When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers
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This conversation happened today and it brings up a great point - where do you draw the line. If a CEO or owner starts a company and hires a CIO, we don't consider them to have "done IT" any more than hiring a lawyer makes you the legal department, or hiring a doctor makes you the head of surgery. It's standard for someone at the top of a company to hire someone(s) beneath them to run nearly every department, IT being no exception.
And it's common to have other people high up who hire other people beneath them. Maybe the CFO is tasked with handling IT hiring, so the CFO hires and manages the CIO. The CFO in turn reporting to the CEO. That's fine. Neither the CEO nor the CFO are "doing IT" in any sense, the CIO is where the department ends and general management begins. (Of course, it goes without saying that if the CFO starts making IT decisions, then he's taken over the CIO role, regardless of title.) The CIO being, as always, the final word in IT, regardless of title.
So we accept, I think without further discussion, that one can "buy" or "hire" someone to do IT (or any other function) beneath you in the organization. And, I think, we all accept that one can outsource work similarly to employing someone.
So now the question becomes... how much IT work does someone do in position X before they are classified as a buyer or hirer of IT rather than IT themselves? The problem is, of course, most titles are fake. Broadly. And of course, no one thinks a CEO isn't legitimate for hiring other people to work for them. That would be absurd. There is nothing slightly wrong with controlling a budget or overseeing contracts for a department that you yourself cannot and/or do not do.
Working in IT, my experience is that by and large, the majority of organizations have little to no real internal IT. They almost always have someone that is excited to get the title. IT sounds impressive. It sounds good. The person with the title might sit near servers, they might have big monitors, they probably oversee the IT budget, they might randomly say technical terms (especially those overheard at or seen on airport marketing.) They likely talk about vendors, but not concepts.
Anyone can sit down at Windows or more popular products with a GUI and "do something". This is just general computer literacy, in most cases. But actually taking time to understand the IT needs or the organization, learning what is out there, learning the concepts, paradigms, approaches... the average "IT Manager" isn't doing that stuff. They get a need, and instead of implementing it, deciding about it, thinking about it, learning about it, overseeing someone doing it, doing it themselves - they call a vendor and see if they can be sold something. Something that likely includes services to do all or most of the work for them.
In a situation like this, I see it like buying a car. Nothing wrong with buying a car, we all buy cars. But we don't claim to be automotive engineers when we walk into a show room and let the salesman direct us to the right one for us. We don't claim to have designed the solution, nor does the salesman. But if this was IT, you'd walk into a showroom, ask a salesman what you should buy, he sells you the biggest thing that he is confident that he can talk you into, and the buyer would claim to be an "IT Manager" or "Director of IT" and the salesman would be presented as a "solution engineer" and all the people doing any actual IT are just nameless bodies somewhere behind the scenes. To me, this isn't "doing IT" or "working in IT" any more than sending your secretary out to buy you lunch makes them a chef.
But most IT buyers of this nature do do something in IT. Maybe they pluyg in a monitor from time to time, maybe they randomly says IT words and cause direction to change. But when do we, as IT practitioners, draw the line and say that someone is actually "part of the engineering of business infrastructure" vs "someone in control of a budget that's supposed to be used for IT"?
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A common problem that arises, of course...
IT Buyers are often offended if people think of them as buyers. And IT practitioners are offended if IT Buyers claim that buying products equates to practicing IT.
So both sides tend to stay quiet because each is, under the hood, offended by the other.
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It's actually the same with all kind of technical engineering work.
It's usually the guy behind the guy, behind the guy, that was the mastermind of whatever was delivered. But everyone else takes credit for it.
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@Pete-S said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
It's actually the same with all kind of technical engineering work.
It's usually the guy behind the guy, behind the guy, that was the mastermind of whatever was delivered. But everyone else takes credit for it.
Even those "doing it" are in reality not much more than glorified LEGO builders.
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@Pete-S said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@Pete-S said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
It's actually the same with all kind of technical engineering work.
It's usually the guy behind the guy, behind the guy, that was the mastermind of whatever was delivered. But everyone else takes credit for it.
Even those "doing it" are in reality not much more than glorified LEGO builders.
Well, that's really part of the question, are they doing it? At some point, yes, but at some point, no. Is picking the paint colour "designing a car", kind of. But no one would say so.
Just installing an app isn't IT. IT has a business context. On the low end, without a certain business consideration, tech work becomes bench, not IT. On the high end of the stack, lacking the tech acumen the job becomes buying, rather than IT.
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@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
they call a vendor and see if they can be sold something
Hey thats us! The wireless/voip person does this constantly, the Audio/Video person does it constantly, the sys admin does it a little bit, the vp does it constantly.
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@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
So both sides tend to stay quiet because each is, under the hood, offended by the other.
I can attest to this, I cant stand a few people I work with. They buy solutions to whatever problem they have. Yet I have never had a raise here after 5 years. I told our lead Dba I was learning more about Postgresql the other day and she asked, what is that?
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@jmoore said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
they call a vendor and see if they can be sold something
Hey thats us! The wireless/voip person does this constantly, the Audio/Video person does it constantly, the sys admin does it a little bit, the vp does it constantly.
Culture of buying. A "buying manager" running a "team of buyers", each specialized in "buying" a different part of the ecosystem.
In the end you have so many problems from this. For one, there is no one looking at the business as a whole. Second, there is no one overseeing any aspect of IT to protect them from the sellers. Three, there is no technical expertise at any time, anywhere.
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@jmoore said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
So both sides tend to stay quiet because each is, under the hood, offended by the other.
