Gateway warnings alone are not enough

I read with interest your article and comment on the Gateway reviews for the NHS National Programme for IT (Unheeded warnings highlight NHS flaws, www.computing.co.uk/2244750).

This large-scale programme has fundamental, but not unique, challenges. With a culture of non-accountability, no one wants to have to shoulder the responsibility for a lack of basic communication, the misinterpretation of the scheme as merely an IT project, limited ongoing buy-in from clinical staff as the programme changed, and inadequate programme and resolution management.

Effective communication is the lifeblood of any programme. If the scope and scale of the business requirements are not adequately recognised and understood, the complexity of the execution spirals, and without the hearts and minds of all stakeholders on board, there is little or no chance of success.

The view of the effort as an IT programme is also flawed. There is no such thing as an IT project. Every project has a business impact and benefit. The business case should be compelling and work for everyone. In this case, there is a substantial gap between the stated objectives and strategies of the programme and the real context in which they are delivered.

There has never been a widely accepted view of the “do-ability” of the programme. Perhaps what has been detrimental to this programme and many others is that suppliers are keen to win the business without full definition and acceptance of scope, challenge and risk.

Continuing failure to meet deadlines necessitates a fundamental change in approach to overcome root causes – for example, requirements not understood, business case not defined/believed, or a lack of delivery competency. I wonder how helpful the repeated “warnings” you mentioned have been. Do they come with remedies taking into account the deficiencies and defining what success looks like and how the programme can get back on track?

These reviews could be more proactive. Remedies must be specific and an action plan agreed with the relevant programme team. Collaboration is key – it is unclear whether or not the findings of these reviews were accepted by the people who matter. If a remedy is necessary, the governance for that review should include the execution of those remedies. If the remedies are not achieved, warning flags should be raised immediately without waiting for the next Gateway review to recognise that the same problem still exists. What is the point of project assurance if it doesn’t fix anything?

Peter Mayer

IT key to UK recovery

Coming just days after the bullish note struck by the Digital Britain report, this news shows just how far we have to go as a nation to increase the role played by technology (UK slips down global IT league table, www.computing.co.uk/2244252).

Despite the downturn, the UK’s largest technology companies continue to post positive results, and these show no signs of abating. Yet the size of Britain’s IT sector still pales in comparison with that of other nations. The results achieved by our top tech companies highlight the need and potential to have a larger and more influential UK IT industry, which could improve our GDP.

It is the responsibility of government and industry to ensure that technology’s recent success is used as a launchpad to make UK plc great again. While other industries have suffered in the downturn, given the right encouragement, the UK’s IT sector is well positioned to play a vital role in leading the UK out of recession.

Peter Anderton

Collaborators welcome

The assertion that the chief information officer’s (CIO’s) influence in the business is increasing is undoubtedly a positive sign (CIOs and CFOs – working better together to beat the recession, www.computing.co.uk/2243762).

IT plays a vital role in every major organisation, yet for years its influence has been undervalued. This is partly due to the fact that many firms have struggled to sufficiently assess the financial value of their IT assets, as they would other assets such as brand, real estate or intellectual property. If CIOs can grasp this value, they will be able to show that IT spending is more effectively aligned with business needs, making them a useful ally for chief financial officers in a recession. IT can rapidly reduce costs and deliver huge competitive advantage, so it is fitting for the CIO to playing a greater role in business decisions.

David Stephenson

IT must plan ahead for cost-cutting strategies

Having worked in IT management since the 1980s and seen out two previous recessions, I can sympathise with the views of your article on smarter cost cutting (CIOs need to improve cost-cutting strategies, www.computing.co.uk/2243324).

But dealing with the real costs takes too long. People lose interest and want immediate results. It is easy to halt training for a while and stop people using their phones, and it’s another good excuse to avoid upgrading this year. But if the consultants are right and the downturn is worse than the one in 1992, at some point we will need to deal with some real cost cutting. Maybe it is time to start planning this now rather than waiting to be told.

Raj Kumar

Social not-working

I must take issue with Andrew Thomas, founder of Social Media in a Corporate Context, when he says that if staff are trusted with a telephone, they should be trusted with social networking software (Trusting sociable staff, letters.computing.co.uk).

Using a telephone is a highly visible activity – visible in terms of colleagues and visible in terms of phone bills. If someone were to abuse the use of a phone, the evidence would be there for all to see and hear.

My company is trying to minimise call spend as far as possible as this may be seen as a perk of the job and personal calls could eat into the bottom line. Any spend that doesn’t move the business along can end up costing people’s jobs.

