem. How could I possibly expect myself to regularly perform acts "never before performed by civilized men?" The harder I tried to force magic to happen, the worse things got both for me and for my staff. Because my staff understood that it was to their advantage to help me deliver magic, they became sucked into the Wizard Trap along with me. Soon, the collusion spread to the entire business. I found myself living in the Emerald City and I was the Wizard of Oz. How long could I keep this act up before it all came crashing down around me?

Sometimes, like Dorothy, I think I must have dreamed all this. Perhaps. But the Emerald City seemed real when I was living in it. As I write about it now, the foolhardiness sounds so obvious. As a consultant, however, I find myself working with CIOs who are not aware they are living inside an illusion; not only living in an illusion, but perhaps even creating one in their company. You might be asking yourself, "How can CIOs become so blind?" Well, it is like seeing air. You cannot see it when you are in it and when you are breathing it everyday. You do not even notice it. You cannot see it until it gets so polluted that you can barely breathe. And that is exactly why the Wizard Trap is so insidious. Even after you see the Trap, it is hard to imagine that anything other than the illusion is possible.

Surviving in The Emerald City

Perhaps the answer is, to some degree, "yes." After all, there are times when you can magically produce solutions that are real, and not illusions. And I certainly want to give you credit for these successes. On the other hand, if you cannot face the pain of reality, perhaps the illusion has to be maintained. To face reality voluntarily takes a great deal of courage. It is much easier to continue living the illusion, at least until you are forced to face reality. But eventually, reality exerts itself, not in the form of a small dog named Toto, but often in the form of a large, critical project gone bad. When the curtain is pulled back , your humanness is exposed in a very public way. It is embarrassing and it hurts. It inflicts heavy damage on your credibility and may even cost you your job, and your reputation. But remember, as a CIO, you do get to decide how to deal with the expectations others have of your own wizardry.

My personal lessons for managing wizardry expectations were painfully expensive. It was not always easy to find my courage. I hope that by sharing my "lessons learned" with you, your personal price may be lowered. Here are four.

Yes, you do have a choice about this. You might decide to live in an Emerald City illusion for as long as it lasts and take your lumps if and when reality catches up with you. This is a very attractive option. Maybe you will be luckier than I was. Just remember what Dorothy told the Wizard: "If you were really great and powerful, you’d keep your promises."

Or you might to decide to keep in touch with reality. The tricky part of this decision is to recognize the illusion while living it, given its power to deceive you. Here are some suggestions. Find yourself an outside consultant or coach who does not live in your illusion. Ask this person to give you information about his or her sense of what is really going on, to help you see the air you are breathing more clearly. Choose a person whom you really trust to help you see what you are contributing to the illusion, and to help you deal with how you feel about it when reality sets in. Keep in touch with independent industry analysts who will tell you what they see happening in other companies, and not just parrot trade journal propaganda, paid for by advertisers.

You may realize that something is an illusion, but decide to allow it to continue. For instance, you might realize you are maintaining an old system without the source code. You may decide to let this continue, knowing the system will be replaced soon. This is different from "living the illusion." In this case, you know it is an illusion but you choose to let it be. This is sometimes a very wise decision that both recognizes and accepts your limitations. I worked in an organization once where the "big boss" lived under the illusion that bullying and humiliating people was successful management magic. It was apparent to me that he was not interested in pulling the curtain back on his wizardry. So, I just let it go and looked for another job.

When you recognize you cannot perform the expected magic, you might decide to heed the advice of Glinda, The Good Witch of the North: "The sooner you get out of Oz, the safer you will sleep." You can come out from behind your curtain and show others you are a real human being. You can be forthcoming about what you and your organization can realistically accomplish and negotiate a new outcome. You can help others understand that no matter how hard you try or how committed you are, there are some things that are not humanly possible and that to promise them at this time, would be a deception. This forthrightness demystifies the magic. The process can be an extremely painful experience, but one which allows you to honestly look at yourself in the mirror every morning. It takes the courage of the Lion. If the curtain is going to be pulled back and expose you anyway, you might as well salvage some credibility by telling them before they discover it.

I know from personal experience how hard it is to do what I am suggesting. I clearly recall a meeting where senior business executives were espousing "burning the ships." (In their language, this meant "Let’s not fund year 2000 work to make the current systems compliant.") They believed this would force the IT staff to complete huge development assignments on numerous new systems before the Year 2000 deadline. This was a "bet the company" strategy based on the illusion that cutting off other options would guarantee that new development would be done in time for year 2000. In my experience with very large software development projects, this would have required magic the likes of which had "never before (been) performed by civilized men." And given their organization’s track record of meeting software project schedule dates, it was pure folly.

But the illusion quickly took hold of the meeting’s participants and, within a few minutes it became a rallying point. I had to decide what to do: either encourage the illusion or explain reality. I thought I had a fiscal and managerial responsibility to explain the risks posed by this strategy. The immediate reaction was to hang me from the flagpole outside the conference room window. I was accused of "not being committed enough." "Committed to what," I asked. "I’m committed to this company’s survival beyond the year 2000 and I cannot in good conscience support this strategy when there is no supportable evidence that the strategy is achievable. It’s because I do care that I tell you this; not because I don’t care."

They still did not like me for it, but two weeks later they invited some outside consultants in and asked about their experiences with projects like these. When they heard the answers, they acknowledged that "That’s what Eileen’s been telling us - but we didn’t want to believe it."

In the end, my credibility survived. But it was a tough two weeks while I was the Wicked Witch of the West.

Look for opportunities to take your colleagues behind the curtain to experience what really goes on. Sometimes you can do this by involving them in project planning, requirements definition, and testing. When this is not possible, use your imagination to create other ways to demystify the magic and introduce reality. I once re-produced the show called This is Your Life to demonstrate the condition of an old system. Business general managers acted out the significant events in the life of this 25-year old system, demonstrating for the audience of 100 insurance sales people, how the system had deteriorated over 25 years. They all came away laughing but also with a deepened understanding of the history and condition of the system. Using your sense of humor and playfulness is a great way to hold your customers’ attention and educate them about technology at the same time.

Is this a Wizard or a Very Good Man (or Woman)?