I can attest to this, I cant stand a few people I work with. They buy solutions to whatever problem they have. Yet I have never had a raise here after 5 years. I told our lead Dba I was learning more about Postgresql the other day and she asked, what is that?
Damn
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@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@jmoore said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
they call a vendor and see if they can be sold something
Hey thats us! The wireless/voip person does this constantly, the Audio/Video person does it constantly, the sys admin does it a little bit, the vp does it constantly.
Culture of buying. A "buying manager" running a "team of buyers", each specialized in "buying" a different part of the ecosystem.
In the end you have so many problems from this. For one, there is no one looking at the business as a whole. Second, there is no one overseeing any aspect of IT to protect them from the sellers. Three, there is no technical expertise at any time, anywhere.
Yes sadly for us I have to agree with this totally. That is essentially our situation.
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@jmoore said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@jmoore said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
they call a vendor and see if they can be sold something
Hey thats us! The wireless/voip person does this constantly, the Audio/Video person does it constantly, the sys admin does it a little bit, the vp does it constantly.
Culture of buying. A "buying manager" running a "team of buyers", each specialized in "buying" a different part of the ecosystem.
In the end you have so many problems from this. For one, there is no one looking at the business as a whole. Second, there is no one overseeing any aspect of IT to protect them from the sellers. Three, there is no technical expertise at any time, anywhere.
Yes sadly for us I have to agree with this totally. That is essentially our situation.
Even worse, it's not uncommon.
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The reality is that even an automotive engineer would still go through the same buying process because:
- It’s how the channel works.
- Someone who designs automotive chassis isn’t going to track who has the most cup holders of the smoothest ride.
A SE still has value even with a hardened IT engineer as an SE ca. Provide insight into a niche said practitioner doesn’t spend 40 hours a week on.
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Forked off the majority of responses because someone got super confused and didn't read even the title, let alone the body, of the OP and started a long discussion about open source and closed source software. Please do not derail this conversation, which is about IT (like the profession and professionals who do it) with products that people (IT or otherwise) may or may not buy.
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Another wording to the original post to hopefully make it more clear. This isn't about the resulting decision that is made or products of any sort but rather "doing the evaluation" or "buying the evaluation." IT's primary value is in evaluating options, often an insanely broad range of them in loads of highly disparate arenas, and taking into account all the tech stuff, and applying all of the applicable business stuff, and making a decision as to all kinds of things that might involve.. buying software, hiring programmers for bespoke software, buying hardware, how a network is designed, who is hired, where they work, and on and on.
In some cases, these decisions are made by IT people inside the org. In some cases, the people inside the org don't have the time, resources, ability, or maybe desire to do this, so the decisions of IT (which is to say, IT itself) is "bought". Sometimes it is bought by hiring an open IT consultant who clearly is hired to "do IT". In most, it's "bought" buy buying something else and having some unaligned IT decisions thrown in "for free" behind the scenes. But bought, regardless.
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@scottalanmiller I thought it was perfectly clear what the topic was about. I think people just like to argue or something.
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Interesting topic.
But it seems to me that we need to clarify definition of the term "IT manager" to agree on answer to SAM's questions.
I don't understand why "buyer" is not IT, and "doer" is IT (if SAM is trying to say that)
To me, it seems logical that (in SMB) IT manager is buyer, not "engineer"@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
the buyer would claim to be an "IT Manager" or "Director of IT" and the salesman would be presented as a "solution engineer" and all the people doing any actual IT are just nameless bodies somewhere behind the scenes. To me, this isn't "doing IT" or "working in IT" any more than sending your secretary out to buy you lunch makes them a chef.
I'll try to compare this to other departments:
- I have "Director of sales". She manages 80 people, almost 70 of them are selaspersons. I do not want her to "do sales", I want her to "buy" best salespersons she can and manage them (of course, she needs to understand sales, and our whole business). Does this means she is "not Sales", she just "claims to be Sales"?
- I have "Maintenance manager". He organize maintenance of our vehicles, production plant..., but I want him to buy services or hire employees. I don't want him to do actual maintenance (repair vehicles...). Does it makes him "buyer who only claims to be Manitenance manager"?
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@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
IT's primary value is in evaluating options, often an insanely broad range of them in loads of highly disparate arenas, and taking into account all the tech stuff, and applying all of the applicable business stuff, and making a decision as to all kinds of things that might involve.. buying software, hiring programmers for bespoke software, buying hardware, how a network is designed, who is hired, where they work, and on and on.
It seems to me that IT is just different (than examples in my prevoius post) because it is hard to find person who understand business needs and have deep knowledge of various IT solutions available in various IT fields as SAM described in this quote.
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@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
So now the question becomes... how much IT work does someone do in position X before they are classified as a buyer or hirer of IT rather than IT themselves?
I see "managing" and "actual work" as two different things.
(But all managers also do both things - the higher you are in business hierarchy, more time you need to have for managing, less remains for "actual work")
To me "Managing Sales" and "doing Sales" are both part of Sales.
Also "Managing IT" and "doing IT" are both parts of IT.
And to me, it can be fine that manager is "buyer", but that does not mean he cannot be excellent at his job.
Of course, if IT manager doesn't understand IT, makes bad decisions.. than he is bad manager (not competent etc.) -
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
salesman would be presented as a "solution engineer"
This is usual marketing stuff, ridiculous to me, but some buyers buy this, so marketing use this.
But it is not important for our subject. -
@Mario-Jakovina said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
salesman would be presented as a "solution engineer"
This is usual marketing stuff, ridiculous to me, but some buyers buy this, so marketing use this.
But it is not important for our subject.That's true. Sadly, sellers will sell anything buyers want to buy.