Updating a Facebook entry or using Twitter is a hidden activity at the desktop. If someone is typing away, without looking at the screen would anyone else be able to distinguish between someone finishing a report to a tight deadline, or someone involved in a hectic session of: “Last weekend was amazing – what are we doing this weekend?” We can run a proxy server report, but then we step into the trust issues raised by Mr Thomas.

Social networking has its place. However, without a cohesive business strategy for its use, there are any number of caveats and there needs to be a balance between a trusting, social-networking environment in the office – with responsible use – and a free-for-all that results in the work becoming of secondary importance and the viability of the company suffering.

Besides, anyone who works in manual labour will often have no access to social – or any – networks and there is no issue of morale or trust there.

Mark Evans

Cut costs at their root

As a CIO, I have been reining back spending and cutting costs for many years. This is a standard management discipline (CIOs need to improve cost-cutting strategies, www.computing.co.uk/2243324).

The easiest way is to clamp down on travel and mobile calls, check all invoices, and negotiate with my suppliers every year. This will not be enough to make the numbers this year, so I accept the consultants’ comment on taking a more formal approach. It is just more demanding and takes longer, and I doubt most departments have the skills or headcount to do a root-and-branch assessment.

However, business IT is not a specialist science any more. Kit is cheaper and skills are more commoditised, so there is more scope to be thorough.

Stefan Pilgrim

It’s not what you know

This government is determined to wipe out small IT companies (Government procurement rule worries small IT suppliers, www.computing.co.uk/2243088).

This is just another way of making sure that all public sector contracts are awarded to their friends – such as the big IT service providers – which will export the jobs and money wherever they can, and import people from the third world with fast-tracked visas wherever they cannot.

Small companies that cannot offer directorships or consultancies to failed/ retired politicians/senior public servants are never included in government lists of preferred suppliers, even though the majority of UK IT staff are employed in such firms. Of course, they are mainly on the dole now, and about to be joined by thousands of new IT graduates.

This government has to go, and the record of government IT contracts that have failed shows the “preferred list” should go with them.

Reg, submitted on the web

Trusting sociable staff

A six-page guide to corporate social media etiquette is probably a positive thing (Social Networking – business opportunity and threat?, quocirca.computing. co.uk). Where it would fail would be if the six-page guide were issued as an edict from a company that does not trust its employees and does not care if its employees know it.

Twitter, Yammer, LinkedIn, Facebook and so on are valid communication tools used both internally and externally to share, collaborate, inform and research. As is, for instance, a telephone. Yet how many companies issue staff with manuals on how to use a telephone?

If you trust an employee enough to pick up an inbound phone call, then you should trust them with social media. And likewise if an employee feels trusted, valued and engaged with their employer, they are less likely to use social media to bring that employer into disrepute.

Andrew Thomas, founder, Social Media in a Corporate Context

Nice idea, but who will foot the endless bills?

The government’s new proposal to have greater IT access in primary schools is all very laudable, but will it be a long-term, sustainable project or an eye-catching, one-off political strategy (Educating a workforce for the future, www.computing.co.uk/2242223)?

Laptops For Teachers was, on the surface, a good idea. But when those laptops reached the end of their useful lifecycle, who was left with the bill for replacing them? Schools, of course. As they will be the next time, and the time after that. Too many people view IT projects as a one-off investment rather than something requiring constant investment on a cycle of replacement.

Tony Forder

Corporate culture is to blame for bloatware

Martin Butler decries the bloatware of the IT supplier industry (IT is getting too clever by half, www.computing.co.uk/2242085).

While he is right that the industry always feels driven to maintain a competitive edge by improving on what it has, ultimately its actions are driven by its customers’ expectations.

If customers said, “Leave the product alone and we will still purchase it,” suppliers and their shareholders would be quite happy to sit back and rake in the money. But that is unlikely to ever happen. In fact, the fault for the situation lies squarely with IT departments and the corporate cultures that have allowed this situation to develop – and it is a problem that is systemic throughout our industry.

I recall early in my career moving with some trepidation from working in medium-sized companies to my first large corporation – one that would undoubtedly be staffed by dynamic, high-powered people. I was amazed to discover that most of the SME people I had worked with would have run rings around the corporate boys. SME IT staff would make decisions, take risks and enthusiastically help to drive the business forward as their first priority.

However, many corporate people had been conditioned to keep their heads down and just deliver what was asked of them without challenging the business rationale or discarding projects or suppliers that were becoming bloated. Sadly, many of the corporate IT departments that continue to operate a heads-down culture will be perceived simply as replacements for the admin clerk of pre-computing days: non-core and eminently outsourceable.

Bruce Medhurst